On August 12, Trump deployed eight hundred National Guard troops to Washington D.C. Trump continues to advance an attack on poor people under the false pretext of “[rescuing] our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” By August 22, over 2,000 troops were patrolling the nation’s capital. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth authorized the arming of the troops. That same day, he alleged in a specious claim that Democrats have “destroyed” San Francisco, threatening to send in federal troops.
A Needless Show of Force
Trump has not set a date for this further wasteful expenditure, leaving his ridiculous plans TBD. Local leaders invariably took a dismissive view of Trump’s veiled threats. Chair of San Francisco Democratic Party Nancy Tung characterized his statements as “bluster and insanity”. Tung added, “If he wants to roll a tank down [the crooked part of] Lombard Street, go ahead. We're ready.”
Let’s entertain the idea. One military tank, weighing between 40 and 70 tons, gets just over half a mile per gallon of gas. There’s the grades of San Francisco’s steeper hills to consider, ranging from 24%–41%. An engine burns much more fuel hauling its vehicle over the hill. Given a tank’s 500-gallon capacity, at San Francisco gas prices (around $4.65), one fill-up would cost ~$2,325. From Trump’s perspective, it would be wasteful not to throw money away on this fantasy.
The infrastructural and systemic problems in San Francisco are not the fault of Democracy. That we can blame on gentrification, which has plagued San Francisco for decades. Starting with the Dot-Com Boom of the 1990s and aggravated by its second wave ten years later, rents climbed everywhere. Legacy businesses unable to make rent shuttered in stark contrast to the booming business around them.
Walgreens is responsible for seventeen store closures and scores of layoffs in San Francisco. In fact, the pharmacy chain has affected the city in subtle yet profound ways. In 2023, the city sued Walgreens for $230 million after the company was caught overprescribing opioids, exacerbating SF’s opioid crisis. The company surely profited off many San Franciscans’ opioid dependencies, an unseen catalyst of addiction and homelessness.
In 2024, the United States government found Walgreens guilty of billing federal health programs for undispensed medications, incurring a $106.8 million fine.
And on top of all this, the billionaire class has been steadily siphoning money from the rest of us, making working people poorer, and exacerbating the problems that impact all societies in late stage capitalism.
Trump, Unsurprisingly, is Violating Boundaries
Deploying the National Guard at all, let alone to San Francisco, should be for emergencies only. That ought to be reason enough. Crime in the city is trending downward, even though the SFPD is reportedly understaffed. Barring a devastating fire or earthquake, no excuse for mobilizing the National Guard to the Bay Area exists. This is likely Trump currying favor among his supporters, picking on a target they already hate. 300+ mass shootings across the country or a consistently high murder rate between Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have not merited deployment of the National Guard. Trump steps on a lot of toes by invoking his overriding authority to dispatch the National Guard. As President of the United States, Trump is Commander in Chief of D.C.’s National Guard. D.C. is a federal district independent of the fifty states. However, governors within those states have primary authority over their Guards, with the president retaining emergency override capacity.
Trump also threatened to deploy troops forty miles north of D.C. to Baltimore. Maryland Governor Wes Moore, himself a veteran, explicitly said, “I will not authorize the usage of the Maryland National Guard for any mission that I do not deem to be mission-critical or mission aligned.”
Meanwhile in California, Governor Gavin Newsom has dispatched the California Highway Patrol to LA, San Diego, and the Bay Area. The additional patrol is Newsom’s answer to a 2024 ballot measure demanding retail, drug, and property crimes be strictly punished. Newsom’s rivalry with Trump remains playful, perhaps so as not to alienate Republican voters. Blanketing California’s largest urban centers with State Troopers should, from Newsom’s perspective, stave off Trump’s wastefulness—for now.
