To those who have never lived in the 68 square miles of Washington, the nation’s capital can seem to lack an authentic residential and cultural identity. Transient populations come and go with alternating administrations.
Ordinary life proceeds in the shadows of the White House, monuments and the Capitol dome. Even the sports teams can struggle to rally fans.
But the recent deployment of hundreds of often masked federal agents and hundreds more National Guard troops have brought many Washingtonians a sense of shared purpose: outrage.
“We are not against fighting crime,” said Tony Guardad, a 49-year-old construction worker, who emphasized that he is not against the police. “But we are against boots on the street, and we don’t want to feel like we are in North Korea.”
Ty Hobson-Powell, a community organizer and author who was born in Washington, called it “a shared sense of opposition.”
Since President Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington and ordered federal law enforcement agents to deploy to the capital on Aug. 7, they have set up checkpoints, evicted homeless people from the streets, pulled people over for minor infractions such as open alcohol containers, and sometimes asked drivers for their immigration status.
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The post With Trump’s Takeover, Washington Finds a Mission to Resist appeared first on New York Times.
