August 25 2025 - 4:00pm
After sending National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel into Washington, DC earlier this month, President Donald Trump is now threatening to do the same to Chicago and New York. Is this old-fashioned law and order or, as some critics maintain, a descent into a police state?
Enforcing existing laws does not turn the country into North Korea, but sending troops into American cities would be a vast overreach of federal executive power — not to mention being largely ineffective. Mere bluster aligns with Trump’s style, but taking real steps in this direction would be a political and legal disaster.
Legally, Trump has a lot of leeway in what he does in Washington, DC. The nation’s capital is under the direct control of the federal government. That’s not a loophole or a mistake, it’s how the place was designed and written into the Constitution.
It’s that way for a reason. In 1783, before the Constitution was written, Congress met in Philadelphia and had no control over their environs. When a mob of troops, their pay long-delayed by wartime expediency, marched on Philadelphia and threatened Congress, the legislature had no protection except what the state’s governor would grant them. Congress asked the governor to call out the militia to protect them. He refused, and Congress fled to New Jersey in ignominy.
The situation in Washington is not so dire, but the cause of the tumult is not dissimilar: the local jurisdiction’s refusal to enforce its laws. But now, even as Congress has granted limited home rule to the District, it left plenty of room for the federal government to take back control if necessary. Trump did so, and the action will be upheld in court.
It may also be upheld in public opinion. Since the day the troops were called in, DC has had zero murders. And Trump has not issued new laws by decree, as one presumes a dictator would. He merely ordered the criminal code — as it was written by the local government and Congress — to be enforced. This is not a police state.
But Trump has no such power over the states and their subdivisions. Moreover, calling out the Guard will likely have little long-term effect on the crime there. Guardsmen are not policemen — they’re not trained to be. Their presence can restore order when criminality has escalated beyond the local cops’ power to control, as in the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. But once that lawlessness dies down, their presence changes little. What DC needs is more cops to be hired and trained. The Guard and federal law enforcement can fill the gap until that happens, but it’s only a stop-gap.
“Call out the National Guard” holds the same emotional resonance for conservatives as “send more social workers” does for the Left. Both might help in a few edge cases, but neither is a solution in itself. It just feels like “doing something”.
Will National Guardsmen on the streets of New York bring down crime in that city — which is already much safer than Washington? Probably not. The problem in New York, Chicago, and most other American cities is not that there aren’t enough cops. It’s that progressive district attorneys and liberal judges don’t put criminals in jail. They turn them loose with light bail, suspended sentences, and probation for people who are well past their first offenses.
None of that would change if Trump sends National Guardsmen to Chicago or New York. The local DA’s offices are still the ones charging whoever gets arrested, and the same state court judges are interpreting the same loose criminal laws to turn them loose. It is not a problem the president can fix.
Violent crime is too high in American cities, but the solution must come from the voters there, not from the White House.
