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Under Abraham Lincoln, the armies of the Confederacy, despite strenuous efforts, never managed to take Washington, D.C. Donald Trump, by contrast, has invited in the neo-Confederates twice: once on January 6th, 2021, when a racist rabble carrying Confederate flags seized the Capitol, and now, over the past week, when National Guards chiefly from the Deep South are arriving to occupy D.C.
As the governors of South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee have now all proclaimed, crime is out of control in the nation’s capital—so sayeth Trump and hence it must be true—so they’re sending in their states’ troopers.
The irony here is that crime rates in the cities of their own states are markedly higher than they are in D.C. The murder rate in Washington, D.C., last year was 17 for every 100,000 residents.
The actual numbers, to state this gently, aren’t reflected in these governors’ pronunciamentos.
In the past 24 hours, Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said he’d send 200 Mississippi Guards to D.C. because “Americans deserve a safe capital city that we can all be proud of.”
In 2024, Mississippi’s own state capital, Jackson, had the highest murder rate of any American city: 77 per 100,000, which was more than four times that in Washington, D.C.
Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he’d send the state’s National Guard to D.C., proclaiming, “I am proud to support this mission to return safety and sanity to Washington.”
In 2024, Louisiana’s own state capital, Baton Rouge (whose U.S. House member is Speaker Mike Johnson), had a murder rate of 36 per 100,000, twice that of Washington, D.C. New Orleans had a murder rate of 31 per 100,000.
Earlier today, Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee ordered the deployment of his state’s National Guard to D.C.
In 2024, Memphis had a murder rate of 48 per 100,000 residents, nearly three times the murder rate in D.C.
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