THE RUMBLINGS BEGAN long before the troops arrived. The spectre of the Trump administration’s mass deportation regime had been felt in the DMV since his reelection, with increased Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence, raids, the high-profile disappearance of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more. But in August, the president made it official, deploying the National Guard and all manner of federal officers to the District. Over the weeks, as more states deployed the Guard to DC and officers terrorized the city's working-class neighborhoods, the expansiveness of Trump and Stephen Miller’s fascist vision and the appeasement of establishment Democrats made itself clear. So, too, did the determination of DC communities and DMV socialists to organize a resistance in response.
Each week, the Metro DC DSA Publications Working Group reported (and continues to report) on the unfolding occupation as it has happened, chronicling the invasion, the capitulation, and the fight back. Capitalist media has accommodated the federal repeal by fiat of DC Home Rule — sensationalizing and exploiting the grieving while minimizing the impact of militarization on the District, publishing the logistics of neighborhood rapid-response groups for feds to read on their donut breaks, and on occasion adopting the administration’s whinging moral panic about crime. But as reported by DSA members, the working class grows its own ecosystem of information and mutual aid.
Starting from August 8, the Updates tell the real-time story of what the hell happened in the District during the first month of occupation.
As President Trump began to make threats towards DC autonomy, socialists ramped up their preparations, analyzing ahead of time just how ill-prepared the DC government was to protect its constituents.
Trump threatens to deploy National Guard, “federalize” the District
President Trump is once again threatening to eliminate Home Rule in DC after the alleged attempted carjacking of former DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old nicknamed “Big Balls.” In remarks to the press and a crazed outburst on Truth Social, the president conjured many of the same buzzwords employed when Congress and President Joe Biden violated DC Home Rule in 2023, also signaling the Trump administration’s rabid desire to call in the National Guard (something the president is allowed to do without local consent in DC).
Actually repealing Home Rule would, technically, require action by Congress. However, because the people of the District lack the protections of statehood, the president can violate DC autonomy in other ways, including by taking control of DC police for up to 30 days if he “determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for federal purposes.” Trump also issued an executive order this year creating the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,” cited by the National Park Service as part of its justification for recently announced plans to reinstall a Confederate statue that protesters tore down in 2020, according to NPR.
It appears unlikely that the DC government has the will to fight back, as proven by the ruling-class looting of DC workers disguised as a budget. By rolling back tenants’ rights, expanding the police state, and essentially repealing Initiative 82, elected leaders in DC have normalized anti-democratic rule. Resistance to Trumpian fascism must be built from the ground up: by the people, for the people. Comrades across the DMV are organizing for working-class power, fighting not just against the president but for the better world that socialists know is possible.
The fascist attack arrived as promised, bringing with it a wave of terror for the most vulnerable people in the DMV. Metro DC DSA leapt into action, organizing a mass meeting that coalesced resistance forces in the District.
DC UNDER SIEGE: As Trump launches takeover of DC, locals plot revolt against fascist rule
The Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America issued the following statement after American President Donald Trump began his long-awaited assault on DC:
“Donald Trump has declared a ‘public safety emergency’ in Washington DC, placed the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, and announced plans to deploy the National Guard in DC. This ‘emergency’ is a lie. But more importantly, it is an extreme escalation of the fascist administration’s attacks on DC Home Rule, undertaken with the explicit intent of ramping up the federal government’s ongoing elimination campaign against working people, especially DC’s unhoused and immigrant communities. In the coming days we can expect to watch the hammer come down on the city we call home, a reality made no less chilling by the fact that we’ve seen this coming since election day.”
Our immediate challenge is to defend DC, but the scope of this issue is far broader. The idea that militarized occupation forces can create safety has been pushed at every level: by Mayor Bowser, by the conservatives on the DC Council, by the fascist Trump administration, and by the warmongers in Congress supporting genocide in Palestine. The occupation of our streets is a symptom of a far deeper systemic rot, one we’ve seen manifest around the world driven by capitalist pursuit of profit and power. Fixing this rot requires a fundamental reconstruction of American society that puts working people in control of our own lives, from our workplaces, to our apartment complex, to our Wilson Building, and to our Capitol. Only socialism can beat fascism, so Metro DC DSA will fight on every front and with every fiber of our being for our freedom.”
