Dems in disarray as Trump cracks down on DC crime

Democrats are reportedly struggling to develop messaging to counter President Donald Trump’s efforts to stamp out violent crime in Washington, D.C.

Some Democrats strategists told The Hill in a piece published Monday that they feel unhappy with their party’s responseto Trump’s crime crackdown thus far. The report comes a week after Trump declared on August 11 that he is deploying the National Guard to assist in tackling the capital city’s crime crisis.

“These crime statistics, as impressive as they are, are no substitute for how people feel and what they see, and Washington residents still feel like crime is too high and too pervasive, and … that reality has created this opening for Donald Trump,” Democratic strategist Anthony Coley, who lives in D.C., told the Hill.

“Now that is no excuse for this political stunt he is trying to do, but from a raw political perspective, you never want to give your political opponent an opening to address a real concern that your constituents have,” Coley added.

Additionally, Democratic strategist Basil Smikle told the Hill that he thinks there is an impression among some voters that Democrats can be “soft on crime” and that “progressives are too lax on criminals and criminal activity.”

“One of the reasons that Trump has taken to this is because there’s this impression that Democrats are soft on crime and that progressives are too lax on criminals and criminal activity,” Smikle told the outlet. “I think that it’s important to say that crime has gone down in part because communities did respond to the high crime rates. … It wasn’t just more policing, and I think that’s a very important point that they need to hammer home.”

The president said Monday in a Truth Social post that “people are flocking to D.C. again” due to his administration’s crime crackdown.

“Until 4 days ago, Washington, D.C., was the most unsafe ‘city’ in the United States, and perhaps the World,” Trump wrote in the social media post. “Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin!”

Many Democrats have notably criticized Trump for moving to combat crime in the nation’s capital, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who claimed in an August 11 X post that the president has “zero credibility on the issue of law and order.”

Moreover, Democratic D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb announced Friday that he is suing the Trump administration due to its takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD). Schwalb claimed in an X post announcing the lawsuit that “this is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it.”

An August 11 YouGov poll notably found that 37% of voters think crime rates in U.S. cities have “increased a lot” since 2020.

“This is more about who you are going to believe,” Democratic strategist Rodell Mollineau told the Hill. “There’s a lot of dog-whistle in there, and if people are susceptible to believing that, then it’s hard to combat it.”

“It’s hard to say that you should respond with anything but the truth, even if some people don’t want to hear the truth,” Mollineau added. “This is performative, and it’s not actually getting the results. I think that’s where we need to go, but I do think that there’s going to be a population that’s never going to believe us.”

Still, Smikle told the Hill that he does not believe Democrats are “out of touch.”

“I don’t think [Democrats] are out of touch because crime has gone down in these cities, so they know how to police their cities,” Smikle told the outlet. “They have to just remind voters that they brought crime down in their cities, and they know how to do that.”

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