In DC, musical protest cuts through Trump’s capital takeover

WASHINGTON (CN) — In a Washington, D.C., neighborhood that has become one flashpoint of President Donald Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on the capital city, protesters mounted lively opposition on Thursday to what they called an unjust federal occupation.

The fierce rejection of Trump’s D.C. takeover came as the president himself suggested that he would take to the city streets to patrol with police and the National Guard in his campaign against crime in the capital — an outing which ultimately did not take place.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in D.C.’s historic U Street neighborhood Thursday evening for the event, organized by local artist and advocate Justin “Yaddiya” Johnson. The protest featured a performance from a “go-go” band, a traditionally Black genre of music pioneered in the district.

“They thought we wouldn’t be here,” Johnson told protesters. “A lot of people tried to talk me out of it, but I was moved to do this today. It’s for the community — it’s bigger than me, it’s bigger than us.”

Thursday’s demonstration was just one of many protests that have sprung up in the days since Trump announced that he was taking control of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department and mobilizing the National Guard against what Republicans and the White House have long framed as rampant crime in the capital city.

The event on U Street, though, was significant for several reasons — not only because of the area’s Black cultural history but also because the neighborhood has emerged as one of the most intense areas of enforcement in the early days of Trump’s D.C. crackdown.

The White House has said that federal law enforcement has made more than 600 arrests in the nearly two weeks agents have been active in D.C., and officials have pointed to what they say are tumbling violent crime and homicide rates as evidence that their crackdown is working.

But community leaders and activists who spoke at the protest slammed the Trump administration’s move to federalize MPD and to bring in the National Guard, explicitly calling the move “fascist” and framing it as a hostile occupation.

“Donald Trump is trying to take over a city that rejected him three times,” said Markus Batchelor, an advocate for D.C. statehood who alluded to the president’s election performance among voters in the capital city.

“He’s trying to take us over because we love our immigrant neighbors,” Batchelor said. “He’s trying to take us over because we love our trans neighbors. He’s trying to take us over because we are and forever will be Chocolate City, and they want to take it back for themselves and their backwards white supremacist ideology.”

Several demonstrators warned that D.C. could be a test case for federal intervention in other cities. Robert White, Jr., an at-large member of the D.C. Council, said that Trump would take the “occupation” of the capital city to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or Baltimore.

“The question is whether or not we are going to let that happen,” White said. “We are called to action not because we are ready, but because we are here.”

Ty Hobson-Powell, a D.C. native who co-founded community organization Concerned Citizens DC, called on residents and transplants alike to stand up against what he called the “unchecked powers of the presidency.”

“With a Congress that’s kissing [Trump’s] ass, with a Supreme Court that’s been installed as a kangaroo court, where are the checks and balances?” he said. “We will be the checks and balances.”

Nearly every speaker at Thursday’s demonstration issued a call for D.C. statehood.

“We are not free until D.C. is free, and D.C. will not be free until it has full autonomy,” said Kelsye Adams, executive director of Long Live GoGo and D.C. vote. “And full autonomy looks like D.C. statehood.”

Though its residents pay federal taxes and serve in the military, D.C. lacks many of the privileges afforded to U.S. states, such as voting representation in Congress and full control over its affairs. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill set the city’s budget and can repeal laws approved by the D.C. mayor.

While protesters railed on Trump’s federal crackdown on D.C., the president was just miles away at a U.S. Park Police facility in the capital’s Anacostia neighborhood, where he served hamburgers and pizza to National Guard troops and federal law enforcement stationed there.

“You people are winners, and it’s such an honor to be with you,” said the president, who was joined by senior administration officials including Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem. “We’re going to make Washington D.C., great again.”

The president, repeating arguments his administration has made for days, suggested that his intervention in D.C. had made a monumental difference in the city’s safety.

“This capital is, right now after four days or five days, it’s at a level that you haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.

According to January statistics from federal prosecutors in D.C., violent crime rates in the capital city last year were at their lowest levels in 30 years. The Trump administration has accused Metro Police officials of artificially reducing the crime rates, a charge now under investigation by the Justice Department.

The president’s visit with the National Guard, meanwhile, came after he appeared to suggest Thursday afternoon that he would go out on patrol with federal law enforcement across the city. Speaking on a conservative talk radio show, Trump said that he would be “going out tonight with the police and military.”

Instead, Trump spent roughly an hour with National Guard and federal agents at the Park Police facility, located across the Anacostia river from downtown D.C. Pool reports said that the president had a slice of pizza before departing back to the White House.

Back on U Street, demonstrators were dismissive of a potential Trump drive-by. Asked by a reporter what he would do if the president showed up in the neighborhood, Johnson quipped that he would challenge Trump, 79, to a “burpee contest.”

The Thursday evening event ended with a lively session from the go-go band, who played renditions of Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning.” Attendees carrying signs that read “hands off D.C.” and “fuck Trump” danced and sang along to the tunes.

“Free D.C.!” the band’s vocalist chanted between lines.

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