Since then, federal officers have begun swarming the streets of the District. With eager cooperation from MPD and amid reporting that Mayor Bowser has left town for Martha’s Vineyard (to party with Republicans!), authorities began performing massive, grotesque sweeps of unhoused DC residents on Thursday, August 14. Trump’s objective, first and foremost, appears to be the creation of B-roll footage to be fabricated into cheap propaganda for social media and cable news. However, the creation of a wide drag-net around the city is very real, and poses a direct threat to the sovereignty and safety of the city’s working class. Across social media, footage of local resistance and defiance to Trumpist forces have awakened a renewed popular front against the forces of fascism.
In response to this assault, Metro DC DSA will be holding a mass meeting this Sunday, August 17th from 3–6PM at a location to be announced. The event will be split into speakers, issue-based breakouts, and potentially location-based breakouts time permitting.
Officers have also been harassing people on the streets of DC — as of August 14, MPD has announced that they will be collaborating with ICE at traffic checkpoints. Know what your rights are and how to assert them. Neighborhoods are also seeing increased ICE activity — familiarize yourself with DC Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid’s Know Your Rights resources in English and Spanish, and spread the word.
Trump forces have also launched midnight raids to break up homeless encampments across the city under the cover of dark. From trusted local advocates: Rank-and-file community members are asked to aid those at encampments under assault by helping them pack after getting their consent to do so; at this time, avoid deliberate arrest or intervention. For the safety of people at encampments, please do not take pictures of unhoused people or of tents that are not actively being removed (but do record removals for documentation).
Attorney General Pam Bondi also issued an order Thursday night codifying the federal takeover of the DC police department, making clear that the head of the DEA (Terry Cole, a Glenn Youngkin groupie) is now also the DC police commissioner. In addition, AG Bondi also claimed to revoke DC’s sanctuary city policies. (The legality of all this is fuzzy, of course — but we are well past legal limitations to authoritarian power.)
Stay smart, stay alert.
As a newly formed DC Against Trump coalition — which includes MDC DSA — emerged to protect immigrants and youth from police terror, the Publications Working Group diligently reported on-the-ground organizing efforts, analyzed Mayor Muriel Bowser’s strategy of appeasement, and urged readers to get involved.
Washington, occupied city: Popular front emerges to fight fascist invasion — rally and mass cop watch Saturday, August 23
“There is no takeover,” Mayor Muriel Bowser uttered in a press conference on the night of Monday, August 18. By Wednesday evening, the mayor and MPD Police Chief Pamela Smith were smiling and shaking hands with Trump’s favorite pet, Stephen Miller.
The initial invasion of DC, launched by President Trump in a naked power grab, flooded DC’s streets with armed federal agents. Their stated objective was to stop crime. In reality, the forces escorted ICE agents around the city to attack the vulnerable and launch a shock and awe campaign designed to pacify the city through fear. Throughout the week, the nation watched harrowing videos emerge from the District: a disabled immigrant rammed with a vehicle; parishioners abducted on their way to mass; a delivery driver sucker punched on their way to work; homeless folks ripped from encampments and marched to shelters already at capacity; checkpoints erected spontaneously to grow and develop an unaccountable dragnet; messages of solidarity ripped down and mocked; bystanders threatened with arrest and assault.
Senseless violence. State torture. Force as spectacle. This is fascism. The occupying forces’ hit-squad tactics may be overlooked by a certain kind of upper-class resident of the city. But there is no escaping the cost of this outrageous terrorism. As increasingly audacious methods of state violence are normalized, nihilism and sadism will proliferate across the government and society, creating a despondent and sociopathic population. Materially, these wasteful incursions reduce state capacity to address the actual sources of poverty and violence that plague American life. This unchecked rot will spread with time, bearing increasingly high costs to the life of working-class people. This is the nature of all austerity regimes, which require compounding levels of violence and corruption to maintain.
