If you’re wondering what in the hell Donald Trump was going on about regarding the nation’s capital this week, it’s because Washington, DC, is another one of those long-time fixations of the unhinged American right.

In the world of Fox News, right-wing radio and Republican political conventions, San Francisco is synonymous with gay people while DC is a dog whistle that signifies blacks, crime and corruption. When Trump announced a federal takeover of the city this week, putting its local police force under his control, he said he was rescuing it from “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor – and worse!”

President Donald Trump announces he is seizing control of Washington, DC, police and deploying the National Guard.Credit: Bloomberg

“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,” claimed the Republican president.

But he was lying. The Democratic mayor of the overwhelmingly Democratic city, Muriel Bowser, pointed out that violent crime in DC was at its lowest level in more than three decades last year. Yet Trump is sending in the National Guard to crack down on crime and clear the city of homelessness.

It’s all a bit absurd. But, really, this is just Trump singing a very old tune that most Republicans can hum along to. Why? It’s just another volley in his time-tested tactic of........

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