The D.C. Police Stopped January 6th — Now They Belong to Trump
Plus, he's building a loyalist paramilitary in ICE.
Big Balls got his ass kicked, so now the United States capital is under martial law. If that sentence tested the limits of your sanity, then buckle up.
Two weeks ago, the ex-DOGE staffer known by his online name Big Balls (real name Edward Coristine) was allegedly assaulted during a carjacking in Washington, D.C. The White House quickly positioned the event as part of a D.C. crime wave, which Trump pledged to address the only way he knows how. Within days, Trump federalized the Metropolitan D.C. police force and deployed the National Guard to the capital.1 This is the classic fascist charade: take a single event (real or simulated), claim it’s part of a social crisis, then ‘solve’ said crisis through escalating force and consolidation of executive power. What’s currently unfolding in D.C. is remarkably similar to the occupation of Los Angeles, which, according to the Major General who commanded the L.A.-based troops, was built on a false premise of anti-government violence.2 The same bullshit justification is being used in D.C. Like the rest of the country, violent crime has plunged since the 1990s, with a short COVID increase before resuming its downward path to an all-time low.
However, there are two notable differences between the L.A. and D.C. scenarios. First, Washington, D.C., is a federal territory with limited self-governance under the 1973 Home Rule Act; the same law that empowers the president to federalize the police department in times of crisis for thirty days — a deadline Trump will certainly ignore. The second difference is far more consequential. As the American capital, Washington, D.C., is where all national elections are certified and lawmakers are seated. By controlling the military and police overseeing these processes, Trump has given the GOP the capability to overturn election results they dislike.
During his first coup attempt on January 6th, 2021, Trump’s supporters were eventually stopped from reaching the congressional hall by a slapdash contingent of Secret Service agents, Capitol Police, and D.C. Metropolitan Police. That last unit is now under Trump’s direct control, and there’s a conservative’s chance in Heaven that he relinquishes it anytime soon. Given the high potential for Republican losses in 2026 and 2028, direct control over the military and police overseeing the certification results would give Trump the ability to conduct all sorts of fuckery, happily abetted by his media and political sycophants, who are well-experienced in the finer points of election rigging. After all, election results are merely the American people sending their chosen representatives to Washington D.C. Whether or not those officials are seated and able to enact their Constitutionally-decreed powers is determined by who controls the most guns in a 5-mile radius around the Capitol. As Mao Zedong said, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’ Though mortal enemies, conservatives agree with the Chinese communist leader, which is why they’re building Donald Trump’s personal army.
As xenophobia is the water Donald Trump’s political career swims through, it’s no surprise that the second Trump administration has made Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the premier government agency. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) allocated $75 billion to ICE, making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.3 The Department of Homeland Security, which ICE sits within, plans to double the number of ICE agents from 20,000 to 30,000 to handle the high quota of “deportations” (a catch-all term for renditions, imprisonments, and incarcerations of non-white residents) that de-facto president Stephen Miller demands.4 While soft ethnic cleansing is undoubtedly a White House objective, the process is simultaneously turning ICE into an unaccountable, nation-wide paramilitary comprised of Trump loyalists.
You’ve likely heard ICE is on a hiring spree. But DHS Secretary Kristi Noem isn’t looking for just anyone to join the her ranks. Who joins Trump’s new army is more important than how many. Noem doesn’t want civil servants — she wants brownshirts. The ICE hiring campaign uses explicitly fascist messaging, encouraging would-be agents to ‘Defend Your Culture’ and directly referencing Which Way Western Man?, a book by American neo-Nazi William Gayley Simpson. This message has found purchase with cops, as was likely intended. The chance to persecute even more minorities has caused so many employed Sheriff’s deputies to join ICE that the National Sheriff's Association, one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, publicly spoke out against the campaign.5
But convincing a few pigs to waddle outside the pen and roll in a different pile of shit isn’t enough manpower for Trump’s designs. As the applicant pool shrinks when "White Nationalism" appears in the job description, Noem has relaxed the requirements and increased the incentives to get the MAGA devotees she wants. ICE recently offered 1,000 retirees tentative positions and even repealed the candidate age cap.67 With the record-breaking OBBA funding, ICE can offer expanded benefits, including student loan forgiveness timed to coincide with the expiration of the Biden-era loan relief program.8 The most seductive draw is the widely-publicized $50,000 signing bonus for new agents, which has been crafted to ensure maximum political loyalty to Trump. ICE new-hires receive $10,000 upon joining, $10,000 within a few months of employment, and the remaining $30,000 over the next three years. This distribution schedule ensures that those who sign up now will have a monetary interest in ensuring Donald Trump’s political program continues through the immediate future. If a candidate interviewed today, they’d have a direct financial incentive to ensure a Republican sits in the White House on January 21st, 2029 — regardless of who won the election and whether they are constitutionally permitted.
Donald Trump’s greatest political skill, which has now been taken up by his lackeys as the president’s mind turns to soup, is kicking up so much shit that it’s difficult to see the method to his madness. There’s the bullshit about fake crime waves, the horseshit about murderous immigrants, the horror shitshow of the Gazan genocide, and of course, the pieces of shit running the aforementioned shit-tossing operations, who manage to say the shittiest things ever said, a record they will break every subsequent day until they are replaced by even shittier pieces of shit. Far too often, we opponents of fascism take the shit at its smell. ‘But crime in D.C. is down!’ we scream as The White House claims its up. The fascist goal is not to convince us the shit is good, but to overwhelm us with their stench that we plug our noses, fan away the odors, and flee in search of untainted oxygen. During our escape, we forget the shit is no longer shit but fertilizer, growing a thousand vines that aim to constrict and strangle the very-limited democracy we have in the United States. The military occupation of Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, soon to be reinforced by an army of Trump-loyalist ICE agents, are those vines. If left unchecked, they will drag us back beneath the shit. That’s why I highly encourage everyone of you to get organized. It’s much easier to weed the garden together.
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In Solidarity — Joe
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/12/mayor-national-guard-washington-dc
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-military-was-deployed-la-protests-despite-low-risk-general-testifies-2025-08-11/
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/ice-recruitment-trump-police-force-rcna224319
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqle5newg0no
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/08/02/ice-recruiting-signing-bonus-incentives-immigration-officers/85478464007/
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-issues-over-1000-tentative-job-offers-shore-agencys-enforcement-efforts
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/06/secretary-noem-unveils-no-age-limit-patriotic-americans-join-ice-law-enforcement
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqle5newg0no