As expected, Donald Trump announced that he’s deploying National Guard troops to D.C. streets and placing local police officers under federal control as part of a dramatic and unnecessary power grab. Among the key questions is why, exactly, the president is doing this.

To hear the White House tell it, Trump hardly had a choice. Indeed, to hear the administration tell it, there’s a “public safety crisis” and “public safety emergency” in the District of Columbia, which is reflected in crime in the nation’s capital that is “rising” and “out of control.”

The rationale was nonsensical: Crime rates are down across the board in D.C., and violent crime rates have reached a 30-year low. For that matter, at his rambling White House press conference, Trump referenced a handful of other cities by name as if they’d all descended into “Mad Max”-style hellscapes, despite the fact that crime rates have already improved in each of the cities he referenced.

But if the stated reason is demonstrably wrong and the White House’s talking points about militarizing the nation’s capital are literally unbelievable, what is true?

There’s no shortage of possibilities, but as The New York Times reported, the latest developments are part of a dramatic and underappreciated pattern.

Recommended

Maddowblog

JD Vance misses the point with his pitiful defense of White House power grabs

Steve Benen

MS NOW Opinion

Trump’s brazen D.C. power grab feels personal — because it is

Symone D. Sanders Townsend

President Trump’s decision to send at least 800 National Guard troops into the streets of Washington to fight crime is the latest example of how the president has used the military to advance domestic policy priorities.

Or as Rachel Maddow summarized on the show, “Maybe it’s that he really enjoys using U.S. military force against American civilians on American soil — and wants any excuse to do it anywhere he can.”

There’s ample evidence to bolster that thesis. Americans have, after all, already seen Trump deploy National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles — a spectacularly unnecessary move that proved a debacle in a variety of ways — which roughly coincided with the president deciding to use U.S. military bases for new immigrant prison camps.

And did I mention that Trump has also created massive “military zones” across parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona? Because he’s done that, too.

As Rachel concluded, the incumbent Republican president “wants U.S. military forces deployed on U.S. soil — facing inward.” As the White House’s authoritarian-style vision becomes less subtle, it’s a key element of the larger indictment.