Is this Presidential Move Untethered from Reality? [1]

Washington DC — the capital of the world’s first modern democracy, the city named for the man who led its founding — has this week become a stage for theatre rather than truth. With tanks under the Washington Monument and soldiers on its streets, President Trump has claimed to “restore order” to a city he describes as overrun by violent gangs. Yet as the Guardian reported, this is a “Presidential move untethered from reality.” For me, this is an interesting question that needs answering in terms of the accuracy of the imagery being adopted.  However, it is the response that causes concern.  It is the most dangerous shift yet — from policing by consent to policing by diktat.  

This is not to deny that a problem exists; it is more about the response and the now familiar dramatisation of the challenge that lies ahead and the hammer that is being used to crack the walnut.

[1] The title of an interesting article published this week by Betsy Reed (2025), editor of the Guardian US, in her Weekly Roundup, drawing on her colleagues article earlier in the week (Moustafa Bayoumi).

 

Can we be Brave, Bold but Balanced when facing Wicked Crime Challenges?

 

Prior to the May election in the UK, I called for a government that would be bold, brave and balanced in all that it did, but, particularly for preserving community safety. As I said in my Newsletter at that time, the first speech made by the new Prime Minister gave encouraging words that reflected manifesto commitments and the usual commitment to make things better, summed up as ‘a calm and patient rebuilding of the country’ and ‘within a mission of national renewal.’ The Prime Minister’s promise includes a focus on social and economic renewal, tackling inequality, and fostering a more inclusive society. Kier Starmer referred to weariness in the nation’s heart and the people tired of empty promises and performative politics.

I will save my reflection on this for another post, but let me apply these sentiments in relation to the commentaries immediately following the deployment of the National Guard to deal with crime in Washington, D.C.

Rationale for Rigorous, Objective Assessment of Strategy and Tactics (ROAST):

My series of Sunday ROASTs as part of my Selfless Leader LinkedIn Newsletter is not about mockery for its own sake.

A ROAST is about Rigour: cutting through rhetoric and theatre to test actions against evidence. It is about Objectivity: assessing whether a strategy is grounded in facts or in fantasies. It is about Assessment: measuring intention against consequence. And it is about Strategy and Tactics: asking whether decisions strengthen or undermine the long-term security, trust, and legitimacy of democratic leadership.

This week, there can be no more urgent candidate for such a roasting than President Donald Trump’s declaration that he was seizing control of the Washington DC police force.

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The Claim: “A City Overtaken by Gangs”

On Monday morning, President Trump stood at a White House press conference and painted a lurid picture of Washington DC as “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.” He presented the capital as though it were descending into anarchy, demanding immediate intervention.

By Tuesday night, the evidence of his “solution” was already visible: National Guard troops patrolling the otherwise quiet streets of the capital, Humvees stationed beneath the Washington Monument, and heavily armed soldiers providing a spectacle of control in a city whose residents had neither asked for nor consented to such an occupation.

The Guardian’s columnist Moustafa Bayoumi called it for what it was: “straight out of a fascist playbook.” And Betsy Reed, Guardian US editor, rightly noted that this was yet another flourish untethered from reality.

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The Reality: Facts vs. Fear

𝐖𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧, 𝐃.𝐂. 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐯𝐬. 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐫

This is the first section of my analysis in which I will briefly highlight the data and challenges, but will consider this in more detail in further posts. I will conclude with a suggested ‘Call to Action’ in which I suggest that this represents more of a ‘Crisis of Confidence’ rather than a ‘Crisis of Crime’, which itself requires bold, brave and balanced action.

President Trump’s rhetoric demands to be tested against evidence. Many are doing so, but from different political and ideological contexts. In looking at some of the available facts (to coin an old US phrase, “Just the facts, Ma’am)  in undertaking a “Fast-Think” analysis to understand more of the crime context), it is clear that DC does have a crime issue that needs to be addressed. Still, it does not justify the scene setting of the theatrics in describing this in a way that leaves the capital suffering from the dystopian imagery conjured at the White House podium last Monday.

Commentators this week have been many, some of whom will also jump on ideological bandwagons. However, balance is part of rigour. As Michael Powell has argued this week in the well-respected Atlantic Newsletter, can we give comfort to those who live in some of the most vulnerable and poverty-stricken wards in the parts of the City? Here, the images of “tanks” sitting below the Washington Monument would not look out of place to those mothers and fathers of children who tragically lose their lives through gang-related homicides. Who could argue with Powell in not necessarily denouncing Trump’s response, but neither does he support it. This is why we need to understand exactly what the crime context is in Washington, D.C.

