The spectacle of Trump sending armed troops to patrol Washington has been framed as a response to crime, but Monica Hopkins calls it what it is: “a manufactured emergency.” As executive director of the ACLU of D.C., she sees how this false premise opened the door for federal control — the president reminding residents that, without statehood, the National Guard answers to him. What looks like security is really intimidation, she argues, meant to normalize military presence at soccer games, metro stops, and outside museums where 80 percent of locals don’t want them. And Trump is looking to expand this blueprint to other cities.
Susan Demas adds her own snapshot of that reality: photos of heavily armed troops outside the National Gallery and Lincoln Memorial on what should have been a simple family trip. For her, the more unnerving part is how quickly the unusual begins to look routine. “We’re not used to seeing people with machine guns patrolling the streets,” she says, and yet the scene is being staged to make Americans think we should. That attempt to recalibrate what freedom looks like carries both immediate human costs and long-term democratic ones.
The rise of political violence pushes the danger further. Monica acknowledges the killing of Charlie Kirk as “a tragedy,” naming it alongside the murder of Minnesota’s former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and threats to judges as part of a growing pattern. She returns often to the language of pause — “between stimulus and response, there is a space” — insisting that in that space lies democracy’s survival. Reacting with vengeance only fuels authoritarian scripts; using the tools of law, protest, and representation is what keeps self-government alive.
None of this, she reminded, is partisan. “It is a nonpartisan issue to believe in democracy,” Monica said, pointing to the Bill of Rights as the Venn diagram where right and left should still meet. Susan agrees the ACLU’s record proves the point: suing Bush, Obama, Trump, any administration that expands executive power at the expense of civil liberties. That continuity, Monica argues, is the measure of seriousness — defending the republic, if we can keep it.
Tune in to this urgent discussion about what’s at stake when intimidation becomes national policy.
America, but Make It North Korea
Flags will wave in the evening breeze. Jets will roar overhead. Abrams tanks will crawl down Constitution Avenue in a carefully choreographed show of strength.
