Trump’s Invasion of DC Is Not A Distraction

Fascists build power by targeting the powerless.

Yesterday our fascist dictator Donald Trump unilaterally declared that DC police were under federal control and deployed the National Guard to patrol the streets of the city. The move was an unprecedented power grab, sidelining the city’s own elected officials and taking a big step towards effectively placing the city under federal martial law.

Trump claims that the move is needed to control DC’s crime problem. This is nonsense; crime in DC has been falling for years and is now at its lowest point since at least 2018.

Since Trump’s “reasons” are racist gibberish, people have been speculating on what may have actually motivated the move. One popular explanation is that Trump is invading DC in order to distract from “the massive Epstein files cover up” as the Lincoln Project (and Lincoln Project chief of staff Ryan Wiggins) posted on bluesky.

I think that calling the invasion of DC a “distraction” is a fundamental misunderstanding of fascist goals and fascist tactics.

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Invading DC is textbook fascism

In discussing the motives and tactics of an openly fascist regime, it’s always useful to look again at Robert O. Paxton’s classic definition of fascism.

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion

The core points in this definition for our purposes are:

1. Fascists are preoccupied with community decline, humiliation and victimhood

2. Fascists create compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, and

3. Fascists pursue redemptive violence with the goal of internal cleansing

I think it’s pretty clear how all of this applies to DC. Trump is claiming (falsely) that DC (and cities throughout the country) are in the grips of an apocalyptic decline which requires massive fascist force and redemptive violence to cleanse.

If you accept that Trump is a fascist (and you should!) and you know Paxton’s definition (it’s good to know!) then the question “why is Trump invading DC” is pretty transparent. He is a fascist pursuing a fascist policy. Fascists use fascist ideology as an excuse to build fascist power; they build fascist power to pursue fascist ideology. That is what a fascist regime does. It is what makes a regime fascist.

Fascists target those without power

Rather than asking “What is Trump trying to distract us from?” it is I think more useful to ask, “Why does Trump see this as a way to advance fascist ideology and build fascist power?” What is it about Washington, DC that makes it ripe for fascist demonization and fascist spectacle?

There are a couple of answers here. First, DC, and other urban areas, are targeted by MAGA fascists because they are home to diverse populations—LGBT people, brown people, immigrants, and (probably most relevant for DC) to Black populations. DC is no longer majority Black, but Black people are still the largest ethnic group in the city at 42.5%; whites are the second largest at 36.6%.

Trump is a Christofascist white supremacist; he believes white Christian people should rule and that non white people who do not conform to Christofascist norms should be subjugated or exterminated. Attacking DC, like attacking LA, is a way to terrorize and intimidate marginalized populations and to perform fascist dominance of those whom fascists deem eugenically unfit. Trump has staged a takeover of DC for the same reason that Hitler staged Kristallnacht; he hates marginalized people and wants to harm and humiliate them.

The other reason that DC is a target is that its residents are disenfranchised. DC is not a state, but a federal district. That means it does not have Senators or Representatives to speak for it in Congress. It also means that the federal government has the ability to interfere in its affairs, and/or fuck with it in ways that are (so far) impossible in California, New York, Illinois, or other blue states.

Fascism thrives when it can target those with little power to advocate for themselves. Trump can attack immigrants with impunity in part because he knows that immigrants cannot vote. That means obviously that immigrants cannot vote against him. But it also means that immigrants do not have their own representatives and have little ability to rally those with power to their cause.

Democrats are leery of protecting immigrants or speaking on behalf of immigrants because they know that those who demonize immigrants have more of a vote than immigrants themselves. Quisling assholes like Ruben Gallego and John Fetterman co-sponsored the fascist Laken Riley Act because they figured that there are more bigoted voters than pro-immigrant voters—an easy calculation to make because immigrants, again, can’t vote. When people lack representation and power, they become fodder for fascist scapegoating.

Similarly, Democrats have historically been willing to throw DC’s elected representatives and voters under any available bus on any or no pretext. In 2023, a majority of Senate Democrats disgraced themselves by joining with Republicans to veto a DC crime bill which lowered some criminal penalties. The GOP fear-mongered the bill because they are fascists who hate Black people and love to stomp on the disempowered. And Democrats, who controlled the chamber, rushed to join them in scapegoating the weak and marginalized.

“It’s a distraction” is acquiescing to fascism

The ex-GOP right leaning dipshits at the anti-Trump Lincoln Project keep saying DC is a distraction for the same reason reactionary loser turds like John Tester, Joe Manchin, Chuck Schumer and (alas) Sherrod Brown voted to overturn DC’s crime bill. Politicians and pundits are afraid to stand with the powerless and the stigmatized—and are tempted to join in the fascist politics of attacking the powerless and the stigmatized to score points with bigots.

The rhetoric of “distraction” is a way to split the difference. Instead of saying that the attack on DC is openly racist, and that people in the district deserve respect, solidarity, and self-rule, you get people insisting that there are no real principles at stake; it’s all just Trump’s effort to change the channel. Let’s talk about Epstein, and absolutely not talk about Black people who are being oppressed.

Trump’s ties to Epstein are ugly, and his extensive history of sexual assault and harassment should absolutely be a focus of news coverage. But so should his disgusting, racist assault on the disenfranchised people of Washington, DC. This should be a moment to demand DC statehood, not a time to insist we not talk about the attack on DC.

Trump isn’t just targeting DC because he wants to see different headlines. He’s targeting the people of DC because he sees them as a racial enemy to be subjugated and destroyed. Fascists use racism and scapegoating to build power, and they use that power to target racial minorities for subjugation, terror, and ultimately genocide. Trump promotes authoritarian racist violence because authoritarian racist violence is his goal. It is not a distraction. It is fascist ascendance. We need to stand with the people of DC because they are under assault, because that assault is immoral, and because if we don’t stand with them, we are next.

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