August is typically a sleepy month in the nation’s capital. With Congress out of session, official business tends to slow to a crawl. But Donald Trump made this August quite lively by D.C. standards. Mid-month, the federal government, at the president’s behest, assumed control of the police in the city and began to deploy federal forces, including the National Guard and personnel from executive law enforcement agencies.
The deployment was just one indication of what has become one of Trump’s abiding interests in his second term: to leave a mark not only on the country but Washington, D.C., itself. Parts of this attempted transformation are to the good. Parts of it are a matter of taste. Parts of it are genuinely worrying. And despite Trump’s best efforts, much or even all of it could be ephemeral.
Comments