Why Trump thinks DC can’t govern itself |
Just a few years ago, the movement for Washington, DC, statehood was gaining steam. In 2020 and 2021, Democrats in the House passed bills to make DC the 51st state, re-energizing the fight to grant residents of the nation’s capital representation in Congress.
Those bills were ultimately doomed because of strong Republican opposition. But now, statehood for Washington, DC, seems even more far-fetched. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of ordering a federal takeover of DC’s local police department. He also mobilized the DC National Guard, deploying troops in the city to allegedly fight crime.
This didn’t necessarily come as a surprise. For some time, Trump has fantasized about taking over DC altogether, saying that the federal government would do a much better job running the city than its current mayor, Muriel Bowser.
So, how did DC go from building a growing movement for statehood to a hostile federal takeover in just a few short years?
The simple answer is that Republicans are now in power, and they’d like to make an example out of DC. But even without Republican control of the White House or Congress, statehood and full self-governance have always been an uphill battle, because there’s also a deeper history of the federal government’s paternalistic relationship with the nation’s capital.
DC’s self-governance has always been controversial
Washington, DC, was specifically established to serve as the nation’s capital. The US Constitution gave Congress the power to create a small federal district that doesn’t exceed 10 square miles to serve as the seat of the federal government. In 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which paved the way to build a new capital........