Trump’s Crime Crackdown Is a Political Winner

I've heard a great many people debate whether Voldemort has the right to deploy National Guard troops in DC or anyone else.

They're forgetting the "customer". That's right, last time I checked, our government is supposed to be for the "people" (ergo the customer). If Trump's actions in DC lower crime and make the customer happy, it's a good idea. If not, it's a bad idea. Period.

It turns out that crime has dropped significantly in the nation's capital since the Dark Lord took action. That's not the important thing...it's the only thing?

https://www.spritzlerreport.com/post/has-crime-gone-down-since-voldemort-brough-in-troops-to-washington

Trump’s Crime Crackdown Is a Political Winner

Residents of dangerous neighborhoods finally have someone in the White House who’s listening.

By Jason L. Riley

Aug. 26, 2025 4:59 pm ET

Does the name Hadiya Pendleton ring a bell?

In 2013, Hadiya performed as a majorette with her high-school band at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. About a week later, the 15-year-old sophomore was shot dead in the afternoon at a park on Chicago’s South Side, about a mile from where the Obamas had a home.

Hadiya and her friends, members of the school volleyball team, had scurried under a canopy after it began to rain. A short time later, a gunman jumped a fence, ran toward the group and opened fire, mistaking them for rival gang members. Hadiya was shot in the back. Two other students were wounded. “As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy,” her godfather told reporters. “He hits the one that hurts the most to lose. I changed her diapers. I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.”

According to police, Hadiya’s death came on the same day that Chicago recorded its 40th, 41st and 42nd homicides of the year. It was still January. During the previous year, the city had experienced more than 500 homicides. Michelle Obama attended Hadiya’s funeral, and Mr. Obama mentioned the shooting in his State of the Union address.

It isn’t uncommon for children to be gunned down in the nation’s third-largest city, where in some neighborhoods you’re not even safe hanging out with friends inside your home. A year after Hadiya was killed, 11-year-old Shamiya Adams was fatally shot in the head while attending a sleepover. The Chicago Tribune reported that the “bullet had entered an open window, penetrated a bedroom closet and went through a wall before striking Shamiya.” During a single summer weekend in 2018, 12 people in Chicago were killed and more than 70 were shot, including an 11-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl. The emergency room of a local hospital turned away ambulances for several hours because it didn’t have room for additional patients.

Earlier this month, President Trump announced a federal takeover of law enforcement in the District of Columbia, citing its persistently elevated violent crime rate. National Guard troops were deployed to the capital to support the police, and Mr. Trump has indicated that Chicago and other urban areas may be next. On Monday, he signed an executive order aimed at forcing cities to end the use of cashless bail, which allows suspects to be released from custody without putting up money to ensure that they’ll show up at trial. Most violent crime is committed by previous offenders, and limiting the discretion of judges and prosecutors to detain suspects until their court dates can make streets less safe.

Mr. Trump’s detractors note that crime is down since spiking during Covid and the George Floyd protests. On average that’s true, but it doesn’t necessarily apply to the hardest-hit communities in every jurisdiction. Nor were pre-pandemic crime rates in many big cities anything to brag about. Whether the president’s actions can withstand legal challenges remains to be seen.

Washington is a federal district where federal law grants the president authority that, with some exceptions, only governors have in their respective states. Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge that this week when he said he hadn’t received a request for help from Illinois. “And I think until I get that request,” he said, “I’m not going to do anything about it.”

What we do know for certain is that Mr. Trump’s law-and-order offensive is upsetting all the right people, from liberal activists to progressive elected officials to the mainstream media. The political left has been in near-complete control of large urban areas where high violent crime rates have been tolerated for decades. Mr. Trump’s loudest critics tend not to live in neighborhoods where gunfire is so common that you turn up the television volume to drown out the noise, and you sleep on the floor at night in the summer because bullets sometimes come through walls.

Mr. Trump obviously believes public safety is an issue that helps him politically. He also knows that time spent talking about crime is time not spent discussing Jeffrey Epstein or public skepticism about tariffs. Nevertheless, for millions of families who live in depressed communities because they can’t afford to move, violent crime isn’t an abstraction. Personal safety is something they must think about daily, and Mr. Trump deserves credit for highlighting their plight.

The liberal response to crime has been to pamper lawbreakers and crack down on law enforcement, even while residents of dangerous low-income neighborhoods have consistently demanded more and better policing. They finally have someone in the White House who’s listening.