Trump may have just triggered his biggest scandal yet
I don’t know whether Donald Trump’s takeover of the Washington, D.C., police force is a distraction from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that’s still dogging him. Some liberals say it is. Some say it isn’t. I also don’t know why it must be either/or. I do know this, however: white power is distracting, and we need every tool to break through the distraction.
I’ll explain.
Dictatorial moves should be corrosive
While it might be technically legal for Trump to send the National Guard to commandeer law enforcement (the District of Columbia is a creation of Congress, not a sovereignty), it is a moral abomination.
Federalism isn’t just America’s form of government. It is America’s great moral philosophy. We believe local affairs should be determined by local people who decide their destinies according to their collective will. That DC residents don’t have full local control, as a result of living in a federal city, does not take away from the force of that moral claim.
So it should be straightforwardly offensive to our national moral sensibility for this or any president to push aside local authorities in order to impose his will on residents without their consent. In this case, however, it should also be an insult to our intelligence. Trump’s excuse is fighting crime, but crime rates in DC are at historic lows.
It could be that this dictatorial move by the dictatorial president is an effort to distract us from the corrosive effect that the Epstein scandal is having on his and his party’s standing with the public. But let’s not overlook the obvious — that this is a dictatorial move by the dictatorial president. That may not have the same corrosive effect, but it should.
Totalitarianism is okie-dokie
The Republicans used to be the party of federalism, which is to say, the party that would talk endlessly about the fundamental importance of preserving the history and tradition of state’s rights and local control. Matter of fact, they used to argue that they were the true defenders of liberty, as without their vigilance in maintaining the separation of powers, the federal government would descend into totalitarianism.
Here’s Dixiecrat-turned-Republican Strom Thurmond in 1948:
“[The Civil Rights Act] simply means that it's another means, that it's another effort on the part of [President Harry Truman] to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these uncalled for and the damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called ‘civil rights.’ … The American people, from one side to the other, had better wake up and oppose such a program, and if they don't, the next thing will be a totalitarian state in these United States” (my italics).
After Americans experienced the crimes and atrocities of World War II, a new consensus emerged in which the public began believing the federal government should serve everyone — the law should be applied equally — even those previously excluded, which is to say, Black people.
With this new national consensus in mind, the white conservatives who would eventually become Republicans began making an abstract argument in favor of state’s rights, with the understanding that such arguments in reality sought to stop the federal government from liberating Black people from the apartheid evils they faced at home.
In other words, state’s rights and local control were never about the state sovereignty or the right of local residents to determine their own destinies, but about defending a power structure favorable to white people and disfavorable to everyone else, but especially Black people. Totalitarianism was okie-dokie, as long as they were the ones doing it.
And because white power has always been the most important thing to the Republicans (and to the segregationists and Dixiecrats before them), not one Republican has anything to say about Trump imposing his morally reprehensible will on a majority-Black city like Washington.
And no, it’s not because the District of Columbia is a creation of the Congress or some other abstraction of law. They are OK with what Trump is doing to Washington, because they are OK with what he wants to do to any big American city, because to them, big cities are not deserving of rights, because in their minds, big cities are Black.
White power is distracting
The key place of white power in Republican politics should be obvious now that the president is demonstrating that America’s great moral philosophy — federalism and separation of powers — doesn’t apply if you’re Black. Indeed, everyone should agree with the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“Calling all Black and low-income neighborhoods slums, and throwing away the humanity of homeless people by equating them to criminals, is the beginning of the end if we don’t stand up. This is the ultimate affront to justice and civil rights many of us have dedicated our lives to protecting and expanding.”
But not everyone will agree with Sharpton, because his obviously correct statement will not seem obviously correct to those (white) people who can’t see the place of white power in their own lives.
Perhaps this fact is why Sharpton added that Trump “was inspired to take this disgusting, dangerous, and derogatory action solely out of self interest. Let’s call the inspiration for this assault on a majority Black city for what it is: another bid to distract his angry, frustrated base over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files” (my italics).
It’s as if Sharpton knows a dictatorial move by the dictatorial president is not enough to move most Americans, especially those who believe he should crack down on Black people for the “crime” of being Black.
“The military takeover of Washington is not a ‘distraction’ from Epstein,” one writer said. “It’s a military takeover of Washington, which is an even bigger deal, and those of us who kill brain cells reporting on this stuff know it’s been an explicit goal since before the election.”
True, but most people are distracted by white power. They can’t see a moral abomination of law and morality, even when it’s happening in front of them, even when it’s a “bigger deal” than the Epstein scandal.
Matter of fact, the scandal offers a rare opportunity to break through the biggest distraction of them all. Trump’s anti-Blackness probably won’t have a corrosive effect on his standing with the public, but his relationship with a notorious child-sex trafficker? Well, that might.