Occupation, Not Liberation

Trump’s ‘Liberation’ of D.C. is destroying our capital.

Over the past two weeks, Washington, D.C., has become the stage of Trump’s latest show of force. More than 2,200 National Guard troops now line our streets, setting up checkpoints, sweeping homeless encampments, and patrolling metro stations and public areas. At Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s direction, guard members are now armed. And six Republican governors have even shipped their own Guard members here to help make D.C. “safe and beautiful.”

But safe and beautiful for whom?

What is happening in our capital has nothing to do with safety. This is intimidation. And it is harming the most vulnerable who call D.C. home—unhoused neighbors, immigrants, international students, and people of color. As D.C. schools reopened this week, children and families fear ICE and law enforcement looming presence throughout the city. That is not protection; that is persecution.

Trump insists this is about a “crime emergency”, but the Department of Justice announced earlier this year that violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. The truth is much simpler, and darker. This is an authoritarian “presence patrol,” a tactic meant not to reduce crime but to remind ordinary people—commuters, workers, families—of who holds power. A colleague said this week, “If you want to know what an authoritarian takeover looks like, just look outside your window.”

I am outraged, but I am not surprised. Trump has been signaling this all along. He deployed the Guard to enforce his immigration crackdowns at the southern border. In June, he federalized California’s Guard to crush peaceful protests. And I remember 2020, when he called troops from 11 states to pour into D.C. to surveil those crying out for justice after George Floyd’s murder. Back then, I felt anger and fear in the presence of those uniforms. That feeling is only sharper now.

The National Guard is meant to protect people during disasters and crises, like they did in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19. Now, Trump is twisting their purpose, turning them into an occupying force to protect the powerful—the white elite. Sending state Guard troops into D.C. at a president’s whim is not just reckless, it is unconstitutional. If Trump extends this to Chicago or New York, we will be living through a constitutional crisis. Our democracy itself is at stake.

Trump has called this a “Liberation Day.” But what kind of liberation comes at the barrel of a weapon? In the Gospels, liberation meant healing, feeding, restoring life, and dignity. Jesus proclaimed freedom to the oppressed, not domination of the weak. Trump has emptied the truth from the word ‘liberation’ and fueled it with fear. That is not the word of God. It is a false gospel.

But here in D.C., real liberation is stirring. At 8 p.m. each night since the occupation began, neighbors step outside, banging pots and pans in defiance. The Free DC project and countless community organizers are leading marches that grow louder every evening. This is what democracy looks like. It's people rising together, refusing to be silenced or intimidated.

But we need more action. People of West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, call your governors. Demand they bring your Guards members home. As Bob Dylan once sang in another time of racial violence and political manipulation, people can be made “only a pawn in their game.” D.C. is not a pawn in Trump’s game. Neither is your state.

The power of the people is greater than the fear of the few. We cannot allow an authoritarian takeover to succeed. We cannot submit to the lie that safety comes from domination or that salvation comes through force. It comes from communities in solidarity, neighbors in resistance, people in hope. And that is a power no president can occupy or control.

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