In 2023, Washington DC recorded 274 homicides — a tragic figure, but one that still leaves the capital far from the dystopian imagery conjured at the White House podium.

Crime overall in DC, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s statistics, shows variation but not collapse. Property crime has risen in some neighbourhoods, violent crime has tragically increased in others, but “gangs overrunning the capital” is simply not true. Should we take solace from the example of a key member of the media who said that the City is safe? His example? He walked safely (presumably from his hotel), a short distance, to the latest meeting at the White House with his girlfriend, a key member of the White House Media Camp.

To compare: in the early 1990s, we understand that DC recorded over 450 murders annually. That was a genuine crisis — a generation scarred by the crack epidemic. Yet even then, policing remained formally accountable to local governance, and the principle of policing by consent remained intact.

The real crisis today is not one of crime overwhelming democracy. The crisis is one of democracy being overwhelmed by the spectacle of crime, manufactured and manipulated for political theatre. More important, as I will argue in a collective call to action, it is more about a Crisis of Confidence in the Criminal Justice System and a Crisis of Confidence in Community Safety and Engagement.

 

 

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From Consensus to Diktat

This is where my own professional memory cuts deeply. In the 1990s, I was directly involved in the pushback against the rise of Zero Tolerance policing in the UK. The rhetoric was imported wholesale from New York: crackdowns, arrests for minor infractions, the promise of order imposed through uncompromising enforcement.

But I saw the dangers. Policing was being bent into a blunt instrument of control rather than a nuanced service of legitimacy. And I was not alone. Professor George Kelling, co-author of the original Broken Windows theory, lent his support to challenging the way his ideas were being distorted. He made it clear: “Broken Windows” was never about mass arrests or heavy-handed diktat. It was about partnership with communities, problem-solving, and legitimacy.

To hear a President of the United States seize an entire city’s police force in the name of “order” is therefore chilling. It is the most dangerous shift I have seen in my lifetime — from policing by consensus (the idea that policing derives its authority from public trust and democratic accountability) to policing by diktat (power imposed from above, justified by fear, executed through force).

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The Symbolism of the Capital

Let us pause on the location. Washington DC. A city named for the first president of the United States, George Washington — a man who led the early stages of what was then a bold democratic experiment. The founding ideal was that government was accountable to the people, and that the people would never again live under the dictates of a monarch or despot.

Now picture the image carried by the Guardian’s photograph: armored vehicles lined beneath the Washington Monument, soldiers on American streets, democracy staged as a military parade ground. The irony is so thick it almost smothers the air. The city that symbolizes the promise of democracy becomes the theatre of authoritarian posturing.

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Strategy or Spectacle?

Let us ROAST this strategy against the four tests:

• Rigour: Is the action based on evidence? No. Crime is real, but the claim of a city “overtaken” is false. The rigour collapses on first contact with data.
• Objectivity: Does it serve the people or serve the leader’s narrative? Clearly the latter. This was a move choreographed not for safety but for the camera.
• Assessment: Does it build legitimacy and trust? Absolutely not. It undermines the already fragile relationship between communities and the police, deepening the perception of policing as an occupying force.
• Strategy and Tactics: What long-term effect does this have? Strategically, it is catastrophic. Tactically, it might deliver an evening’s headlines of “strength,” but strategically it corrodes democracy at its foundations.

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The Broader Pattern: Spectacle of Power

As Betsy Reed notes in her editorial roundup, this week alone demonstrated the pattern. Masked agents bundling people into vans. Immigrants with no criminal record targeted for arrest. A mother and child from New Zealand detained for weeks. Private prisons — with records of abuse — reaping extraordinary profits from misery. Universities and media companies squeezed for billion-dollar settlements.

The throughline is unmistakable: an obsession not with governance, not with problem-solving, but with the spectacle and flex of power.

In this sense, the move on Washington DC is consistent, but it is also a turning point. It is one thing to strip-mine the dignity of immigrants at the border. It is one thing to bully institutions into submission. It is quite another to occupy the very capital city of the republic and claim it is in the grip of a non-existent crime wave.

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Lessons from the Past: Why Consensus Matters

Consensus policing is slow, frustrating, imperfect. It requires listening, partnership, dialogue, and trust-building. It requires humility — something authoritarian populists loathe. But it is also the only sustainable form of democratic policing.

