| Bloomberg Businessweek’s Joshua Green spent some time this week looking for the National Guard patrols sent to Washington to make the city “safe and beautiful.” What he found was more likely to increase political outrage rather than crack down on crime. Plus: How Taco Bell lives más with its menu. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. If President Donald Trump wanted to spark Democratic outrage by federalizing control over Washington’s police, he got it. If he actually wanted to help fight crime, the extra manpower isn’t being deployed in the DC neighborhoods that need it most. Trump last week took the unprecedented action of invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act for a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. He deployed almost 2,000 National Guard troops and other federal law enforcement officers in the city. He justified the move by painting a dystopian picture of a capital city beset by “violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.” Many Democrats have responded with outrage and alarm. DC’s congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, called Trump’s action a “historic assault” on the city. Mayor Muriel Bowser criticized the president’s rationale. “We are not experiencing a spike in crime,” she said on MSNBC. “In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”  Members of the National Guard patrol the area outside Washington’s Union Station on Sunday. Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg But Trump’s provocations often raise vexing issues for Democrats, and this is no exception. Take it from me, someone who’s been in DC almost daily for decades: The city isn’t overrun by violent hordes, and the only “bloodthirsty” creatures tormenting us are mosquitoes. Statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department confirm that crime is indeed declining. Yet DC’s crime rate is significantly higher than that of similar cities, a fact Bowser has acknowledged and one that makes it hard for Democrats (especially local ones) to dismiss Trump’s charges in their entirety. Of course, Trump isn’t calibrating his task force to win the approval of Democrats, which is why parts of Washington suddenly look like occupied territory. Visit the National Mall or some of the gentrifying neighborhoods north of it, and you’ll likely encounter squads of federal troops and officers (many masked and not displaying identification), and just as many protesters surrounding and filming them. These are the sort of made-for-cable-news clashes Trump delights in watching and producing, and they’re probably clogging your social media feeds. But swarming the Mall with troops in Humvees isn’t going to make a dent in DC’s crime numbers. The area is so safe, even late at night, that it’s a tradition among suburban high school kids to visit the monuments after senior prom and take pictures until sunrise. The only trouble a visitor might run into is getting parked in by one of their party buses. On Tuesday, I spent the afternoon across the Anacostia River in Southeast DC walking through several of the neighborhoods that do struggle with violent crime. I asked people whether they’d seen evidence of what’s officially Trump’s “Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” Most hadn’t. Neither did I—even after crisscrossing Congress Heights, Hillsdale and Barry Farm, and trekking the full length of Marion Barry Avenue SE, the main commercial thoroughfare. Pam Johnson, who lives in Anacostia and was waiting for a bus to work, hadn’t seen any troops or guardsmen and expressed a skepticism about Trump’s motives that was widespread. “Haven’t seen a thing,” she said. “He’s not coming around here. He’s sending them where he wants to send them.” She added that she’d welcome additional policing in the neighborhood but doesn’t expect Trump to deliver it. Malaysia Seabrooks, who was tending bar, said the only law enforcement presence she’d seen in Anacostia was the local police officer who routinely checks on the bars and restaurants along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE where she works. She, too, would welcome an enhanced police presence. The day before, she explained, there’d been two separate daytime shootings just up the street within hours of each other. Seabrooks was one of the few people I met who’d encountered federal agents, but not in Anacostia. She lives across the river near Stadium Armory and had been stopped on her drive to work. “They set up a checkpoint at Benning Road and were stopping every car to check IDs and tags,” she said. She was perplexed and didn’t think it would mitigate violent crime. “It’s almost like you’re crossing the border.” The general feeling about Trump’s alleged crackdown on crime among those I spoke with was neither outrage nor anger. It was roughly split, often in the same conversation, between suspicion of Trump’s intentions and disappointment that whatever he’s doing doesn’t appear to have the slightest positive effect on their neighborhood and community. “I don’t have a problem with what he’s doing, but come and help us,” said the Reverend Anthony Motley, a veteran and lifelong resident who’d stopped for a rest in front of the Thurgood Marshall Academy public charter school. Having troops in the neighborhood, he said, “could help kids go back and forth to school safely. They could help our senior citizens. They could come teach the kids about military service, be an example.” Motley is no fan of Trump’s. But he carries a sincere hope that the president’s task force could be more than a made-for-TV political stunt. “This could be a blessing for our community if it was done for the right reasons,” he said. “And done with respect, compassion and love.” | 
