Photo Ops and False Narratives: Trump’s Costly Military Theater in DC

Contributed by Bob Hirshon, science guy, writer, musician

For those of you who don't live in DC, here's the situation: downtown is dead because of the heavy military presence. Trump's comments about restaurant owners thanking him because they're so busy is a lie. The only boost in business this week in DC is from the many hungry National Guard members.

The absurdity of enormous military vehicles hardened against IEDs manned by armed soldiers performing traffic stops for expired registrations, broken tail lights and operating a moped without a helmet must be apparent even to the soldiers themselves. These are the "many arrests" that Trump is spouting when he touts the success of the operation. The National Guard are not operating in the areas that experience most of the crime; they are in low-crime tourist spots that look good in photo ops.

The expense of this operation is tens of millions of dollars, and comes after Trump cut the funding of the DC police by tens of millions of dollars, despite DC having record low crime this year– far lower than cities in GOP states from which the National Guard are traveling.