Public sentiment is highly polarized regarding the National Guard's deployment amid ongoing unrest. Many commenters express strong support for Trump's actions as necessary for restoring order and criticize local officials for failing to maintain safety. In contrast, a significant minority voices concern over civil liberties, perceiving the deployment as an authoritarian overreach. Overall, the comments reflect dissatisfaction with current governance and a yearning for decisive leadership.

Trump Administration

Local Government Officials

Judicial System


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To get people to riot so he can declare martial law, stop mid terms and the next presidential election.

THE-LORD-RETURNS

How to manufacture a crisis, declare an emergency and hold on to power indefinitely: an essay by donald j trump.

Luke_Cocksucker

[This is the ENTIRE group of protesters right now in Portland, BTW](https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/1o04ky3/small_crowd_tonight_lets_keep_it_that_way/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button)

Evi1bo1weevi1

jrsinhbca

Distraction, deflection and division. Distract from tragic tariff policy that is about to destroy the economy. Deflect from the pressure to release the Epstein files. Division to focus bile on his opponents "the enemy within" and further divide America 

neutrino71

Because Stephen Miller can't get an erection otherwise.

liquidlen

To provoke something to declare martial law.

Nintendo_Pro_03

Miller and Vought testing the Judiciary and the willingness of the American people to go along with their power grab that isn’t supported by the majority.

Historical_Bend_2629

To provoke unrest so that he can then declare martial law and arrest and jail any Democrat he wants.

deltalitprof

kudoshinchi

ddr1ver

Treestwigs

Umami-Ice-Cream

Make people forget about Jeffrey Epstein.

JB-Wentworth

Revenge and sadism. He thinks he can punish people into respecting him. He thinks he can stop protests and anyone talking poorly about him with violence. He wants people to be too afraid to stand up to him. And he’s trying to control the news cycle.

thirdeyepdx

He is Fascist who wants to prevent elections and rule by dictation, where he doesn't have his power limited by Congress or the systems of law in this country.

Shiplord13

Duh, it's because he wants people to get used to having the military around so he can send them put during elections to scare people.

xicor

It is a test run, he is doing all these to see who will obey orders. 

And then by the time he really needs to use them for himself, he knows he would have the power

nasorrty346tfrgser

ThoDanII

To make his followers and Fox News believe that blue cites are war zones even though the fact contradicts the action. He's terrified that the democrats will get back into power.

Any-Reputation3639

1.  To punish his enemies
2. To send a message to democratic politicians and voters
3.  To fuel his fascist tendencies.  
4.  To further the narrative that democratic run cities are hives of crime and violence (they are not) and he is the savior
5. To eventually undermine elections and retain power for him or his party
6.  To distract from Epstein

0utlaw-t0rn

PurplRzr

He wants to intimidate everyone who votes against him. That is why he only want to deploy them in blue cities.

DramaticWesley

entrepenurious

&gt; XV. Convert the brave honest Officers of your Navy into pimping Tide-waiters and Colony Officers of the Customs. Let those who in Time of War fought gallantly in Defence of the Commerce of their Countrymen, in Peace be taught to prey upon it. Let them learn to be corrupted by great and real Smugglers; but (to shew their Diligence) scour with armed Boats every Bay, Harbour, River, Creek, Cove or Nook throughout the Coast of your Colonies, stop and detain every Coaster, every Wood-boat, every Fisherman, tumble their Cargoes, and even their Ballast, inside out and upside down; and if a Penn’orth of Pins is found un-entered, let the Whole be seized and confiscated. Thus shall the Trade of your Colonists suffer more from their Friends in Time of Peace, than it did from their Enemies in War. Then let these Boats Crews land upon every Farm in their Way, rob the Orchards, steal the Pigs and Poultry, and insult the Inhabitants. 
If the injured and exasperated Farmers, unable to procure other Justice, should attack the Agressors, drub them and burn their Boats, you are to call this High Treason and Rebellion, order3 Fleets and Armies into their Country, and threaten to carry all the Offenders three thousand Miles to be hang’d, drawn and quartered. O! this will work admirably!


Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, 11 September 1773 - Benjamin Franklin

eorlingas_riders

To praise himself, blame the Dems, provoke violence if possible and intimidate everyone else.

