I was a mayor for 10 years. All mayors deal with crime, and we have learned a lot about what works to make cities safer for everyone.

That’s why so many cities, including Washington, D.C., are safer today than they were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. And that’s why we know President Trump’s send-in-the-troops stunt in Washington, D.C., is not really about public safety.

People sometimes argue about whether Trump’s actions are actually dangerous or merely efforts to distract people from news he wants to minimize. The truth is that all too frequently they are both.

I believe Trump taking control of D.C.’s police department and calling out the National Guard, based on false claims about crime, is both an attempt to distract voters from bad news about the extraordinary harm he is unleashing on the American people and an effort to further test the limits of his own power.

Let’s not forget how much of Trump’s second-term agenda — including the idea of undermining home rule for the citizens of Washington, D.C. and the deployment of troops against Americans — was envisioned and laid out in advance........

© The Hill