Dem
47
GOP
53
Was there more Charlie Kirk-related news yesterday? Yeah. But it is all pretty disheartening. Plus, it's nothing particularly time-sensitive; it will still be there tomorrow. So, we're going to take a Kirk-free day today. Not that the other news is much better.
Anyhow, for a while, Donald Trump was saying that the next city to be invaded was Chicago. That hasn't happened (yet). In fact, he seems to have changed his target. He now says that Memphis will be invaded next, and then maybe Chicago. He didn't explain the change of plans. He never does. But the strong opposition from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) may have played a role in Trump's decision-making, since Pritzker was never going to cooperate. Fundamentally, Trump is a coward and when faced with someone who fights back, he tends to withdraw.
Trump's nominal goal of occupying Memphis will be to fight crime rather than pick up litter, as the National Guard is doing in D.C. In reality, it will be to intimidate a blue city in a red state. It is true that Memphis is the big city with the highest crime rate in the country; Trump said that the city is "deeply troubled." Can Guardsmen on every corner change this? Highly unlikely.
Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) said he supports the move. Of course, if he really thought there was an emergency, he could have called up the Guard himself. Obviously he doesn't think so, but it is very inconvenient to say that now. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was all for an invasion, and is enthusiastic about sending federal troops to Memphis. Memphis' mayor, Paul Young (D), who is Black, is definitely not on the same page. He said: "I want to be clear, I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don't think it's the way to drive down crime." Other officials in Shelby County (which includes Memphis) were worried about the symbolism of sending soldiers into a majority-Black city in the South. But they were also worried about their budgets—and space in the local jail, which is completely full and can't handle any more arrestees.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris (and yes, the title for a county leader in Tennessee is "mayor"), is looking at his legal options, including suing to stop the occupation. He said: "I'm scared. Don't send folks in military fatigues. Don't send folks with semiautomatic weapons to patrol our streets. I want less crime, but I need America."
On Sept. 2, a federal judge ruled that deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which bans using federal troops for domestic law enforcement except in very special circumstances. That case is on appeal in the Ninth Circuit. Not that Trump cares much about court rulings.
Reader and regular correspondent B.C. in Walpole, ME, was a longtime resident of Memphis, and agreed to send in some thoughts:
Trump's plan, as I write, is to postpone sending the National Guard into Chicago in favor of Memphis, where he'll have the support of the governor and the state legislature.
Some people may not realize that police forces in the Deep South were not formed to protect and serve the people. Rather, Southern police forces, which evolved from slave patrols, were formed to enforce racial segregation (thereby relieving unpaid volunteer citizen-terrorists of the responsibility and allowing them to stay home at night with their families). Southern policing has always been racial.
The taint of those origins, despite recent and concerted efforts on the part of law enforcement leaders and others, has never gone away. Black Southerners have never been able to fully trust law enforcement. Use of the National Guard is worse: It's a naked show of force, and it will be viewed (as everything in Memphis is sooner or later, but usually immediately) through a racial lens. Black Memphians will be mostly unified in opposition, and the majority of whites will support, if not cheer, the action.
After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the mayor called in the National Guard to shut down the city and prevent Black citizens from rioting. (Individual white boys will be boys, but Others must be held collectively responsible.) I was there. I remember it.
One of the things I remember vividly is never seeing the National Guard in person, but only on television, because none of the troops were ever sent into my (all-white) East Memphis neighborhood. When the troops arrive in 2025, they are not going to be scattered over the 324 square miles of the city. They are going to be concentrated in areas frequented by Black Memphians, and that will likely be taken as a great provocation, exploiting Memphis and its citizens for Trump's own political purposes while creating an explosive situation.
I left Memphis, a great place to be from, in 1997, and the last time I was there was for my mother's graveside service in 2016. I'm too distant to speak about my hometown as it is today. We surely have Electoral-Vote.com readers there who can report on the situation there, as so many readers have so well in so many other places and situations. I look forward to hearing from them.
Thanks, B.C., for that insight. (V & Z)