The point that I'm trying to make is that relentless propaganda from right-wing media gives people a false impression of life in cities like Washington DC. Hence the poster I was responding to casually comparing Washington to Fallujah and Haiti, one a literal war zone, and the other a place where the social order completely collapsed and even basic services like electricity and clean water were not available. It's an absolutely absurd comparison, and yet many people who only get their information from this propaganda machine absolutely believe this.
What is out of touch is declaring that the crime problem, which is actually improving, is an emergency that justifies deploying troops to the streets of the capital. These troops are being deployed to the areas around the national mall where they are highly visible - but there is very little violent crime and a lot of existing police presence around the monuments. They aren't trained or experienced in street-level law enforcement. Neither are the FBI agents, who are being taken away from other critical priorities like counterintelligence to patrol the national mall. Note that Trump did not deploy the national guard on January 6th, when there was a genuine threat on the national mall. This is not a genuine effort to address crime. It is an extremely cynical effort to look like they are addressing crime while they grab more and more unchecked executive power.
What is out of touch is declaring that the crime problem, which is actually improving, is an emergency that justifies deploying troops to the streets of the capital. These troops are being deployed to the areas around the national mall where they are highly visible - but there is very little violent crime and a lot of existing police presence around the monuments. They aren't trained or experienced in street-level law enforcement. Neither are the FBI agents, who are being taken away from other critical priorities like counterintelligence to patrol the national mall. Note that Trump did not deploy the national guard on January 6th, when there was a genuine threat on the national mall. This is not a genuine effort to address crime. It is an extremely cynical effort to look like they are addressing crime while they grab more and more unchecked executive power.