Postcards from Occupied D.C.
"Lock the doors, kids."
When I was a kid, I remember my parents telling us to “lock the doors” when we drove into “the city.” This applied both to to my hometown of Jackson and to bigger cities like Atlanta we encountered on family road trips. This scene, which I presume was repeated by white parents across the country (white readers, lmk your experiences), was quietly captured on the show “King of the Hill” (recently rebooted on Hulu, BTW), in which Hank (the father) calmly tells the family (Peggy, his wife, and Bobby, his son) to lock the doors of the car as soon as they pass the Dallas city limits sign on the interstate.
These attitudes, portrayed as common sense, were always tinged with racism. President Trump has always played on these white fears of cities with high proportions of Black or Brown residents—most recently with his authoritarian takeover of the police in the District of Columbia, where I am currently writing this newsletter.
At his press conference announcing the DC takeover, his litany of “dangerous” cities was hardly subtle: “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities in a very bad, New York is a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore. They’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen.”
One doesn’t need to deny that many large cities have problems or that violent crime is a serious problem. But Trump, as always, is all authoritarian, self-aggrandizing bluster looking for a opportunistic target.
Racist ideology and political calculations—not data showing where the biggest problems actually are—drive his actions. For example, according the FBI’s latest report (and 2024 will likely be the last period where government reports will be reliable), four of the top five cities with the highest rates of crime against people are in red states that supported Trump. Washington, DC, doesn’t make the top 30. While the data show that while violent crime in DC was up during the COVID-19 pandemic—as it was across the nation—it was actually significantly down in 2024 and is now at a 30-year low.
As always, if you interrogate Trump’s use of possessive plural pronouns, his racism is on full display. “This is liberation day in D.C.,” Trump declared. “And we’re going to take our capital back.” It doesn’t take much imagination to understand to whom the “we” and the “our” refer.
Today, as a small act of personal resistance, even though I’m currently on writing leave to finish my next book, I headed into my office in downtown DC, located just a few blocks from the White House. I’m sharing a little photo essay of my day in the city Trump described as one in need of rescue from “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.”
Stop 1. Squalor at the dangerous boundary crossing between Maryland and DC.
The stone marker is one of 36 original markers installed 1791-1792 to demarcate the new diamond-shaped district from the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia. I hear Trump is reassigning FBI agents for a long-overdue sweep through the neighborhood this weekend.
Stop 2: The crime-ridden Metro public transportation system in DC.
Keep close kids, and don’t make eye contact.
Stop 3: Bedlam on 16th Street Leading to the White House, Formerly Black Lives Matter plaza
Here’s the view of 16th Street leading to the White House. These blocks were formerly designated “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and dedicated to John Lewis. After taking office this year, Trump ordered the district to spend $610,000 to jackhammer and repave the street. We’re all safer without the yellow paint.
Stop 4: Bloody Protests at The White House
Bring your military surplus body armor and gas masks.
Stop 5: “And Worse”
My favorite scene of the day, one that captures the spirit of our nation’s capital that I’ve come to love over the last two decades of living here, was this diverse group of strangers dancing together in the heat just outside the gates of The White House. The Capital Police definitely need the immediate help of National Guard, Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI to manage this threat. The two Capitol Police officers I saw on duty looked panicked and were completely outnumbered.
The grim reality is that the biggest crime spree DC has scene in recent years happened on January 6, 2021, and it was incited by our twice-impeached president, who was himself convicted by a jury of his peers of 34 felonies. And now he’s audaciously trying to invoke the old racist “law and order” trope to turn our nation’s capital into a police state.
Compare the images from my day above, for example, to this scene from Tuesday night, when Trump unleashed federal agents to conduct a random “show me your papers” checkpoint in the middle of DC, just one street over from where I’m sitting now.
Here’s how the Washington Post described the scene:
The checkpoint, which appeared to begin around 8 p.m., included more than 20 law enforcement officers, many wearing face coverings and vests labeled “HSI” — Homeland Security Investigations. Some vests indicated agents were with Enforcement and Removal Operations, a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that arrests and removes undocumented immigrants. They stopped dozens of cars at the busy intersection of 14th and W streets NW, in front of a popular chain bakery, a veterinary clinic and a high-end outdoor apparel store.
At least two people were detained — one man speaking Spanish was loaded into an unmarked black pickup, while a D.C. police truck towed the red Kia he had been driving. A woman was handcuffed while the crowd gathered on the sidewalks booed and yelled at officers to “read the Constitution.”
This authoritarian militarization of the city does not make us safer. It simply raises the risks for everyone that one wrong interaction may result an otherwise peaceful resident being assaulted, disappeared, or killed. Everyone on 14th street in DC on Tuesday night was suddenly in more danger, not less, because of the presence of these officers.
I’m aware that this insight is not a new one for those of you who are not white. For those of us who are, the negative views we’ve had of government have mostly been about its failures or shortcomings: inefficiency, ineffectiveness, or inadequacy. With Trump’s naked grasp of authoritarian powers, a new reality is soon going to be evident to we white Americans. For the first time in our experience, we’ll experience the government itself—and particularly DHS officers that are quickly evolving into Trump’s personal Gestapo—as an instrument of tyranny and personal threat.
Trump has already signaled that he intends to keep the federal occupation of DC in place long after the 30-day limit allowable by law. It is clear that LA and DC are dress rehearsals for a broader plan, coming soon to a city near you. As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat recently reminded us, “The aim is to habituate Americans to see militarized cities and crackdowns against public dissent in cities as normal and justified.”
I’m hoping enough of us wake up to that reality before it is too late. Sitting here in my office on a sunny summer afternoon in DC, this much is clear to me: The biggest threat we face of crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and worse is Trump himself.
The video of the dancers reminds me of the song "Did you Feel the Mountains Tremble" which includes the phrase, "Dancers who dance upon injustice..."
Thank you for these details on what is going on in DC. Just a matter of time before another city is selected for the same treatment. Trump only knows how to wreck things. This propensity will eventually be his downfall.