(Bloomberg opinion) -It was a busy week for the Trump administration-a state visit to the United Kingdom, a suppression of free speech after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and more partisan pressure applied to the Federal Reserve. In the midst of all, you can be forgiven because you have barely noted that President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he has established the Memphis Safe Task Force, a precursor to the deployment of troops in the national guard in another US city. And this is perhaps the most worrying of everything: mobilizing troops to US cities is almost ordinary. The details are still emerging, but a boom of boots on the ground in an American city that has led the country to be more popular in violent crime than many Democrats will be willing to admit. Trump’s diagnosis that crime is a big problem echoes many Americans. According to an AP-Norc poll released on Friday, 53% of the country finds it acceptable for the national guard to help police in major cities. But by calling on emergency forces when emergencies do not exist to use violence if it is unjustified, Trump is not only testing the boundaries of his legal authority, but he is building the predicate for something that America has not seen since the reconstruction of non-military control over civil law enforcement duties. In any other country we call what it is: a police state. The president’s deployment of troops to large urban areas is in line with his battle approach to domestic policy. He intends that his newly re -mentioned “Department of War” does everything, from cleaning the city streets to the shooting of suspected drug runners. After Kirk’s murder, Trump administration officials also investigated ‘radical leftist’ groups that they started as ‘household terrorists’. After a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s decision to take over the California National Guard and take over troops to Los Angeles without the consent of Governor Gavin Newsom illegally, he signed an executive order that had defense secretary Pete Hegseth to create a national guard ‘quick reaction’. “Trump rejected a manner of them, and it did the step by step, just as we did in DC. to deploy troops to memphis. He then claimed inaccurate, “We now have virtually no crime in DC.” Make no mistake, it’s not really about reducing crime. The use of the National Guard to strengthen the work of the urban police can briefly lower crime rates, but if the attempt does not address the core managers of crime – such as too few work and too many guns – little is likely to change. This is clear from what happened when the governments of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil Soldiers with high crime rates sent to the police cities. “In each of these cases, the results show that it did not have an effect on crime at all, or things just got worse,” said Robert Blair, an associate professor of political science at Brown University who studied the military policing intervention in Cali, Colombia. “This strategy is at its best ineffective, and it’s probably counterproductive,” Blair told me. Trump’s approach to crime is political theater, not a long -term solution. If he was really interested in lowering crime figures, he would not have reduced money for local law enforcement programs that were successful. That he pursues this goal parallel to a suppression of political criticism that he restarts as “domestic terrorism” makes it even more frightening. Even governors who can welcome the help of troops of the national guard are facing legal obstacles to give Trump what he wants. For example, Tennessee Law enables the governor only to deploy the National Guard to respond to an “invasion, disaster, rebellion, riot, attack or combination.” It would be difficult to offer a crime wave, as one, especially if the state and local data indicate that crime in Memphis, including violent crime, is low at 25 years. But that doesn’t mean GOP -Govers will not try. Trump appeals the verdict who said his deployment from Federal Troops to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which was accepted after the reconstruction and prohibited the military from enforcing civil laws, except during limited circumstances such as a revolt. For Trump to deploy the army to do police work in Memphis, as he suggests, the courts will have to allow a dangerous extension of the law. But say he succeeds. The result may not be that cities feel safer. Trump’s national guard and excessive penalty approaches could increase crime, according to a growing evidence of evidence from researchers of criminal justice. A recent report by the Brookings institution found that these attempts to impose federal and state control over local policing policies are “the antithesis of an evidence-based approach and jeopardizing a significant negative consequences for the community and fiscal well-being.” Nick Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, a non -profit organization, a military presence in the city, made a military presence in urban neighborhoods feel that things are worse than they prevent, a non -profit organization. This fear can promote support for draconian law enforcement measures that are very visible, even if it is not effective. “In our work, we have found that this kind of policy does not have a measurable impact on crime for people to love them,” Blair told me. “The more intense people are exposed to it, the more they liked it.” Trump has always painted circumstances in US cities as worse than they are, and has fear of gaining political power. But sending the national watch troops to cities if there is no emergency is legally unjustifiable. At a cost for the federal government of about $ 1 million a day, it is also unsustainable. And when it comes to reducing crime rates, it will be unsuccessful in the long run. But as the national guard troops are deployed to more and more US cities, Trump achieves something that no previous US president has ever achieved: to make the militarization of US cities normal. More from Bloomberg opinion: This column reflects the author’s personal views and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial or Bloomberg MP and his owners. Mary Ellen Class is a Political and Policy Chairman for Bloomberg opinion. She is a former head of the capital bureau for the Miami Herald, and has covered politics and the government for more than three decades. More stories like these are available on Bloomberg.com/opinion © 2025 Bloomberg LP
What is the suppression of cities that really achieve?
