jonetta rose barras: An insurrection, a possible federal takeover and the real steal in American politics
Raw emotions consumed me as I reflected on Mayor Muriel Bowser’s accounts of her meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and her failure to take on or even address the looming possibility of a federal takeover of DC’s Metropolitan Police Department. What would have happened on Jan. 6, 2021, if local police were under Trump’s control?
Then, I considered what could happen during the upcoming Trump sequel if the MPD — a department principally populated by people of color, serving a town dominated by people of color — were forced to participate in immigration raids in service to Trump’s promise of mass deportations, with officers having to hunt down people who look like them or have similar lived experiences.
We all know Trump isn’t driven by a concern for the safety of the District’s more than 700,000 residents. If he can’t use the military for his raids in the nation’s capital, I have no doubt he will attempt to use MPD, entering homes and businesses with questionable legal authority and dragging people away under the guise that they are guilty of some crime. It’s an updated version of the Gestapo’s tactics.
Already the Trump transition team is reportedly seeking a site for its first mass raid at a workplace in the Washington area, which seems unlikely to focus only on immigrants with criminal records. The targets will be swept up to help the administration create the optics of “shock and awe,” according to an NBC News report earlier this week. The last time we heard that phrase we know what happened: There were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction — just George W. Bush’s administration seeking to declare “mission accomplished.”
Who can forget that in 2020, under orders to clear Lafayette Square, the U.S. Park Police and the National Guard fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd of people protesting the murder of George Floyd and demanding an end to institutional racism? Trump cared nothing about the merits of their arguments; he wanted to walk unimpeded across the street to St. John’s Episcopal Church and hold a Bible in the air while declaring himself the law-and-order president.
My grandmother didn’t rear me to be soft on crime or criminals. But I wonder, will MPD be told to perform a similar role during the next peaceful protest by District residents, by American citizens?
Violence excites Trump and his MAGA minions.
Six months after the Lafayette Park affair, on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump, the oath-sworn U.S. president, incited an insurrection, telling his MAGA supporters gathered at the Ellipse to march to the U.S. Capitol and to “fight like hell.” He wanted them to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election as the 46th president.
Sans their dear leader, the MAGA mob overpowered the Capitol Police, broke through the perimeter, broke windows to gain entry to the building, broke furniture, and tried to break down doors to harm or kill members of the House of Representatives. They sought Vice President Mike Pence with the expressed mission of hanging him from the gallows they had constructed on the front of the Capitol — my God.
Were it not for the independent MPD arriving on the scene and taking control, things would have turned out far worse than they did.
Now, an unrepentant Trump, who has called J6 “a day of love,” is preparing to return to the scene of the crime and seems likely to push a takeover of MPD — or at the very least the appointment of a “public safety czar” to oversee the District’s public safety agencies. Undoubtedly, he hasn’t finished destroying the country’s democracy.
I am as deeply troubled about Jan. 6 as I was by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Then, I was only an elementary school student, but I worried about America’s future as I watched hope drain from the lives of many African Americans around me who were fighting to be treated as full citizens.
Their resilience — and mine — took another blow when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968; I was in high school and grew even more concerned about the country’s downward trajectory.
Interestingly, Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 will occur on the same day the nation celebrates King’s birthday. My heart aches for this sad concurrence. Millions of people fought long and hard for the designation of that holiday; it will be marred this year by a man being sworn into the country’s highest elected office who has no respect for the civil rights legacy.
I confess, this is a rant.
Initially, I planned to write about the new DC Council committee structure, which appears once again to have been thrown together without consideration for logical oversight. I thought, too, to write about the apology Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White Sr. offered the city last week during his swearing-in speech without any specificity or acknowledgement of guilt for the bribes he is charged in federal court with having accepted.
Truth be told, I do not have the temperament to placate the guilty. I cannot give cover to the dangerous. I will not go along with Trump because I do not want to get along with Trump.