Frankie6Strings

Because contrary to popular belief there are rules and regulations in the government that people do follow and a ton of those rules are focused on making sure the president doesn’t have s private Army loyal to him. See he surrounded himself with brain damaged perfume chuggers who cannot spell USA but the military and its membership at elite levels have and follow strict rules. So the closest thing trump has to a private army is the national guard which isn’t even close to accurate but all his ass kissers are to busy being face diapers to actually read the constitution so judges and lawyers are stepping in because not even the president can fart on the rules the way he farts on Hegseths hair. He wants us to want him to rule over us because he’s a weak little diaper baby and looks up to other weak little diaper babies in Europe and Asia like Putin. But he can’t just wield the full military like a club, so he’s taking what little wiggle room he has with the national guard and forcing them to mow lawns and be in peoples tiktoks where they play the imperial March one weekend a month and two weeks a year.

ghoti99

Title should clearly state, ‘Why is Trump trying to deploy the National Guard to Dem. US cities?’

Common-Ad6470

Because he’s a petulant little man child that thinks it’s cool to order troops around. He’s seen it on tv! 
The people around him want the riots and a cause for escalation but the orange shit stain just thinks it’s really cool on his dementia addled mind.

Linari90

Because he went to that restaurant and was booed.

yngwiegiles

He is attacking any legitimate authority he can find - experts, elected representatives etc. because he wants to be the sole source of authority, with nothing legitimate to compare it to.

aureanator

For the same reason the Brownshirts were deployed all over Germany. Call a spade a spade.

TheUnknownPrimarch

So Americans get desensitized to seeing the military in the streets. When Trump’s made up “National Emergency” kicks into gear he will already have soldiers in place to quell any resistance.

TeslaProphet

Because 80% of the population is in cities.

libginger73

1. To spin a narrative that states don’t need to exist with separate governance. Bigly brain wants to rule everything, easier if no states exist with separate laws.  This will end up causing a civil war. Also, he is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. I can hear him say, look at the war-zones, are states even a good thing to have?

2. To distract everyone from Epstein documents.

3. To be cruel, also late stage dementia.

Carlspoony

Jade Helm. Everyone remember that whole thing? Obama was setting the stage to invade cities that didn’t support him? All of my family and friends that were “deeply concerned” about a brutal police action by federal troops are suddenly quite happy with this situation. I guess they feel validated and they are happy to see their political opponents oppressed.

someguythatlikestuff

He wants a soldier to get harmed or killed so he can really crackdown on liberals as terrorists. And he controls the 3 branches of government, but needs the military on his side, so if he can make it seem like liberals hate the military they will be more likely to support him in anything he plans to use them for.

sonofagunn

 Trump always tells you what he is trying to do in his rambling comments. Look back at his first term tweets as perfect example. How can anyone not pay attention to his comment early on in this election, second term when he said you will “never have to vote again”.

Ok_Aardvark_2058

RevolutionaryCard512

208 executive orders is a good indicator of end goals. Extrapolate

Project 2025 is to destroy the country and rebuild it as a fascist white supremacist Christian theocracy. 

Verum_Orbis

To bait us into violent resistance to easily justify killing us. They hate us and want us to die.

ViciousKnids

The federal government has authority over the states, and some states have openly defied federal law for dealing with illegals.

California leads the nation on illegals with over 2 million.

Then there's Illinois and Oregon.  Oh wait, my bad!!!

Texas comes in 2nd, then Florida 3rd.  a few million illegals between those two.

Illinois coming in at around 550k.  What a crisis!!

Gosh but no troops deployed to FL or TX to round up all those illegals.  Golly.

I guess Trump's just owning the liberals like a tyrant.

FreedomBread

The MAGA/2025 government, because there is no Republican Party anymore, is getting citizens used to the look of soldiers in the streets of American cities. On the  Tuesdays in 2026 when we’re supposed to vote there will be soldiers at checkpoints in the bluest parts of cities. That’s the reason he’s so against mail in voting. Make sure you take advantage of early voting.

rsgoto11

Mundane-Club-107

I understand that he’s deploying them to fight crime. I have a hard time understanding how they can fight crime while patrolling the streets. Hegseth says it a variation on Giuliani’s “broken window theory”. In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, antisocial behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory). My question is for how long will we have National Guard and Military in our cities? Crime is a part of human society and has been with us since we were civilized. The main reason we have the highest incarcerated population of any nation is we have the most laws of any country.

johnn48

sugar-sticks

The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/engadine_maccas1997.

