Made-for-TV Authoritarianism

D.C. residents are flooding social media with critical reality checks on Trump's takeover scheme. Local news is also doing important on-the-ground reporting.

Donald Trump’s show of force in the nation’s capital has nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with militarized politics. His concern about public safety is a ruse to create conflict and grab more power. Trump does not give a damn about Washington, D.C. and the people who call it home.

This ugly spectacle is made-for-TV authoritarianism starring camera-ready masked agents using intimidating military hardware for props. Like everything Trump does, the goal is to create pro-MAGA content to drive news cycles. As usual, right-wing media is all in on the Trump propaganda even advocating for him to send troops to other blue cities.

But local news in D.C. is doing a good job of sticking with the reality on the ground, with lots of first-hand reporting including this from Slate’s Christina Cauterucci who wrote “What I witnessed was an idyllic scene of American tourism,” detailed explainers like this from The 51st and regular fact checking of White House claims especially from NBC-4.

Local D.C. residents are also playing a key role in telling accurate stories about their city. Some are doing videos that show off beautiful parts of D.C. Many others are aggressively documenting reaction to the sudden occupation of their city by over 2,000-plus National Guard and the myriad of agents from ICE, FBI, DEA, AFT, Park Police, and the local DC Metropolitan Police.

Screen grab of deliver driver arrest filmed by Tyler Desue

Social media is full of examples:

• Yesterday, my UberEats driver got arrested by ICE while he was delivering my food …“I stepped into the streets and I saw police lights … he was being questioned by eight or nine ICE officers.

• Roughly 20 police and ICE officers on 13th & I NE to arrest a delivery driver. He is sobbing and asking to call his family. A group of neighbors have assembled to try and help him but the agents are yelling at us to go away.

• Food delivery driver just taken away in foot shackles by federal agents in Shaw at 8th & R.

Across the city, eyewitness accounts testify to how Trump’s forces are hunting down black and brown immigrants in the middle of busy DC neighborhoods. Videos show food delivery drivers, in particular, being grabbed, sometimes violently tackled to the ground, even jolted with tasers, before being hauled away in handcuffs by burly, masked, and unidentified officers. The mopeds and bikes that are left behind on the street are eventually added to a growing pile in the back of a police truck.

Videos of these on-going arrests are racking up enormous views and being featured prominently in local and national news coverage. A Washington Post reporter took this video of “federal agents violently detained a food delivery driver as he emerged from a D.C. coffee shop Saturday morning.”

Another first hand account was shared with a reporter for The Bulwark. Independent journalist Marisa Kabas was also provided a clip that included one of the agents openly identifying with Trump’s politics.

Kabas wrote:

You guys are ruining this country. You know that, right?” one bystander said to the agents at one point during the incident. An agent, ironically clad in a rainbow face mask, replied “Liberals already ruined it.”

‘I Did It. I Threw the Sandwich’

If you doubt for one second that this is militarized politics unrelated to actual law enforcement, consider the case of the sandwich thrower. A since-fired DOJ employee was filmed throwing a sandwich at one of the many agents milling around uselessly on a D.C. street. Sean Dunn said,“I did it. I threw a sandwich” after he was quickly arrested.

The sandwich-thrower incident inspired Banksy-like posters throughout the city. But then something fishy happened. Dunn offered to surrender to police but they weren’t interested. Instead, a 10-person tactical team in “full raid gear" showed up at his apartment with … you guessed it, a Trump camera crew. Then he was arrested. The Advocate described it this way:

“It looked less like an arrest and more like a state-produced movie trailer. On Thursday, the White House posted a professionally edited, multi-camera video titled “Nighttime Routine: Operation Make D.C. Safe Again Edition” showing heavily armed law enforcement officers converging on a West End apartment building in Washington, D.C.”

The end result: Dunn went to jail and a full-blown Trump hype video was posted from the White House social media account. Hype videos are a big part of Trump’s unprecedented federal takeover. For example, when J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth visited D.C.’s Union Station, it was nothing more than a photo shoot. Democratic House staffer Aaron Fritschner noted:

“They're making another hype video, that's what this is for. Count the photographers and cameras and phones, the ones inside security are all Trump people, not press, and there are a bunch of them. This whole occupation is just one big photo op to JD Vance and Stephen Miller.”

Residents have caught these propaganda moments in action: Some filmed government workers making videos of armed, masked men strolling through the capitol city; a local ring camera caught federal agents vandalizing a community protest sign to use as content in another video.

Reality Bites

The videos shot by locals and news reporters offer real evidence of the lies underpinning Trump’s made for tv authoritarianism. One of the very first viral clips came from local TV news anchor Lorenzo Hall of WUSA9-TV who saw DEA agents walking in the National Mall, a part of D.C. with literally zero crime.

That was just one of many videos that showed groups of uniformed soldiers in high profile, already-safe tourist spots. There were also countless videos and photos – many by unsettled DC locals – of the parked armored military equipment that suddenly appeared in many public spaces, the tricked-out ICE vehicles, showy traffic stops in busy commercial areas, and clusters of soldiers now wandering throughout the Metro stops.

None of this is making anyone safer. Arrests are actually down from before the federal incursion. New polling by the Washington Post shows most DC resident feel less safe now and “a 79% majority of DC residents oppose Trump’s order … with just 17% supportive of the decision. Most, 69%, say they’re strongly opposed.”

We should expect increased encounters, further violence, and more political propaganda opportunism from the authoritarian-in-chief showcasing his militarized politics. Meanwhile, D.C. residents are fighting back — with cameras in hand.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.” Read the original column here.

---