August 14, 2025
The last time I was in Washington DC I came out of my downtown hotel near the White House and asked the doorman which way to walk to a certain restaurant.
‘Turn left you will be fine,’ he said. ‘Turn right and you may be murdered.’ This in the hallowed capitol of the world’s most powerful nation.
I was already well familiar with the many dangers of one of America’s most crime-ridden cities. As a graduate of the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University I knew all about street crime. A girlfriend of mine, Barbara M., was raped and murdered in trendy Georgetown. A CIA officer was killed in Georgetown by a mugger. We lived in a swamp of violence and fear. The city police were useless. The city’s black mayors ordered the police to avoid antagonizing the city’s 80% black voters.
Washington once held the nation’s highest murder rate, rivaled by Baltimore, Cleveland, and Detroit. I used to own a manufacturing company across the river from Detroit. Our general manager was murdered there during a holdup.
Crime rates in the US are intolerable. The key problem arose from America’s black people. It was our curse and punishment for slavery. Millions of black Americans had no education, family, discipline or reason to observe the laws. Social problems were the cause but so was sheer lawlessness. The crime rate in South Africa’s cities, as I observed, was as bad as in the USA.
It’s rare I agree with President Trump, but this time I applaud his sending of federal agents, the National Guard and more police into DC. This is a real emergency. Even way back when I was at Georgetown U, we used to say ‘Mr. President, please send in the US Army and Marine Corps to DC’.
Until now, there has been almost no law or order in DC. No action was taken for fear of creating a major racial crisis. Democrats, who relied on black votes, thwarted effective action to impose law and order. The same thing happened – to a somewhat lesser degree – in my native New York.
Now, none too soon, comes Trump’s iron first. This is classical dictatorial behavior. Sulla did this in ancient Rome around 60 BC. Mussolini made the trains run on time. The public always prefers law and order to abstractions about proper democratic behavior, and loves political theatrics such as former showman Trump offers nightly.
Washington needs martial law. But authoritarian governance is, as was said of fire, ‘a useful servant, but a dangerous master.’ The draconian steps taken by Trump in Los Angeles and now Washington are very dangerous. The Trump administration is already too drunk on power and could become quickly addicted to using martial law to enforce its policies. Such, as noted, was the case with the Roman Republic that quickly slid into dictatorship. The Roman Senate was turned into an impotent talking shop where mad emperor Caligula proposed making his horse a senator. One would not be astounded to see such lunacy in today’s US Congress with a moonshiner made head of the FBI.
So, Trump’s imposition of law and order in Washington DC must be limited by Congress to remain only in the District of Columbia. Congress is too busy taking great sums of money from the White House – much of it’s supplied by gambling interests and a foreign `ally’. Time to think of America which should be as free of street crime as Europe.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2025
This post is in: USA
Free to throw Molotov cocktails free to shoot school children free to wear keffiyeh scarf and attack innocent civilians free to burn US flags free to participate illegal gatherings despite having social visit pass. I suppose Trump is a weak leader or too lenient towards the illegals immigrants and terrorist sympathisers. Sometimes back in June an illegal immigrant killed an elderly woman in Colorado using Molotov cocktails. In may 2025, a young couple was shot dead in Washington DC. Ironically certain groups celebrated the killings!
Look at Singapore, tiny island state, regarded as safest country to live in .Hardly one can hear about robbery, shooting, demonstration , illegals, Molotov cocktails ,keffiyeh, raising foreign countries flag, burning flags and etc. Better for US learn something from Singapore.
Violence begets violence. Murder begets murder. War leads to more war. That’s the way the rich and powerful like it. Because sex and violence keep the masses pacified and the work force obedient. Correct, Mr. Margolis?
Don’t blame gun violence on black folks.White elites don’t want to do anything to control guns. You can’t walk down the street in Wa(r)shington DC without rubbing shoulders with a war criminal.anti-racism is the ostensible order of the day, but illegal, immoral wars on weak nations of colour are the way the US Empire became rich and powerful.
American fascism was bravely exposed by the Love and Peace Generation in the 1960’s and 70’s. Nothing was done to reign in fascism or protect weakening democracy. Contrarily these last 50 years, fascism has grown and democracy has been diminished by corporate greed and the military-industrial-media complex. Trump is merely the latest most blatant iteration. The young now know democracy cannot survive greedy global corporate oligarchy. Many will welcome martial law, most will passively accept it.
Older folks should know better. Much better. Only a transformation of the economy of economic terrorism can revive democracy, bring safety to cities, revive the dream of American peace, prosperity, and harmonious communities.
I had exactly the same experience in Washington 30 years ago. The doorman said to my wife and I “And where would you be going tonight sir?” I replied to find a restaurant.
He said, “Well sir you can go right but you can’t go left.” A new world.
We saw homeless men on park benches across the street and for the first time in my life I saw a woman bedding down two small children on cardboard in the doorway of a store.
Next day there was a shirtless fellow wandering the streets with a fairly high end suitcase tote cart and he had on suit pants. He looked like a commissioned salesman who didn’t make the next sale.
Sort of a real world John Candy of Trains Planes and Automobiles.
Law and order is needed but the social and economic fabric has to be repaired.
“This in the hallowed capitol of the world’s most powerful nation.”
.
…in decline. I suspect the US is in for some serious changes in the near future.