Trump mobilising the National Guard in DC has been a controversial, if not alarming, move. That said, for purposes of reducing crime and improving public safety, it seems to be working. 

For the first time in a long time, D.C. has gone seven days without a homicide. Carjackings have decreased by 83%, robberies by 46%, car thefts by 21%, and overall violent crime is down 22%.

How would we respond to these statistics and claims that this is actually improving public safety? 

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/city-in-crisis/national-guards-presence-slashes-dc-crime-rates-with-seven-days-homicide-free 

*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Yeah. If you put a city on lockdown with soldiers on every corner crime is going to go down. Same thing happened during COVID lockdown but conservatives screeched the whole time.

Ritz527

Decreased 83% compared to when? A week or so is way too small a sample to draw any conclusions.

Mr_MacGrubber

Turns out that when people are too afraid to leave their homes, crime goes down. Hmmm.

Of course, so does traffic, sales, growth, the economy, health, sanity, and political stability. Same thing happened during Covid.

Worth the trade? You decide.

-Random_Lurker-

One of the complaints from DC residents that MPD has been given resources year after year but the force had basically been on silent strike since 2020. 

Somehow the police have it so good that them being shitty at their jobs is somehow the fault of liberal policies.

madmoneymcgee

I would say it's bunk because crime in DC was already [way down](https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime) across the board.  Seems like the usual Trump tactic of taking credit for something that was already happening.

libra00

For one thing, nobody’s arresting the national guardsmen (or police) for their crimes.  So we’ll never have stats for those, but they’re real problems to real people.

ziptasker

The best way to reduce violent crime by individuals is to remove liberties. Conservatives and traditionalists have always known that.

roylennigan

[deleted]

I mean, yes, if you deploy thousands of military soldiers domestically and no one feels free to leave their homes, that probably will reduce crime while they're there.  It's not going to reduce crime once they're gone, however, so the only way that that's going to have any long-term effect is if the soldiers stay there, forever.

Perhaps this will convince people that "low crime" is not something you should wish for on a monkey's paw.

GabuEx

So what’s the plan? Just have the military patrolling your streets permanently?

hitman2218

ComfortableWage

throwdemawaaay

"For the first time in a long time, DC has gone 7 days without a homicide"

Idk what they're considering "in a long time", but [it looks like](https://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/DCGIS::crime-incidents-in-2025/explore?filters=eyJPRkZFTlNFIjpbIkhPTUlDSURFIl0sIlJFUE9SVF9EQVQiOlsxNzM1Njk3OTA0MDAwLDE3NTU3MzMzMzgwMDBdfQ%3D%3D&amp;location=38.868227%2C-76.978083%2C10.76&amp;showTable=true&amp;style=REPORT_DAT) the last time this happened was in May, going 9 days without a homicide. Before that, they went 16 days without one in Feb/March. Also several other instances of 6 days, 5 days, etc throughout the year. 

Obviously, this admin is going to want to claim success so they can attempt to justify this type of extreme behavior. Same pattern they use for everything. I don't buy it.

SpecialistSquash2321

I mean, it’s too short a time to tell, but it’s not a big surprise. Whenever some kind of trouble happens in authoritarian places like China, they usually send in the People’s Armed Police to pacify the area.

But I really don’t know if it’s a good idea to take crime fighting cues from China.

BozoFromZozo

Crime is a long term problem that requires a long term solution. Cities can lower crime quickly for short term events (and they will do it if they’re hosting the Super Bowl, the Olympics or an international summit), but it’s expensive and doesn’t change long term crime patterns. 

We can’t keep National Guard troops on the streets forever—they have civilian careers and it undercuts their readiness for actual military use.  If Republicans want extra DC police, just fund extra DC police.

NomadLexicon

Whether or not it works is ENTIRELY BESIDES THE POINT.

washtucna

As everybody's pointed out, it makes sense to see crime go down, because EVERYTHING is going down when nobody wants to leave their houses. 

