Washington, DC has itself to blame for Trump’s police takeover

At its best, Washington, DC, is a city of grandeur, of iconic monuments and world-historical centers of power. 

At its worst, it’s a harrowing place where a 14-year-old could steal your Hyundai. 

The confluence of these two truths in the terrible early-morning beating of the DOGE employee Edward Coristine, known by his sobriquet “Big Balls,” has prompted President Donald Trump to federalize the DC police and deploy the National Guard.

The software engineer played a significant role in the frenetic push to reform the federal government that dominated the beginning of Trump’s second term and, by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (and protecting a young woman), was violently attacked by teenagers within two miles of the White House. 

The metropolitan government of Washington has never been worthy of the seat of government of the greatest and most powerful nation that has ever existed.

It’s consistently been an embarrassment and, for decades now, has tolerated — and, worse, created the conditions for — disorderly and dangerous streets.

The late historian Fred Siegel wrote how “social license and economic restrictions,” what he calls “the two halves of sixties liberalism,” drained cities like Washington, DC, of their vitality.

Over-regulated and inefficient, they were saddled by a “state-supported economy of social workers.”

On top of this, in the 1970s, DC experienced “black nationalism in power,” especially in the person of the catastrophic, long-time mayoralty of Marion Barry. 

The federal government had to put a financial control board in charge in the 1990s to bring the District back from the brink of bankruptcy. 

Indeed, in the scheme of things, Trump’s intervention is more the norm than the exception in DC’s history.

In the 19th century, Congress governed the district via committees, before trying home rule in 1871 and quickly pulling back after the district was — yes — financially mismanaged.

DC has had home rule since 1973, with the financial board exercising significant power from 1995 to 2001.  

The district is better off now than in the bad old days of the 1990s, but remains beset by a soft-minded progressivism on matters of law and order that is an ongoing threat to public safety. 

As usual, Trump is opting for the sledgehammer over the scalpel.

Still, his indictment of DC for allowing lawless young people to blight the city is accurate. 

But, the critics object, violent crime is falling in Washington!

Yes, it is, although from an unacceptably high level.

As of 2024, DC had the fourth-highest homicide rate of all major US cities and a higher homicide rate than all 50 states. 

As Charles Lehman of the Manhattan Institute points out, its homicide rate for young black men has been above the national average for decades now. 

The killings overwhelmingly involve young black men who have already been entangled in the criminal-justice system, with substantial rap sheets and often prison time.

Lehman cites a report by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform that found about “500 identifiable people” are in this category, and account for 60% to 70% of all the gun violence in the city. 

The carjackings, meanwhile, tend to be carried out by minors. 

According to Lehman, DC needs more cops who are more active making stops and arrests, as well as more prosecutions.

It also should be targeting the relatively small group of people most prone to violence, and the city’s gangs.

All of this, coupled with cleaning up homeless encampments, could continue the recent favorable crime trends and make the city feel like a better, safer place. 

It’s probably too much to ask Washington, DC’s government to meet the soaring, implicit standard of its most famous buildings.

But not having to fear roving bands of young thugs would be a step in the right direction. 

Twitter: @RichLowry