https://www.nytimes.com/2025/0...publican-states.html

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Trump’s Crime Strategy Chicago Rejects Plan
2 Weeks, 1,000 Arrests Grand Juries Reject Indictments.

Crime Festers in Republican States While Their Troops Patrol Washington
Republican governors who have mustered National Guard troops for deployment in blue-state cities may re-examine their deployments if federal intervention significantly brings crime down.


David W. Chen
By David W. Chen
Sept. 1, 2025
Updated 2:38 p.m. ET


When Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, dispatched his National Guard troops to Washington to support President Trump’s crackdown on crime, Democrats and other critics wondered why he didn’t keep them within state lines.

Memphis, after all, has long been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, with a murder rate about twice as high as the nation’s capital, according to F.B.I. statistics. Nashville has a higher rate of violent crime than Washington as well.

The same questions could be asked of other Republican governors like Greg Abbott in Texas, Mike DeWine in Ohio and Mike Kehoe in Missouri, since cities under their purview all have higher rates of violent crime than the nation’s capital. Yet no Republican governor has asked for federal intervention.

The image of red-state governors mustering uniformed troops for duty in blue-state cities has left many Americans with the foreboding sense of a nation dangerously divided, perhaps even drifting toward open conflict. Mr. Trump denied statistical reality last week when he was asked whether he might send federal forces into high-crime cities in Republican-led states. “Sure,” he said, “but there aren’t that many.”

There are that many: Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, Mo.; Birmingham, Ala.; Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo, Ohio; Tulsa, Okla.; Memphis and Nashville; Houston; Little Rock, Ark.; Salt Lake City; and Shreveport, La., all have crime rates comparable to Washington’s, according to F.B.I. statistics.

But the reality of Mr. Trump’s deployments in Washington has also not matched the stark “invasion” rhetoric of some Democrats, who have raised the specter of an uninvited occupying force in their cities. Indeed, Republican governors who have so far declined to ask the president for an intervention in their cities might be tempted to rethink that stance.

The supplementary forces in Washington, provided by and funded by Mr. Trump, have had a noticeable impact, at least in the short term. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has softened her tone on the deployment, crediting it for “more accountability” and a reduction in some crimes, particularly carjackings.

Even in Chicago, which Mr. Trump has said may be next in his crime agenda, the signals lately have been mixed. Brandon Johnson, the city’s progressive Democratic mayor, has stood resolutely against his streets being “occupied by federal troops,” but his police chief, Larry Snelling, has struck a softer tone. If the National Guard were to flood his city, Mr. Snelling told reporters last week, he hoped that with better communication, local and federal forces could “find some type of balance” and avoid “an adversarial environment.”

Red-state governors sending their National Guard troops to blue-state cities is just another example of the political divide in the country that has become the standard. It is also another example of Republicans going out of the way to curry favor with Mr. Trump.

Republican governors did not want to answer why they were willing to send their National Guard troops to Washington while not inviting the same attention to their cities.

In Texas, Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesman for Mr. Abbott, declined to comment on whether the governor had made any specific requests of Mr. Trump to help fight crime in San Antonio or Houston. The question, he said, should be directed to the Department of Homeland Security.

Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Governor DeWine, said under Ohio law, mayors would have to request any assistance from the state, and “no current mayoral requests for National Guard assistance” have come in.

Aides to Governor Lee of Tennessee did not respond to the question.

Adam Gelb, the president and chief executive of the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research organization, stated what he said was obvious — Mr. Trump is not basing his interventions on crime rates.

“The federal government almost never does anything based on pure statistics,” Mr. Gelb said. “No administration would just look at a chart and go straight down the list based on rates of violence.”

Jeffrey A. Butts, executive director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, noted that even in Washington, federal resources are not actually being targeted where they would make the most difference, in high-crime neighborhoods far from the photogenic monuments and government buildings where National Guard troops are patrolling.

“If you accept the premise that it is OK to use military resources in the name of securing public safety, which is very debatable and I think historically should be rejected, they would be in the communities with the highest rates of gun violence,” Mr. Butts said.

“They’re not doing it to improve public safety,” he continued. “It’s designed to humiliate political opponents.”

But if Mr. Trump has a political imperative, so do his targets. States need to balance their budgets, unlike the federal government. The federal government is covering the cost of more than 2,000 National Guard troops sent to Washington from six states, at an estimated cost of $1 million a day. That serves as a reminder that such resources could also be available in other cities, if requested.

Federal support for local policing has also had a long history of bipartisan support. Ms. Bowser is one of many Democratic politicians who have sought to put more police on the beat but have run up against budget constraints. Democrats in Congress have been the primary champions of federal assistance for local police forces through the Community Oriented Policing Services — or COPS — program, first passed as part of President Bill Clinton’s crime bill in 1994.

Federal-local partnerships have always shown promise, said Thomas Abt, founding director of the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction at the University of Maryland. Working with mayors and local officials, the center has become involved with violence reduction efforts in Memphis and Knoxville, Tenn., as well as St. Louis and Boston.

In all four cities, reforms have emphasized intervening with the people and places at the highest risk of violence, balancing accountability with empathy, and maintaining legitimacy and credibility in high-crime communities, said Mr. Abt, who wrote a book on violence reduction, “Bleeding Out.”

Knoxville, St. Louis and Boston have seen violent crime rates decline faster than the national average, he said, and Memphis — the newest city to partner with the center — is on track to join them.

“Reducing crime is a team sport,” he said. “Mayors and governors would appreciate sustained support and sustained collaboration from their federal partners. They always have and they always will.”

But Democratic governors say that vision has little in common with the masked federal agents and uniformed military troops on Washington’s streets. In a statement last week, 19 Democratic governors said the president had cut federal funding for law enforcement and was undermining their authority over their respective National Guards.

“Whether it’s Illinois, Maryland and New York or another state tomorrow, the president’s threats and efforts to deploy a state’s National Guard without the request and consent of that state’s governor is an alarming abuse of power, ineffective, and undermines the mission of our service members,” the governors said.

David W. Chen reports on state legislatures, state level policymaking and the political forces behind them.

Blue cities

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
Blue cities

What is the point?

Both deranged parties could not care less about their citizens.

All that matters is who gets more bribe money and get to rule!

Your system is the most OPENLY CORRUPT political system in the WORLD!

Everything boils down to DONATIONS!

BRIBES!