If the lampposts feel like star shells and the tents read like a forward operating base, that’s because Washington has been playing dress-up as a combat outpost again. The White House ordered roughly 800 National Guard troops into D.C. in a move to augment the city’s police—an extraordinary flex in a town that swears everything is under control.

That’s not just security theater; it’s a confession that the “Capital of the Free World” needs uniforms and rifles to keep the streets tidy. Yikes.

Just the Facts

By the numbers, the mood didn’t come from nowhere. D.C. closed 2023 with 274 homicides , the highest since the late ‘ 90s —hardly the postcard version of civic order.

Carjackings that spiked last year cooled in mid-2024—June was down about 78% year-over-year—but whe

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