National guard shooting will likely make Trump crack down even harder | US news

“Washington DC is considered a safe zone,” Donald Trump said Tuesday, walking away from the subject during the national Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House. “It was one of the most dangerous places in the United States. It is now considered a completely safe city.”

A day later, two West Virginia National Guardsmen were shot and killed in a busy neighborhood just blocks from the White House in downtown Washington. The ambush took place outside the Farragut West subway station, within sight of the Guardian office (I had been in the station three hours earlier and had seen National Guard troops crowding around).

In a speech Wednesday evening from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump said the suspect entered the United States from Afghanistan in 2021. For the president, it was a political opportunity and he was determined to exploit it. Immigration? Check. Law and order? Check. Is it all Joe Biden’s fault? Check.

Trump accused his predecessor of letting millions of violent criminals into the United States and launched a xenophobic attack on Minnesota’s Somalis: “Hundreds of thousands of Somalis are tearing our country apart and destroying this once great state.” » Notably, the evening before, his aide Stephen Miller had denounced “the Somaliification of America,” telling Fox News: “Look how powerful the Democratic Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with 100,000 Somalis!” »

Then, Trump announced a review of the status of Afghan nationals in the United States. “We must now re-examine every foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take every step necessary to ensure the expulsion of any foreigner from any country who does not belong here or does not benefit our country.

Raising the specter of an aggressive new crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the remarks were hardly a surprise from a president who has made illegal immigration central to his political identity. The White House regularly sends lists and images of undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes and could not resist highlighting the nationality of the suspect.

Such red meat spectacles are, the administration hopes, a powerful diversion for a Trump base recently fractured by rising prices and the failure to release Jeffrey Epstein’s files. It also goes hand in hand with the president’s authoritarian desire to militarize American cities.

In August, he declared a “criminal emergency” in Washington, placed the city’s police under federal control and ordered the deployment of 2,375 National Guard troops.

Critics perceived an authoritarian takeover, mirrored in other cities, that could trigger a backlash. A few weeks ago, at the Farragut North subway station, a young man spoke loudly to members of the National Guard: “You should be ashamed of yourself. You are carrying out the orders of a dictator.” A passenger on the platform applauded. A member of the guard responded: “We are just following orders. »

But Wednesday’s shooting marks the first major act of violence involving the National Guard, who — stationed at subway stations, around federal lands and transportation hubs — have proven less incendiary than ICE. Last month’s No Kings protests in Washington were overwhelmingly peaceful, with no arrests. Mayor Muriel Bowser appeared to accept the deployment, although she announced this week that she would not seek re-election as mayor.

The most notorious incident in recent months didn’t involve the National Guard at all: Sean Dunn, who worked for the Justice Department, was indicted for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent in August. He was later found not guilty of assault.

In the meantime, the National Guard has even been assigned tasks such as cleaning parks, picking up trash, laying mulch and maintaining the landscape. On Monday, the Department of Defense issued a press release declaring that the “beautification efforts” were complete, accompanied by photos showing Guard members carrying black trash bags in various locations.

Media reports say they are deeply unhappy with the mission and say this is not what they signed up for. In a cryptic group chat, an anonymous member of the Ohio Guard told NPR, “I’ve been on two humanitarian missions with the Guard, which were awesome, doing the things you see in the advertising, helping these communities.”

“And then you want me to go pick up trash and dissuade homeless people in Washington at gunpoint. Like, no man. It’s so discouraging every time I see another city – and I just wonder, ‘Who’s going to stand up to that?'”

But Trump, who had already decided that the deployment of the National Guard would continue at least until the end of February, will probably crack down even harder. He announced the deployment of 500 additional National Guard troops — although it’s unclear exactly what that will achieve.

The risk of escalation is evident in a city that saw troops fire on peaceful protesters during the 2020 summer of Black Lives Matter, the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers outside the capital’s Jewish Museum in May. And it’s part of a culture of political violence that led to the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah.

It was a reminder of another scourge, often overlooked. John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said, “The fact that this could happen to service members just steps from the White House is a painful reminder that in a country awash in guns, no neighborhood is safe from this crisis. »

It is at times like these that the nation turns to the president for balm and unity. But in his televised remarks, the divider-in-chief made clear he intended to add fuel to the fire.