Also, frankly I don't think I believe these numbers if they were compiled by Trump's appointees. They were certainly just make numbers up.

Poorly-Drawn-Beagle

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

formerfawn

Also, DC Police Union link (stats lower right of page)

[https://dcpoliceunion.com](https://dcpoliceunion.com)

SovietRobot

I would say you can always cherry pick data to make a point. I mean, crime was way down during COVID lockdown too but no one wants to go back to that. 

Or if I was feeling spicy I'd say "unless this is supposed to be permanent why should I care," then come over the top with all of the times conservatives shot down efforts to fight global warming and ask why the same logic didn't work then. 


Basically I think anyone who wants to justify the national guard being used like this is most interested in gloating.

kyew

No shit… put multiple states worth of national guard retinues patrolling the streets and not much is gonna happen.

I’m sure the streets of Berlin in 1939 were real safe too (if you weren’t a Jew)

conn_r2112

XoSpookyBabeXo

Someone commented a week is too short a time period to successfully gauge which is a pretty good point.

Assuming the trend continues it really puts the lie to the claim made constantly in 2020 that there's no relationship between police numbers and crime rates (which was always demonstrably false)

El Salvador went from having a murder rate of 100/100K to 1/100K between 2015 and 2024. They achieved this by becoming a regressive police state that locks up and holds people on suspicion of being a gang member on the flimsiest evidence.

There's a benefit, but there's a cost too.

I think anyone being honest would rather live in a society with some slight risk of facing violent crime than in a regressive police state where you could be hauled off to jail for no reason.

It's also worth pointing out that the reason trump is doing this is because "Big Balls" got assaulted not because of a rapid surge in violent crime in DC so it's not about the overarching trend.

DayChiller

I would say BS. What is down however is shopping, dining, entertainment, business productivity and FREEDOM

Carlyz37

Tell them other countries banned guns, and the number of gun deaths went down significantly.

KingBlackFrost

Matar_Kubileya

It's making the city safer.

How much extra does this cost?

When will it be rolled out across the country?

When will it target high crime areas in red states?

How much will *that* cost?

How many people are / will be arrested and detained on no grounds? How much is being put aside for the inevitable lawsuits?

How will this work in open carry states?

There's no plan here.

stopped_watch

The justice dept already recently released statistics showing a sharp decline in violent crime rates showing that they were at a 20 or 30 year low iirc. With that in mind, effectively declaring martial law to solve a problem that is already significantly shifting in a positive direction seems extremely flimsy to me, so what are his actual goals with this move?

But sure putting an armed cop or soldier on every street corner reduces crime even further. How far should we go in that authoritarian direction though? I could theoretically reduce meth manufacturing by sending soldiers at a large enough scale to search random homes in rural counties in an effort to root out drug manufacturers. Ofc conservatives would largely be against that move because they don't actually care about reducing crimes, but about owning the libs which enacting a military lockdown on liberal areas does in their minds.

TheSheetSlinger

There is pretty solid evidence that just having police out and about reduces crime.  It's completely unsurprising having a ton of national guardsmen around is producing similar results.

Kerplonk

When people would rather stay home than deal with hostile, armed militia to move around the city, of course crime is going to drop. Domestic violence probably won’t but yeah. It’s just like the Covid shut downs. When people are stuck inside, crime goes down ( except domestic abuse like I mentioned earlier). 

But just like with the shutdown, when it’s over, crime rates will go back up. He only has the National Guard for 30 days. What do you think is going to happen when they leave and it’s just the regular old DCPD? Yep, crime rates will go back up. 

This feels like a strong man photo op and a martial law test for the future. They are trying to gauge how people are reacting to the extra government troops occupying their city.

Edit: someone else said this and I agree and think it bares repeating, all of this because BigBalls or whatever the fuck his name is got his ass kicked, not because of some imaginary spike in violent crime.

Felon73

I would ask for actual proof and not some FAUX News article that has claims like   
"For the first time in a long time" and "xyz have decreased by XX%" with absolutely NO context or timeline. Decreased when? over an hour? a day? Was the shit already decreasing and this is the trend? 

Then I'd condescendingly remind them that "correlation doesn't mean causation, dummy." which they should have learned around high school.

