Republican governors of six states sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to join the 800 troops that Donald Trump had already activated
Tell these MAGA governors to mind their own damn business
- The Republican governors of six states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia — are recklessly and needlessly sending National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to join the 800 troops that Donald Trump had already activated. (Other Republican governors may join in this farce.)
These reactionary governors are using their own National Guard members and the residents of D.C. to prostrate themselves before Trump, to score “culture war” points on Fox News, and to advance Trump’s authoritarian agenda. If these governors actually cared about crime in our nation’s capital, they would speak up about the rampant corruption within the Trump regime itself.
Now, before we get further along — and because this military deployment is impacting real people — we want to say a few things about Washington, D.C., and the people who live here (including, we’ll note, each of us — along with a great number of Public Citizen employees and members).
SOME BASIC HISTORY
D.C. was established as our young nation’s capital on July 16, 1790, when President George Washington signed a bill called the Residence Act, which Congress had passed one week earlier, into law. At that point, there were only 13 states in the entire country. (By the way, five of the six states whose governors are sending National Guard troops to D.C. were not even in the United States when D.C. was founded.)
As established by law, D.C. is geographically compact. And many people seem to be familiar with the area encompassing the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Smithsonian museums, the National Mall, and a handful of stately government buildings. But, like any large city, there is much more to D.C. than just its downtown business district and its tourist attractions.
D.C. IS A REAL PLACE, NOT JUST A TOURIST DESTINATION
Over 700,000 people live in Washington, D.C. That’s more than Boston. Or Detroit. Or Las Vegas. Or Atlanta. In fact, the population of D.C. is greater than the population of the entire state of Vermont or the entire state of Wyoming.
People live and work here (including both of us). People raise families here (including both of us). People send their kids to school here (including both of us). People go to the grocery store, the gas station, the movies, the park, and the dentist here.
We have world-class cultural enterprises, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Kennedy Center. (Though Trump is actively undermining both, cutting their funding and forcing them to go along with his pathetic anti-DEI crusade.)
In recent years, our National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and National Hockey League (NHL) teams all won championships. Our Major League Soccer (MLS) team is a three-time champion. Our National Football League (NFL) team is a three-time Super Bowl winner. (Trump, of course, is making noise about his desire for our NFL team, the Commanders, to revert back to its blatantly racist former name.) Our National Basketball Association (NBA) team has won a championship — but that was way back in 1978, so let’s get going, Wizards!
And D.C. is home to hundreds of nonprofit organizations that — each in their own way — are trying to make the world a better place. That includes one you might be particularly familiar with: Public Citizen was founded here in 1971 — over half a century ago — and our offices are still in D.C.’s Dupont Circle and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. Again, the majority of our staff live in the city or close by, and thousands of our amazing supporters call D.C. home as well.
DIVERSITY IN D.C.
People come here from just about every other country in the world to interact with our government in one way or another. You might hear half a dozen different languages being spoken just walking around Public Citizen’s headquarters on a random Tuesday. We consider this a wonderful thing about living here. You can imagine what Trump or his ghoul of a henchman, Stephen Miller, think of it.
More pointedly, D.C. — one nickname for which is “Chocolate City” — is over 41% Black. In fact, there is not a single city in the entire country that has both a larger total population and a higher percentage of Black residents. When Donald Trump, those in his regime, and the people pretending to be journalists at propaganda outlets like Fox News say “crime,” what they want you to hear — and what so many of their followers are all too eager to hear — is “Black.”
TAXATION — AND NOW OCCUPATION — WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
A lot of people don’t seem to know the following: People who live in D.C. are stateless. D.C. itself is not a state (yet — it should be made one). We have no senators, and no vote in the House of Representatives (we have a delegate to Congress who has no vote outside of committees and thus minimal power).
We learn in school that the American Revolution was about “taxation without representation” — that we fought for, and won, our independence from Great Britain over this exact issue of not having a voice in a government that ruled over us. Yet, for well over 200 years, we have expected the residents of D.C. to accept living as political exiles in their own country. And, to add insult to injury, this city of over 700,000 unrepresented people is now occupied by U.S. military forces at the whims of a would-be authoritarian president and the sycophantic governors who are lining up to lick his boots.
Again, there are more people in D.C. than there are in all of Vermont or Wyoming. Imagine if we suddenly stripped the people of Vermont of their senators (including Sen. Bernie Sanders) or if the people of Wyoming no longer had a vote in the House of Representatives. There would be outrage and perhaps even revolt. It is long past time for every American to recognize the undemocratic travesty that has been and continues to be carried out on the people of Washington, D.C. (where — unlike, say, Vermont and Wyoming — a majority of residents are people of color.)
THE AUTHORITARIAN TAKEOVER
Now — with the absurd actions of Trump and these six (so far) Republican governors — there are something like 2,000 National Guard troops in D.C. on top of all the law enforcement that was already here. By the way, in case it’s not clear, the National Guard is part of the United States military. So that’s 2,000 members of the U.S. military deployed in an American city, against American citizens.
(It’s worth considering that National Guard members probably didn’t sign up to be used as shock troops in the MAGA culture war and as political pawns in Trump’s Big Brother power trip. Most of them likely thought their service would involve responding to genuine national security threats and actual emergencies — including the climate-related disasters that are becoming more frequent and more severe in part because of stupid, regressive actions the Trump regime is taking to undo the modest progress we were making on clean energy.)
So, while D.C. was most definitely not the city-wide crime scene Trump paints it as, with his military takeover the city has — sadly — become noticeably dystopian virtually overnight.
We must be absolutely clear about what’s going on here. First in Los Angeles, now in Washington, D.C., and next maybe in your community, Donald Trump is weaponizing law enforcement and military force against the American people. Trump is trying to intimidate us into subservience, and he is laying the groundwork to commit violence in furtherance of his authoritarian fantasies.
This — and this alone — is the reason for the deployment of National Guard troops in and the military occupation of our nation’s capital.
A message for Governor Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio, Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Governor Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia:
You are disrespecting and exploiting your own National Guard troops and the people of Washington, D.C., to grovel at Donald Trump’s feet and to score cheap “culture war” points on Fox News. And you are shamelessly throwing in with Trump’s authoritarian project. The people of Washington, D.C., did not elect you. They did not ask you to send armed military personnel who belong in their home states. And, by overwhelming numbers, they do not want your National Guard troops here. Take your troops back and mind your own damn business.
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- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
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