"Make yourselves invisible - until you strike": Trump's most dangerous attack on civil order

In Washington, a political experiment is currently underway whose explosive force extends far beyond the boundaries of the District of Columbia. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has placed the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under his direct control - based on an emergency clause in the Home Rule Act that allows the president, in alleged crisis situations, to take over police authority and deploy the National Guard. What is disguised as a temporary measure is in reality an unprecedented encroachment on the self-government of a city that denied the president its allegiance by 90.3 percent in the last election. Trump is using the construction of a "state of emergency" to create a dangerous precedent - the de facto militarization of a civilian capital against the express will of its elected leadership. In a city whose crime rate in 2024 reached its lowest level in three decades and continued to fall in the first half of 2025, the president resorts to a constitutionally highly questionable measure - and surrounds it with martial rhetoric. "Now they can do whatever the hell they want," he declared about the security forces. This is not only a political declaration of war, but a direct affront to the principle of the rule of law limiting state power.

The picture that emerges on Washington's streets is still diffuse: FBI and ICE agents, some in plain clothes, patrol nightlife districts, while the National Guard is to be present with 200 soldiers at strategic intersections - without the right to arrest, while the federal agents do have that right. The operational strategy is clear: no open mass searches as in Los Angeles, but a mix of covert presence and targeted interventions. Yet it is precisely this form of "invisible" military-police presence that is extremely dangerous: it evades public oversight, shifts the balance of power toward the executive, and creates a climate of latent intimidation. In terms of human rights, this step is a regression to an era in which the state's monopoly on the use of force was no longer determined by constitutional principles but by political calculation. The United States is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), whose Articles 21 and 22 guarantee the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association. These rights may only be restricted under strict conditions and in a proportionate manner - conditions that are obviously not met here. The use of federal power is not aimed at averting a real danger, but at provoking reactions in order to then act repressively under the pretext of "public safety".

Trump's strategy is transparent: he wants things to blow up. He wants images of angry demonstrators that he can brand as "rioters" to reinforce his narrative as the "law and order" president. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser explicitly warned against being provoked into violence and instead called for reviving the movement for D.C. statehood. For a city without full state rights remains vulnerable to precisely such takeovers - and the Constitution of the United States offers only limited protection here. Particularly perfidious is that Trump justifies this measure with the "fight against crime" while the official statistics show exactly the opposite. According to a Washington Post poll from May, 50 percent of residents consider crime to be "very serious" or "extremely serious", yet this perception is out of proportion to the actual trend. Here Trump exploits a well-known dynamic: the subjective fear of crime is greater in many segments of the population - especially among lower-income and Black residents - than the objective danger situation would justify.

Added to this is the social component. Trump wants to break up homeless encampments, move residents into shelters or jail them, and bluntly spoke of "getting rid of slums." This is not social policy, this is social cleansing - a targeted displacement of the poorest parts of the city's population, who in Washington come mainly from the Black working class. The structural lack of well-paid, non-academic jobs is not addressed but papered over with police force. The constitutional dimension is alarming: The Home Rule Act does formally allow the federal takeover of the D.C. police, but it sets a 30-day limit unless Congress votes for an extension. In a polarized political climate, however, even the temporary show of force could be enough to set new standards - and encourage future presidents to intervene in the self-government of unwanted cities whenever politically opportune. This contradicts the federal spirit of the U.S. Constitution and undermines the separation of powers.

What we are seeing in Washington is more than a test run for authoritarian urban policy. It is an attempt to normalize the state of emergency - with methods that mock the spirit of democratic rule of law. Anyone who believes this is a one-time measure underestimates the logic of power that Trump is establishing here: Federal power becomes an instrument of political punishment, the police become the extended arm of a president who feels bound by no institutional restraint. The world has seen how fragile democracies collapse - not through sudden coups, but through the gradual hollowing out of their institutions, accompanied by a language that sells toughness as a virtue and defames freedom as a disruptive factor. Washington today is a laboratory for this method. And anyone who takes the Constitution seriously should understand: This is not just about 30 days of police control. This is about the core of the republican order and about whether human rights still have a secure place in the U.S. capital.

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