Zero Tolerance promised quick wins and delivered longer-term fractures. Policing by diktat promises strength but delivers only fragility. I saw this first-hand in the UK when we resisted the importation of hard-line policing doctrines, and I fear the consequences if America continues down this path.

When legitimacy breaks, it is not easily restored. Once communities see the police not as their police but as the President’s police, the contract is broken. And when the contract is broken, order enforced through fear lasts only as long as the tanks stay parked on the grass.

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Back to the Future

A ROAST Conclusion

So let us return to the title: A Presidential Move Untethered from Reality.

Yes, it is untethered from crime statistics. Yes, it is untethered from democratic tradition. But most dangerously, it is untethered from the principle that policing is a service delivered with the consent of the governed.

In its place, we are offered a theatrical performance of power: Humvees against the horizon of the Washington Monument. Soldiers in a city that asked for dialogue, not occupation. A President confusing the republic with a stage, the people with props, and democracy with obedience.

The United States deserves better. The world deserves better from a nation that once inspired the idea of liberty. To continue this path is not merely reckless politics. It is the corrosion of democracy itself, enacted not with a whisper but with a parade of armored vehicles across the streets of the capital.

That is why this week’s Sunday ROAST concluded with the bluntest truth, which I paraphrase even more bluntly here: authoritarianism rarely arrives overnight. It arrives dressed as “law and order.” It arrives promising protection while stripping away freedom. And when the President seizes the policing of Washington DC, the danger is no longer theoretical. It is parked right there on Constitution Avenue.

In Conclusion: Not Just a Question of Policing

This is not just a question of policing. It is a question of what kind of democracy America wishes to be. A city built as a symbol of liberty has been turned into a stage set for authoritarian theatre. The numbers tell us one truth; the images, another. That is why I have taken the time to ROAST this issue with rigour, objectivity, aligning this with the so-called strategy and tactics.

For those who want to explore this in greater depth, I have published this introduction as a fuller version of my Sunday ROAST.  I will continue to build on this complete with data, context, and lessons for leadership — on my Selfless Leader portal. Because only by exposing the theatre, and returning to legitimacy, can we begin the work of rebuilding trust.

SOURCES (with support of AI in search and responding to my questions based on the six Intelligent Leadership Questions – What, Why,When, How, Where and Who)

News and Editorial Coverage

1. Betsy Reed (2025). Guardian US Weekly Roundup: Trump Seizes Control of Washington DC Policing. The Guardian, August 2025.
2. Moustafa Bayoumi (2025). Trump’s Takeover Is Straight Out of a Fascist Playbook. The Guardian, August 2025.
3. Moira Donegan (2025). Trump’s Spectacle of Power. The Guardian, August 2025.
4. Washington Post Editorial Board (2025). D.C. has a real crime problem. Federal control won’t solve it. Washington Post.
5. Ed Pilkington (2025). January 6 Police Dismiss Trump’s Newfound Zeal to Tackle Violence in DC. The Guardian.
6. The Atlantic (2025). Trump Gains When Elites Downplay D.C. Crime. The Atlantic.

Analysis and Fact-checking

1. FactCheck.org (2025). Trump Distorts Violent Crime Statistics in Ordering Takeover and Troops to D.C. FactCheck.org.
2. Al Jazeera (2025). Fact-Checking Trump’s Claim That Crime in Washington Is Out of Control. Al Jazeera.
3. Axios (2025). Homicide Rates Highest in Blue Cities, but Most in Red States. Axios.
4. Council on Criminal Justice (2025). Crime in Washington, DC: What You Need to Know. Council on CJ.<

Data Sources & Statistics

1. Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (2025). Crime Data and Statistics. MPDC.gov.
2. USAFacts (2025). Which U.S. Cities Have the Highest Murder Rates? USAFacts.org.
3. CT Insider (2025). Trump, DC, and Crime Reality Check. CT Insider.
4. Wikipedia (2025). Crime in Washington, D.C. Wikipedia.
5. Wikipedia (2025). Crime in New York City. Wikipedia.

Contextual References (Leadership, Policing, Theory)

1. George L. Kelling & Catherine Coles (1996). Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. Touchstone.
2. Ron Heifetz (1994). Leadership Without Easy Answers. Harvard University Press.
3. Mark Moore (1995). Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Harvard University Press.
4. Lord Scarman (1981). The Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981: Report of an Inquiry. UK Home Office.