The Epstein Troop Deployment

Trump's Military Attack On D.C. Is The Latest Distraction

When authoritarians get spooked, they don’t reach for policy, persuasion, or prudence; they reach for men with weapons in the city center.

Donald Trump, ever the Dollar Store Bonaparte, is prepping federal muscle in Washington, D.C., deploying National Guard units and flooding the streets with extra federal agents, because nothing says “I’ve got this Epstein story under control” like turning the nation’s capital into an armed camp.

The historical echoes aren’t subtle.

Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 B.C., marched on Rome, and made clear that republican restraint was dead; the road to power was paved with legions’ footprints.

Napoleon followed the script: a “whiff of grapeshot” in 1795 to cow Paris, and the coup of 1799 to dissolve a tottering legislature at bayonet point. Authoritarian theater works best when the audience can see and hear the artillery.

The 20th century’s hard men knew the ritual: tanks and troops in national capitols mean politics is over. Moscow, August 1991, the coup plotters rolled armor toward the Russian White House, and for 72 hours the future of a nuclear-armed and volatile superpower teetered on treads. Beijing, June 1989: dissent met the PLA’s tanks, ending in slaughter and algorithmic amnesia. In Santiago, Chile in September 1973 Pinochet’s jets and tanks smashed La Moneda Palace, ending Chilean democracy for a generation.

The through-line: military force in the public square isn’t about safety; it’s about power, theatrically and irrevocably.

So, “crime in D.C.” is Trump’s shallow, false pretext for this latest state-power pageant, but we know it’s really about Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump.

Before we dismantle his argument, let’s deal in numbers, not vibes.