Donald Trump is declaring war on Democratically-controlled states. He has no purpose in sending military forces into blue-state cities other than to exercise his imperial power over cities and states who reject his anti-democratic agenda.
Military intervention in neighborhoods filled predominantly with people of color does nothing but terrorize residents and can increase civilian deaths and undermine effective, on-going crime-prevention strategies. It has no lasting impact on the violent crime rate in a city and is nothing more than a political show of authoritarian power worthy of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, or Xi Jinping.
If Trump really cared about reducing violent crime, he would start with the 10 states with the highest gun-death rates in the country, all controlled by Republicans. He would learn what the federal government should be doing to reduce violent crime from the 10 states with the lowest gun-death rates, nine of which are Democratically controlled, including California and New York.
Rather than sending troops into New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., or Chicago, Trump should hold up these cities as models for violent crime reduction, each having lowered their gun homicide rates significantly. He would encourage cities in Republican-controlled states such as New Orleans, St. Louis, Birmingham, and Kansas City to follow the best practices of the blue-state cities that are making their citizens safer from gun violence.
If Trump cared about reducing violent crime, he should do what President Bill Clinton did in in 1994 through the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Clinton provided $14 billion in federal funding to add 100,000 new community police officers across the country, reducing crime over the next 10 years well below its projected level.
If Trump cared about reducing violent crime, he would employ evidence-based measures at the federal level proven to reduce gun violence. He would start by enacting federal gun control laws that have proven most effective in other countries and in states with the lowest gun violence rates: universal background checks, licensing for gun buyers, Red Flag laws, safe storage laws, and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Trump would take steps to reduce poverty in America’s inner-cities, a leading cause of gun violence throughout the world. To that end, he would provide federal funding to help create inner-city jobs and reduce the high unemployment rate among young Black men. He would increase funding for historically underfunded schools and for communities to clean up blighted areas, creating a more inviting environment that has proven effective in reducing criminal activity.
Trump would provide more federal funding for community anti-violence programs. Through the collaborative efforts of social services, police departments, healthcare providers, and community leaders, communities are reducing gun violence through on-going violence intervention programs. The federal government could help to fund such programs on a national scale.
Of course, Trump will do none of those things to reduce gun violence because first, they are supported or have been implemented by Democrats, and second, he doesn’t care.
In fact, by opposing all gun-control legislation, supporting a national concealed-carry law, stripping Medicare coverage from millions of low-income Americans, and cutting federal funding for a number of social services programs, Trump will make America’s gun-violence problem only grow worse.
Trump’s first term of office revealed his impact on reducing gun violence. From 2019 to 2020, there was a 15 percent increase in US gun deaths. 2020 saw the largest number of gun deaths ever recorded in the US: 45,222. For Trump’s second term, we can expect more of the same save the gun violence reductions a number of blue states are making.
Trump characterizing himself as a “law and order” president is among the biggest frauds he has perpetrated. No president has ever personally assaulted the rule of law like Trump. No president has ever pardoned more than 100 convicted criminals who violently assaulted Capitol police officers. No president has ever done less to make America a safer place for every American to live.
Siccing the military on cities in blue states is a perfidious scam, conning people into believing that Trump is making a difference. It is yet another tyrannical power play to punish and vilify blue states and to rev up MAGA followers who relish Trump’s every outrage.
Millions of Americans who have participated in anti-Trump rallies in blue states have chanted and held aloft signs reading “NOT MY PRESIDENT!” How right they are.
- Tom Tyner is a freelance editorialist, satirist, political analyst, blogger, author and retired English instructor
