Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has given his fellow Democrats a master class in how to respond to President Donald Trump and his overreaching threat to send the National Guard to additional American cities. In an extraordinary clap-back video addressed to Trump — who’s hinted at sending the National Guard to Baltimore and other cities — Moore underscores that he’s the “commander in chief” of Maryland’s guard and would not deploy it “for something that is not mission critical or mission aligned. Period!!”
Unlike the president of the United States, I’ve actually worn the uniform of this country.
MARYLAND GOV. WES MOORE
Moore went further, noting that he in particular understands the mission and limits of the National Guard. “Unlike the president of the United States, I’ve actually worn the uniform of this country,” said Moore, who served his country as a captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. “Unlike the president of the United States, I actually deployed overseas and fought on behalf of the United States of America.” Moore said he knows what it’s like to wear the uniform and patrol communities. “And so I do not need and will not accept any type of lecture from someone who the only uniform they have worn is a Brooks Brother suit,” he said.
It’s important that Moore’s fellow Democratic governors take note and call out the wrongheadedness of Trump’s plans. But one of the things that makes his retort so forceful is his willingness to call Trump out for using the military to show force in a manufactured state of emergency when years ago Trump as a young man was able to avoid military service when it would have required personal service and sacrifice.
A direct social media retort like Moore’s may have been considered impolitic a few years ago when the presidency was still wrapped in a cloak of protective respect. But it was also hard to imagine back then a bully such as Trump would be emboldened in the White House. The best way to stand up to a bully is to avoid even a hint of capitulation. Acquiescence only invites that bully to return with bigger demands and bolder instruments of cruelty and intimidation.
Of course, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass objected to Trump sending the National Guard to Los Angeles to no avail. Trump manufactured an emergency that the courts said allowed him to send in troops. Still, it’s important that Moore and other Democratic governors not surrender but fight back at every turn.
As it was in California, where Trump mischaracterized the presence of undocumented people as proof of a foreign “invasion,” the state of emergency he claims exists in D.C. is also a manufactured hoax, and it is clear that the GOP governors who have decided to send even more troops to D.C. to “support the president’s initiative to restore cleanliness and safety” are more concerned with politics than with public safety.
These additional National Guard members coming into D.C. from West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi and Louisiana could be armed and might not have to leave their weapons at the armory as spelled out in the original deployment order. Such a move would endanger the very people Trump claims this exercise is meant to protect.
Intimidation is at the heart of what Trump is doing by sending a torrent of federal law enforcement agents and National Guard troops to the District of Columbia to purportedly defend and protect a city where the violent crime rate has dropped by 30%.
Democrats have struggled to find a consistent and effective answer to these developments. Pointing to statistics about the very real drop in crime doesn’t erase the very real concerns about the remaining levels of violence and mayhem in D.C.
Trump isn’t interested in protecting people in D.C. as much as he is in sending a message that big cities are filed with scary Black and brown people.
But Trump isn’t interested in protecting people in D.C. as much as he is in sending a message that big cities are filled with scary Black and brown people, broken institutions and bloated bureaucracies that can’t effectively govern themselves.
What’s worse is that his selective narrative ignores progress that has been made in some of the cities he claims are wastelands of urban crime. D.C. is an easy target for this because of its history of drug wars and crumbling neighborhoods just beyond the gleaming monuments. Also, who can ever forget that grainy video of the city’s mayor caught smoking crack on camera? However, D.C.’s drop in violent crime has been accompanied by an urban renaissance that can be seen in the increased investment in education, transportation and commercial development. Wide swaths of the city that were once home to open-air drug dealing and regular gunplay have been transformed into hipster havens with swank condominiums and slick restaurants. Just last year, D.C. could boast that it had the highest density of Michelin-starred restaurants in the entire country.
Similarly, when Trump hinted at militarizing Baltimore, he conveniently ignored that city’s success in reducing homicide and violent crime.
That’s where Moore comes in. His direct-to-the-public video response, his radio interviews and his television appearance are important because he is forcefully and effectively responding to the artificial argument that this is about public safety. And while the Republican-led Congress is willing to essentially grant Trump whatever he wants, Moore is willing to stand strong in the authority he holds as the 63rd governor of his state. Truth isn’t always a speed bump that slows Trump’s roll, but it lays a foundation for a legal argument in the court of law, as well as the court of public opinion.
Trump said he’s considering deploying the National Guard in certain cities to get crime under control. OK, so let’s take the president at his word and hold him to his promise and see how far he gets.
Reducing crime is a worthy goal. But flooding the zone with federal agents in America’s cities doesn’t reduce crime and doesn’t make the cities more attractive to visitors or residents. Restaurant reservations in D.C. plunged more than 30% after the Trump administration announced a federal takeover of the city’s police department. We’re looking aghast at social media posts showing masked agents making immigration-related arrests in busy areas of D.C. where the targets are often people who are working as food delivery drivers. And the economic impact of turning D.C. into a deployment zone has been immediate. Restaurants, bars, hotels and businesses that rely on hospitality or tourism are already feeling the pain. Restaurant reservations in DC plunged more than 30% after the Trump administration announced a federal takeover of the city’s police department. The best way to root out crime is to go to the root causes, and Trump’s plan doesn’t address that. In fact, when asked about the root causes of crime last week, Trump’s new U.S. attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, said at a news conference: “I honestly am not concerned about why they commit crimes. My concern is if they commit crimes. My concern is the victims of the crimes.” Contrast Pirro’s dismissiveness with the leadership we’ve seen from Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. His city has dramatically reduced crime with neighborhood-based prevention programs that rightly treat violence as a public health problem. Using data engineering, the city targeted the communities where people were most likely to be perpetrators or victims of crime and then studied the factors that led to high crime rates. The data they collected led to investments in summer schools and extended swimming pool hours, literacy programs, evening rec center access to create safe havens to hang out and specific programs aimed at boosting the economic and educational options in communities that had the highest crime rates. The goal was to create a network of programs to keep young people busy and off the streets, create a safety zone for residents and provide paths to productive re-entry for those who had already committed crimes. The GOP would most likely label that a namby-pamby, soft-on-crime approach. But the numbers don’t lie. Violent crime has dropped in Baltimore. On Scott’s watch — and Moore’s. And so if Donald Trump is serious about further reducing crime in D.C. or Baltimore or New York or Cleveland or anywhere else, he needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work with an agenda that is based on performance and proven results instead of trafficking in spooky urban myths and authorizing performative military exercises that are really about driving deportation numbers up. I hope more Democratic leaders follow Moore’s lead and use their platforms to push back, correct the record and keep score on who is really doing the work to create environments that are safe and secure. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore has given his fellow Democrats a master class in how to respond to President Donald Trump and his overreaching threat to send the National Guard to additional American cities. In an extraordinary clap-back video addressed to Trump — who’s hinted at sending the National Guard to Baltimore and other cities — Moore underscores that he’s the “commander in chief” of Maryland’s guard and would not deploy it “for something that is not mission critical or mission aligned. Period!!”
Michele Norris is a Senior Contributing Editor for MS NOW. 
