No, martial law has not been declared in Washington, D.C., despite the direct and indirect insinuations from a deluge of Leftist news and social media accounts.
President Donald Trump’s move to supplement D.C. law enforcement efforts with National Guard members and federalize the Metropolitan Police does not meet any threshold of “martial law.” No military junta has replaced the local civilian government. The same laws and civil rights that were in place on Sunday are still in place on today.
What happened on Monday is no sinister conspiracy — it’s simply Trump cleaning up the literal consequences of Leftist ideology.
The Reality of Crime in D.C.
Predictably, the agitprop opportunity was too much for the homogenized media to bear as curated headlines echoed each other in their usual rhythmic patterns on Monday:
“Trump Places DC Police Under Federal Control, Deploys National Guard” – CNN
“Trump Puts Washington, DC, Police Under Federal Control, Deploys National Guard” – CNBC
“Trump Puts DC Police Department Under Federal Control, Deploys National Guard” – ABC News
“Washington mayor calls Trump’s police order ‘unsettling and unprecedented’” – Politico
Article after article pointed in protest to the recently released FBI data showing a decline in D.C.’s total crime and a massive decrease in violent crime from 2023 to 2024. Yet they failed time and again to mention data showing that the last five years in D.C. have seen the highest number of homicides since 2008.
Let that sink in.
Logical Fallacies
You’re supposed to simply buy the notion that a substantial drop in violent crime can logically coincide with a rising number of dead bodies.
Bookmark that oddity, more on that in a minute.
The media’s insufferable bouts of factoid amnesia also apply to the statistic that crimes committed against persons in D.C. is higher per capita than populous states like California, New York, and Texas.
Having said that, even the statistics themselves hide the reality of crime in the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., covers only 68 square miles, which means that all the crimes and homicides are hyperconcentrated into a tiny geographic hamlet.
The statistics also hide the problem of “D.C. mathematics.” Allegations recently surfaced that D.C. police are cooking the books to avoid being captured in the FBI crime statistics. Just last week, the Metropolitan Police Department admitted to placing one of its captains on administrative leave in May for changing crime statistics. In an interview with a local NBC affiliate, local Fraternal Order of Police Chairman Gregg Pemberton claimed that there has been an ongoing department-wide effort to water felony charges down to lesser offenses.
Pemberton said the MPD is specifically focused on assaults with dangerous weapons and assaults resulting in hospitalization. Downgrading these crimes in the police database keeps them off of the FBI’s statistical radar and provides a faux veneer of safety.
This alone would justify the Trump administration federalizing the MDP, but the White House also cited the assassination of two Israeli embassy staffers in May, the murder of a Congressional intern in June, and an incident last week when a Trump administration staff member who bravely stepped in to help someone being beaten on the street was himself beaten to a pulp by a flock of criminals.
If America is to be great again, it’s only logical that Trump has to undo the Wokeshevik demise of the nation’s capital.
The Natural Consequences of Worldviews
We shouldn’t be surprised by D.C.’s trend toward violence. What’s on full display is something deeper than political incompetence or mere malfeasance.
The central issue is worldview — specifically, the collective American worldview slowly but pervasively shifting from being grounded in biblical truths to embracing secular atheism.
Liberalism in America is now teeming with secular philosophy. Millions of Americans no longer believe in absolute moral truth. To them, good and evil are simply abstractions.
Instead they cling to the idea that mankind is just a happenstance clump of space dirt, inherently stripped of purpose, meaning, and dignity. Inevitably, some individual or group has to decide what is good, right, and beautiful, and then order society accordingly. And guess who sees themselves in that role? Hint: it rhymes with “liberals.”
The Left isn’t “crazy,” as many memes claim. They’re simply living in accordance with their worldview, a relativistic belief system where they are free to disregard biology, justify sedition, and distort data about violent crime.
There is, of course, a solution to the problem: a return to shared ethics grounded in the immutable goodness of God. Not a Christian theocracy, but a societal recognition that our Republic can only be sustained on the self-evident truths of man’s equality and inherent unalienable rights that must be endowed by his Creator.
In the meantime, protecting human life in our nation’s capital is both noble and expected of those who have the power to do so. Because a swamp sure won’t clean itself.
Joachim Osther is a freelance writer focusing on the intersection of culture and Christianity. He holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Veritas College and Seminary, and two degrees in the life sciences, a field in which he works as a strategist, advisor, and published author. He is also an occasional contributor to RaymondIbrahim.com, chronicling the relevance of historical clashes between militant Islam and the West.