Then I'd probably laugh and say that one cannot make any conclusions about the effectiveness of national gaurds in DC against crime this early and that doing so highlights the sort of anti-intellectualism and ignorance that drives the right and makes me not trust a word they say with regards to anything scientific or mathematic. 

I'd conclude by telling them wait a year and have actual researchers and statisticians look into it and conclude that National Guards successfully magically deterred the non-existent crime wave simply by eating shake shack and pizza Downtown all day and then we'll talk.

partoe5

"Public Safety" and "decreasing crime" are not the same thing.  We could cut crime to almost nothing but locking up every man between the ages of 15 and 30 in solitary confinement, but that's obviously not in the interest of public safety.  

The question is really how do we deal with crime:

A) Effectively
B) With limited resources
C) Without unduly restricting the rights of people
D) Without allowing excessive abuses of the state

Is having the FBI patrol a tourist trap corner in DC the best use of their time, or would we be safer if they were investigating white nationalist terror groups (which Trump has deprioritized despite them being the biggest risk factors for terror attacks in the US)?  Is having ATF harass homeless people in a park a better use of their time than investigating actual cartels?  Would we be better off if the National Guard was working their actual day jobs instead of costing us millions on this deployment to reduce property crime by, what, 30% from already fairly low numbers? I think the answer to all of those is pretty no.

link3945

Why would you believe any reporting on what is and is not happening in the city right now? Somehow the introduction of thousands of people with weapons is not really clicking intuitively with an argument that there are less homicides or violent crimes.

pronusxxx

Both-Estimate-5641

Tokyo and Berlin were probably the safest cities in the world until the 1940s. Was the trade off worth it?

Abject-Sky4608

I would say that those who sacrifice liberty for security will have neither.

WhatUsername69420

Whether it works or not isn't the point (and their statistics will be bullshit anyway). The point is instilling fear and ramping up the authoritarianism. This is tyranny, plain and simple. I don't give a shit about crime in this case. THIS is what we fought against in WWIi. It's what the Revolution was about. How can anyone not see that? You sound pretty much like all those people who liked Mussolini because he made the trains run on time. This is so completely un American. I don't get why everyone doesn't see that.

SpecialistRaccoon907

I know Trump probably wants the midterms to be cancelled, but why deploy the National Guard to blue cities now?

Helpful hint for anyone in these cities. It is very easy to destroy the troops' morale. All you have to do is make them feel unwanted and unwelcome. Scowl and look at them with disgust, make uncomfortable eye contact, don't hold doors for them, tell them they are unwelcome here or that they should go home ( don't yell it just say it under your breath loud enough for them to hear.) And last of all don't be hostile just remove all kindness toward them. It is a form of passive resistance.

Classicman269

They want a reaction. And I fear they may get it soon.

ToadallyNormalHuman

The people in Chicago should know about the time the government dropped a bomb in the middle of Philadelphia. Bet most people didn't learn about that in school.

xibeno9261

The main objective is to provoke and get a violent reaction.  Then he declares martial law and cancels the midterm elections

OccidoViper

GirlYearning

gGfsF5Sz2

Cities and states should turn this around on him.  Invite and request he sends the military, national guard or active duty, to your cities and states.  Welcome the troops as guests, as just as other visitors they are spending money in your communities and contributing to the local economy.  And the cost to the federal government will just keep climbing and he will have to figure a way to pay for all this.  It's not like they will have anything to do, in fact throw a party for them to show your support for them.  Have signs showing your support and include several others showing your indifference to trump's actions in this.

Imaginary_Bus_6742

Remember when they used to call Obama King, Muslim, monkey, low IQ, dictator, fascist, socialist, etc.

They same idiots that voted for Trump. Except Trump fits their world views and he's white.

Explicit_Tech

A president who could speak above a 3rd grade level. I miss those days.

Prancing-Hamster

Jade Helm - this was the Texas conspiracy where they were going to put people in CDC camps

cornucopiaofdoom

I’m confused.  This guy was president, but he speaks in complete sentences, conveys cogent thoughts, remains on a single point for more than two seconds, and, what’s the other thing?  Oh yeah, isn’t a rapist felon wannabe dictator.

jomama823

A federal appeals court has ruled against President Trump's request to deploy the National Guard in Illinois amid ongoing immigration protests.

Trump Administration National Guard Deployment Controversy

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