Nobody can actually say why Donald Trump decided to begin an illegal seizure of Washington, DC, because the pretexts he’s offered are up-is-down false. There is no good-faith basis for doing what he’s done.

So we’re left to guess. Crime is down in DC, but the well-connected DOGE boy who likes to call himself BIG BALLS got beat up by a couple of teenagers here a few days ago, so Trump has a score to settle. He may have surmised that doing more fascist-dominance theater would suck up attention that might otherwise alight on his Epstein coverup. He also just likes to see federal officers pointing guns at people he suspects of being Democrats.

But the upshot is the same. Trump has asserted political control over the city’s police force and flooded streets with various other federal law-enforcement officers, supposedly to drive homeless people out of sight, and further reduce crime. But the overwhelming majority of us will experience it as a sucker punch—his way of proving he can provoke us without consequence.

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And Trump’s right: “we” have little recourse, at least not without putting our bodies in harms way, which he surely hopes we do. But “We” could do quite a lot about Trump’s abuses, both in DC and coming soon to a blue city near you. It’s just that none of those things is likely to happen, just as none of the things that might have preempted Trump’s abuses happened in the past.

It isn’t news to regular readers that millions of reliable Democratic voters have come to view their own party unfavorably over the past six months. That’s the only way to achieve a 63 percent unfavorability rating. Much as Democratic leaders don’t want to hear it, this stuff—the long-run unwillingness to put their bodies, jobs, and collegial relationships on the line to protect their constituents and voters—is probably the biggest reason why.

Let’s try to break them out of denial, shall we’?

‘BUSTER CRIMES...