The Republic in Boots: A Farce in Full Uniform

Trump sees a border fence and he wants to paint it black

By David Shuster

In the sordid annals of American governance under the GOP, there are moments so perfectly absurd, so exquisitely obscene, they must be historically recorded and digitally preserved in whatever passes for our National Museum of Shame these days in our dying republic.

What we are now witnessing in Washington, D.C.--our supposed cradle of democracy--is precisely such a moment.

The capital city has been turned into a military garrison, ruled not by law but the whims of a lunatic strongman with delusions of Caesar dancing in his head.

The man at the center of this abomination? Donald J. Trump—twice-impeached, once-defeated, perpetually-aggrieved, convicted felon.

Trump has seized the capital not in the service of liberty, but in the self-interest of ego. With all the subtlety of a tank rolling down Georgetown’s M Street, he’s draped the city in camouflage and contempt.

Deploying armed National Guard troops through the streets as if Farragut North had suddenly become Fallujah.

This, Trump tells us, is for our safety.

Safety, in Orwellian MAGA-speak, now means suppressing dissent with military-grade optics. It means that toddlers in strollers and seniors in grocery aisles must now share the sidewalks with rifle-toting “public servants.”

Ones who take orders from a trash can of a man who once tried to overturn an election based on his his own delusions and a mob of cosplaying militiamen.

It is not governance. It is theater. Bad theater. Tinpot authoritarianism dressed up in red, white, and blue bunting.

Washington, D.C., that beleaguered capital already denied statehood many times over as well as proper representation, despite a larger population than two states. With a total G.D.P greater than 15 states. And more federal income tax contributions than 22 states.

And now it has also been robbed of even a pretense of self-rule. Militarized troops march while the D.C. mayor protests powerlessly.

Federal law enforcement, stacked with loyalist stooges in tactical uniforms, answer not to law or tradition. They answer to the whims of one deeply insecure man whose love for flags is matched only by his disdain for what they represent.

And what about the great "crime wave" that Trump says justifies all of this? Like most Trumpian claims, it is mythological.

Conjured from a poisonous stew of cable news panic and late-night social media posts.

Crime in D.C., by all meaningful measures, has continued its long decline. The murder rate and violent crime numbers last year, at the end of the Biden administration, reached a 30-year low.

There have been no spikes this year.

But facts in this administration are as unwelcome as ethics at a Mar-a-Lago donor dinner.

So, in place of reality, we get spectacle: on top of gun toting troops from across the United States stationed across D.C., Trump wants to spend $2 billion in proposed “beautification,” as if planting tulips beside machine guns might soften the image of military occupation.

What is beautified exactly? The city's facades—or the grotesque moral rot behind them?

And now, the farce is metastasizing.

Trump, high on his own fables, declares this is merely the beginning.

Chicago is next. San Francisco.

Any city that fails to genuflect before Trump’s creeping junta will be treated like the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah during the 2^nd gulf war, only with better lighting. Trump says the military troops are staying “for a while.”

Translation: until Trump is removed by force, vote, or divine intervention.

This is not the behavior of a United States president.

It is the posture of a tyrant--an aspiring autocrat whose primary talents are self-pity, grievance-mongering and forgetting what room he’s in. Trump governs by tantrum, legislates by threat, and enforces by photo op and military brigade.

Much of the country, or at least the sycophantic MAGA cultists and conservative media that still genuflect before Trump’s golden toilet, applauds.

They cheer not for liberty, but for order. Not for freedom, but for control.

The man who dodged the draft, insulted American POWs, and refused to even visit a military cemetery in his first term because it was raining, now plays Field Marshal of the Food Court, turning the seat of democracy into a potential warzone to soothe the bruised ego of a failed casino emperor.

If our nation’s founding fathers could see this disturbing spectacle, they’d choke on their powdered wigs. Our republic is not dead—but it is being gagged, handcuffed, and frog-marched down Constitution Avenue by a vulgarian with a God complex.

Washington, D.C., with a population that is 42% black, 37% white, and 12% Latino has long been treated by the GOP as a colony.

Under Trump, the humiliation, disrespect, and contempt are far worse.

---

David Shuster is an Emmy award winning broadcast journalist who is best known for his work at NBC News and as an anchor MSNBC. He is a contributor to Blue Amp Substack and co-host of our weekly show (Thursdays, 2pm et, on Substack), “Amped Up w/ Cliff Schecter.”