The theatre of authoritarianism in Trump’s America
In what is yet another controversial move, US President Donald Trump has asserted federal authority over the Washington, D.C., police department while mobilising 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital. He frames the move and deployment as a necessary response to rampant crime, but critics argue it reveals deeper authoritarian tendencies.
“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, and worse,” Trump declared during a White House news conference, adding, “This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capitol back”.
Even before the formal announcement, Trump took to his social media site, Truth Social, to proclaim: “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN!”
Veteran journalist Terry Moran, who previously co-anchored ABC’s Nightline and served as the network’s Chief White House correspondent, has been vocal in his analysis.
Moran was dismissed from ABC following social media posts criticising President Trump and Stephen Miller, after which he transitioned to independent journalism on Substack.
Moran described the unfolding events as “the theatre of authoritarianism,” likening them to “The kind of thing you’d see in South America in the 1950s” or “the [Viktor] Orban [Hungarian] playbook.”
“Put troops on the streets even if they aren’t really needed,” he emphasised.
This perspective appears to have some foundation when one reads of the pushback from local officials like D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalbe, who denounced the president’s decisions as “unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.”
In a post on X, Schwalbe stated, “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year and is down another 26 per cent so far this year.”
Data from the Metropolitan Police Department backs this up, showing double-digit declines in key categories for 2025 thus far, including homicide, sexual abuse, assault with a dangerous weapon, robbery, and overall violent crime.
These facts raise a question: What is Trump’s motive? Could Trump’s intervention be a calculated diversion from the ongoing revelations about Epstein’s files? It appears to politicise military deployments for motives that extend beyond public safety.
And the scope of these actions may not be limited to D.C.
Trump has hinted at escalating to the deployment of active-duty troops if deemed necessary, though he expressed doubt it would come to that. He also signalled intentions to apply similar measures elsewhere.
“Then I’m going to look at New York, in a little while. Let’s do this. Let’s do this together. Let’s see. It’s going to go pretty quickly,” Trump remarked, adding, “And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster.”
Perhaps, as Terry Moran suggested, Trump wants people to feel the exercise of his domination, which includes the domination of any future opposition.
With limits. The Home Rule Act gives Trump the power to use the D.C. police force for “federal purposes” if the president determines there are “special conditions of an emergency nature.”
Trump can use the D.C. police for up to 48 hours, and up to 30 days if Trump sends a special message to the leaders of certain congressional committees.
Meanwhile, Republican Oversight Chair James Comer said he would haul Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Attorney General Brian Schwalb to Capitol Hill next month for a hearing. That hearing is expected to be timed to coincide with the 30-day expiration date.
To use the D.C. police for longer than 30 days, the president would need authorisation from Congress.
More importantly, and as has been articulated by people in Poland and in other autocratic regimes, where the military has been deployed and the judiciary stripped of authority, living under such a regime, Terry Moran noted, “your life gets smaller”.
A quote from Terry Moran
“Fairness in journalism is simply the honest accounting of what you have seen and heard and understood. You tell the truth. And in this moment, if you are a political reporter, the truth – what you are seeing in the United States – is clear as day. Donald Trump is trying to change the nature of our political system. He wants to rule, not govern. And he is motivated by mad hatreds and boiling resentments that erupt in public and then become policy. There has never been a president anywhere near as dangerous to constitutional governance.
“This is what is in front of our faces. These are the facts. The truth. But mainstream media cannot say it. That is a problem.
“There are two reasons for this paralysis in the fourth estate. One is silly, the other is sad.
“Silly: Mainstream news organisations are paranoid about being accused of bias by right-wingers. The Trumpist media and its allied politicos have developed an industry of outrage at what they constantly claim is bias in the mainstream media. There is, indeed, some to be found. As I said here recently, the lack of viewpoint diversity in the old media has led to missed stories, unheard voices. But the Trumpist bias police are laughably one-sided. Newsmax is a billion times more biased than anything mainstream media ever did. Fox News, too. And the ONAN network or whatever it is. The right-wing media critics aren’t serious. They don’t want unbiased news. They want news that flatters their biases. Period.
“Sad: Telling the truth about Trump has been determined by corporate America to be bad for business. The enormous powers of the presidency and executive branch in the hands of Trump can wreak havoc on even the most powerful American corporations. This has led to abject corporate surrender. The lesson Americans have learned in the last few months: the corporations will always knuckle under.
“Our country has never faced a challenge like this. The only way out of it is the way of truth. Tell it. First to yourself. Then to others. Truth-telling can be contagious. Who knows, one day you might hear it on TV.”
Roger Montgomery is the Founder and Chairman of Montgomery Investment Management. Roger has over three decades of experience in funds management and related activities, including equities analysis, equity and derivatives strategy, trading and stockbroking. Prior to establishing Montgomery, Roger held positions at Ord Minnett Jardine Fleming, BT (Australia) Limited and Merrill Lynch.
He is also author of best-selling investment guide-book for the stock market, Value.able – how to value the best stocks and buy them for less than they are worth.
Roger appears regularly on television and radio, and in the press, including ABC radio and TV, The Australian and Ausbiz. View upcoming media appearances.
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Hi Roger
I read articles like this and part of me weeps. Another part likes the volatility opportunities, but still weeps.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn:
Our freedom, after all, is menaced far more by the totalitarian than by the authoritarian principles. The latter came into being with our first parents, the former was born by the French Revolution.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn: monarchs such as Louis XIV, Frederick II, or George II are genuine liberals by modern standards. None of the aforementioned could have issued a decree whereby he drafted all male subjects into his army, a decree regulating the diet of his citizens, or one demanding a general confession of all his economic activities from the head of each household in the form of an income tax declaration. We had to wait for the democratic age to see conscription, prohibition, and modern taxation made into laws by the people’s representatives who have much greater power than even the absolute monarchs of old dreamed of.
“Our country has never faced a challenge like this” — nonsense.
Totalitarian and Dictatorial precedents are set by Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt.
A History Of The American People by Paul Johnson
America got a very strong presidency—or, rather, an office which any particular president could make strong if he chose. He was much stronger than most kings of the day, rivaled or exceeded only by the `Great Autocrat,’ the Tsar of Russia (and in practice stronger than most tsars). He was, and is, the only official elected by the nation as a whole and this fact gave him the moral legitimacy to exercise the huge powers buried in the constitutional thickets. These powers were not explored until Andrew Jackson’s time, half a century on,
During the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, Antifederalists charged that the President would become a king
Anti-Federalist No. 74: The President As Military King
Before martial law is declared to be the supreme law of the land, and your character of free citizens be changed to that of the subjects of a military king-which are necessary consequences of the adoption of the proposed Constitution.
A conspiracy against the freedom of America, both deep and dangerous, has been formed by an infernal junto of demagogues. Our thirteen free commonwealths are to be consolidated into one despotic monarchy. Is not this position obvious? Its evidence is intuitive . . . . Who can deny but the president general will be a king to all intents and purposes, and one of the most dangerous kind too-a king elected to command a standing army. Thus our laws are to be administered by this tyrant; for the whole, or at least the most important part of the executive department is put in his hands.
A quorum of 65 representatives, and of 26 senators, with a king at their head, are to possess powers that extend to the lives, the liberties, and property of every citizen of America. This novel system of government, were it possible to establish it, would be a compound of monarchy and aristocracy, the most accursed that ever the world witnessed. About 50 (these being a quorum) of the well born, and a military king, with a standing army devoted to his will, are to have an uncontrolled power. . . .