Bad omens and scary portents abound

President Trump has taken over Washington, D.C. What’s next for the rest of the United States? Will the seizure of the capital district be temporary, a test run for declaring martial law and suspending our Constitution? As an American, I can say my nation-state is not yet in a complete fascist dictatorship under the Trump-Vance regime. Or we wouldn’t be having this conversation of sorts. Yet we are perilously close, oh perilously close, and getting closer. Let’s call what we live within what it is, a creeping dictatorship. The yellow warning lights are now blinking bright, bloody red. 

America is clearly sliding along an authoritarian trajectory as a fanatical nest of cults expands its power across the country. Our zeitgeist has grayed and darkened. So many people, unfortunately, go about their daily lives without lifting up their heads and opening their eyes because fawning is easier than flight or fight. Certainly at first, history shows such behavior whenever one studies what the masses did during the establishment of authoritarian regimes around the world. By the time an authoritarian regime morphed into a totalitarian state it becomes exponentially more difficult to lift one’s head up in resistance. We’ve seen this in country after country.

Trump, already a convicted felon, a man who usurped the 2016 election and attempted a coup to overturn the results of the 2020 election to remain in power,  has broken his oath to the Constitution so many times since his second inauguration we need to stop calling him our President. He has befouled the office. The Administration’s declaration of a crime emergency followed by the federalization of the District of Columbia midway thru the month of August 2025. It’s another action to tear up the US Constitution rip by rip. Trump excels at doing whatever he wants regardless of established laws and policies. He just does it, making up whatever justifications as they arise from his mind, and believes in his own lies. Trump doesn’t care as long as his ego and wealth aren’t harmed or his power restricted. The man excels at making nearly every situation murky, upside down, and inside out. He then waits to see what happens. How far can he push matters? Will there be blowback? Just a little fuss and wind? Or a great cry and tumult? Which he would leverage as an excuse to crack down further, yes?

Donald Trump likes to see whatever he can get away with in public as he floods social media with his toxic, often violent, and sometimes lunatic ravings. And then he’s racing off to his next crazy plot of the moment, overwhelming the news cycle and the attention span of most citizens with a deluge of shock and awe tactics.

What is next? Trump federalizing and deploying state National Guard troops to deal with protests and demonstrations in Los Angeles, California, and now in Washington, DC to deal with street crime are trials. Trump went further as DC as a federal territory is distinct from the states to also federalize the metropolitan police over the objections of its mayor. Muriel Bowser, a popular Democrat in her third term, is Mayor of Washington. As such she is also the Executive of the District of Columbia. She walks a razor’s edge of intense political and sociocultural maneuvering while striving for balance as she moves forward. She is as a gymnast battling to transcend gravity. Mayor Bowser resists as she is able to while also going along with Trump’s takeover.

Why?

Because Trump excels at operating in a realm of murkiness. He loves the Washington swamp he claims to drain while actually making it spread. Trump loves the swamp so much it oozes poison and spreads his tyranny further. Trump delights in breaking laws without breaking them by simply ignoring such laws exist at all. He spreads lies and calls them truths. Facts mean zero to him. Besides, most folks would be happy to have less crime and homelessness, yes? Doesn’t matter if crime rates are dropping, dropping, dropping, there’s always crime somewhere to crack down upon. So fighting crime is a populist crusade. Fascists love it.

Yes, a particular police captain in DC may have falsified crime rate data, he’s being investigated, but overall crime has declined and declined nationwide. Even a big increase in crime, however, does not justify an uninvited Federal takeover. Increases in crime are not excuses to rip off another piece of the Constitution. Ironically, an authoritarian crackdown on crime often means there is far less public safety from the state itself. Who becomes detained after a few street corner drug dealers are locked up. You become the next target. For even looking.  Yes, dare look at those searching for more people to detain to get their numbers up to prove whatever statistic tyrants desire, and they will come over to you. The state becomes criminal. 

Already Trump has set his sights on the cities of Chicago and Baltimore. He rages constantly against New York City and Los Angeles. His next tests may be “easy” states that fawn and cozy up to him such as Florida and Texas. Then he may seek to federalize Democrat-run cities, counties, and states. He may seek to federalize overseas US territories and Free Associations. We don’t know. We don’t know how far he will go or which way he may turn. Federalizing states and territories will allow the MAGA-dominated Republican Party to gerrymander legislative districts across many states to maintain the GOP’s grip on power. While Trump cracks down on street crime and immigration, he ignores government corruption, corporate crime, environmental destruction, and white collar crime in general. This malevolent negligence allows police to get away with fascistic, cruel behavior in local police and sheriff departments. It allows for those with corporocratic beliefs and Machiavellian tendencies to exploit both government bureaucracies at all levels as well as small businesses and large corporations. It allows for more violence within families, indeed, within any institution from gangs to religious groups. 

Join the Resistance and do what you are able to do. Let us challenge ourselves to awaken from our daily groove and rise up from our daily grind. Let us challenge and support one another to engage in the good fights ahead with empathy, compassion, backbone, and, yes, nonviolence. Let us not let ourselves descend into despair, bitterness, and hatred. Let us not get caught in endless cycles of riots and revolutions and civil wars with more poverty, terrorism, and dictatorships. We can do better. We can always do better, be better. Love is our power. Nonviolence as a tactic of civil disobedience and political resistance is dangerous, demands courage, and is highly effective. Success with this tactic, however, also demands cooperation and communication as large, organized groups or else state violence will push us down.

Let not our blood and tears go to waste. We must stand up as freedom-seeking human beings to demand a better life free from the shackles of despotism.

Let us remember the worst violence in Washington’s recent history wasn’t any crime wave, as bad as crime is, but Trump’s own murderous, treasonous insurrection in January of 2021. Remember the nonviolent actions of both Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and their movements. They succeeded with nonviolence even in the midst of great suffering with violent people taunting them to fight back with weapons. What will YOU do next?

William Dudley Bass
Thursday 14 August 2025
Revised Wednesday 20 August 2025
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Earth

See the Statehood for DC article:
Bass, William Dudley. “Make DC the State of Douglass,” On Earth at the Brink, 2020: https://williamdudleybass.com/make-dc-the-state-of-douglass

On Nonviolent Resistance against Trump in Washington, DC, right now:
Hunter, Daniel. “Free DC models effective resistance to Trump’s takeover,” Waging Nonviolence, 2025: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/08/free-dc-models-effective-resistance-to-trumps-takeover/

Copyright © 2025 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.