Black people — enslaved Black people — helped construct the Capitol building. Black people have fought and died in countless wars and conflicts protecting America and its interests; they suffered bruising conditions as they built railroads and highways that frequently resulted in their mass removal. And while America is not the meritocracy it claims to be, numerous African Americans have helped to expand the political discourse, improve the quality of government and rescue major corporations in this nation. We need only consider the careers of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, former President Barack Obama and the recently deceased business leader Richard Parsons to find ample proof of my assertion.
We are not beggars. We are owners, and we have a right to lay claim to our share of this country. Still, we sometimes approach challenges with timidity or fear.
During her appearance last week at the swearing-in ceremony for councilmembers and others, Bowser made no mention of Trump’s apparent interest in federalizing the local police department or other likely threats to the District’s autonomy from the White House and Congress. Instead, it seemed she was opening her fourth mayoral campaign, noting that “the story of Washington, DC, right now is a good one. In fact, it’s a great one.“
As proof, she said that DC is “the fastest growing state in the country,” noting also that “crime is down, and not just a little bit; it’s down lower than 2019 levels.”
“Our finances are strong, and our labor market has recovered from the pandemic. We have the best park system in the nation. Our libraries are world-class. Tourism is at record levels, and we will welcome even more visitors this year to our city for World Pride and the FIFA [Club] World Cup. We have a phenomenal public transit system,” she said.
OK, but what about the possibility of the feds coming for our police department? How can a leader rally her forces for defense if she gives the impression there are no threats?
In contrast, Council Chair Phil Mendelson seemed to throw down the proverbial gauntlet, acknowledging during his remarks that “we are all anxious with the changeover in the federal government, given the anti-home rule rhetoric.“
While he asserted DC has a “very good story to tell of how we have managed the past half-century” since the swearing-in of the District’s first elected leaders under the Home Rule Act, he also suggested he is ready to fight. “If members of Congress do come after us, I’ll be the first to point out how bad they are at running governments: failing to confirm the appointment of our judges, which impacts crime; underfunding our police year after year (totaling over $83 million over the past four years); … failing to adopt their budgets on time; and constantly on the verge of a government shutdown,” continued Mendelson.
“And they think they’re better than us?” he asked rhetorically.
It’s going to take more than talk to thwart Trump’s and Republicans’ designs on the District. I worry that there is no organized group ready to galvanize DC residents to protect their rights.
Sometimes, I feel like it’s 1787 when officials agreed to the Three-Fifths Compromise. Then, only three out of every five slaves were counted toward a state’s population in determining representation in the House of Representatives.
Last week, none of the population living in U.S. territories or DC was counted during the vote for speaker of the House. Del. Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands interrupted the process, asking the House parliamentarian why she and other delegates hadn’t been called. He offered that the rules do not allow them to vote. She noted that more than 4 million people live in the five territories and DC. “I want to be called,” she said forcefully. “I vote for Hakeem Jeffries.”
If Plaskett and others, including DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, were permitted to vote in the House, it probably would not have changed the outcome in this instance — given that three of the seats are currently held by Republicans and three by Democrats — but it would be the right thing to do.
It’s ironic, I think, that Trump wants to annex Greenland and Canada, suggesting that the latter would be the 51st state of America. No comment on DC’s effort to claim that distinction. I wonder why?
The absence of true voting rights in our nation’s capital is worthy of our consistent rage. However, DC residents must also endure the salt poured into that wound by a man who, despite being found liable of assaulting a woman, being charged with participating in a criminal enterprise and being found guilty of 34 felony convictions, has the unmitigated audacity to believe he should be given authority over the local police department.
Oh, no. We understand the damage that could be done by Trump and his MAGA minions. We will not go quietly into that dark night. We will make noise — lots of noise.
This piece has been updated to reflect the party affiliation of the delegates representing the District of Columbia and the five territories.
jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.
“I confess, this is a rant.”
Which differs from everything else Ms. Barras has written throughout her career how?
A “rant” l very much appreciated. Very on time.