Mutual aid networks, tenant and labor unions, immigrant rights groups, and homeless advocacy organizations rapidly initiated defense protocols to fascist repression. But many were left wondering: where is the DC government? An expose published by the Washington Post answered that question. Despite secret discussions held by the Council, Mayor Bowser, Attorney General Brian Schwalb, and senior administrators, the DC government failed to cohere a response to Trump’s attack on DC autonomy. Police Chief Smith seemed to disappear entirely, shocking even MPD officers. Although the DC government eventually filed a lawsuit to contest Trump’s formal sequester of the police department, no steps have been taken to functionally limit federal control. Several councilmembers have even mused full collaboration with the occupiers. On national radio, at-large Councilmember Henderson openly welcomed coordination with the occupying forces. The sacrifice of immigrants, civil liberties, the poor, and District autonomy are all seen as fair tributes in the eyes of DC’s myopic political elite.
Locally, hope lies in the popular front summoned from DC’s working-class enclaves. In reaction to federal assault, organizer networks have formed communication chains to rapidly coordinate neighborhood response to federal attack and intervention. These networks have culminated in ripostes against federal assault, producing several heroic maneuvers over the past week. Just a few spotted:
This federal assault must not be normalized; the time to get involved is now. This Saturday, August 23 at 6pm, comrades and community members will take a stand for our youth and our communities with a rally and cop watch at 14th and U Streets: standing against Trump’s takeover of the city and defending Black youth, immigrants, and the unhoused. Bring signs and noisemakers.
MORE RESOURCES AND ACTIONS: Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, one of the few voices in DC government trying to halt the appeasement strategy, has created a Federal Enforcement Incident Report form for Ward 4. DC Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid has a hotline for ICE sightings, know your rights materials, and resources for community members. The DC Safety Squad is running We Keep Us Safe Wednesdays, sharing political education information on Instagram and guidance to travel together.
DC’s popular front continued to grow in the fight against occupation, not just defending but going on offense with mass cop watches and the organization of a national march in early September.
Popular front continues fight against occupation as an offense appears to emerge
It has been nearly three weeks since Donald Trump launched his invasion of the District of Columbia. The swarming of federal officers, acting under the guise of “public safety,” have launched a mass terror campaign targeting immigrants in the city. ICE and a smattering of federal agencies have skulked across the city to harass and abduct locals suspected of being undocumented.
Locals have developed a resistance effort to defend from assault. Despite shock and strain, signs of a population ready for offense appear to be emerging. Last Saturday, hundreds took to 14th and U to rally against the federal occupation. Following several speeches, which called on the multi-racial working class to rise in defense, locals spilled onto the streets of Shaw. The heroic demonstration led locals down U Street to call for an end to both the federal occupation and the wasteful curfew laws imposed by Mayor Bowser. Cars caught in the streets blared horns in support as bystanders joined the fray and cheered on resistance forces. Police, clearly caught off-guard, struggled to contain the march and shrunk from lines and positions established to contain protesters.
A larger national protest, planned for Saturday, September 6, has been called by the popular front fighting against the occupation forces. Protestors will assemble at Malcolm X Park at 11am, with plans to march through the city to defy the occupation. Metro DC DSA has endorsed the march and is encouraging turnout for the operation.
As Trump increases grip over DC, Mayor Bowser manufactures consent for fascism
Unsatiated by Bowser’s prior surrender of the city, President Trump has escalated his attempted takeover of DC. On Monday, Trump issued executive orders to end cashless bail, detain people who have not been convicted of any crime, and trial the establishment of new militarized police forces to cement his invasion. Trump is exploiting DC’s lack of local autonomy to test-run a planned roll-out to other cities across the country. It should not be lost that Trump is exploiting a style of urban paranoia that many cynical Democrats have exploited to win favor with the rich and powerful over the years.
As fear and outrage grip District residents, Mayor Bowser held a press conference on the federal takeover of DC on Wednesday. The press conference shocked the people of DC as it became clear that Bowser was doubling down on her surrender of the District to Trumpist rule: the mayor suggested in her presentation that the assault on life and civil liberties in DC has been good for residents. Bowser called for more police, the ones ushering ICE raids and facilitating illegal detainments, despite historic declines in crime and violence in DC prior to occupation. Notwithstanding the lack of data, Bowser would go on to claim that the Sanctuary Values Act — which is supposed to prevent ICE cooperation with MPD — is still very much being followed even as people are being dragged out of their cars and off of the streets by the hour. When asked about the possibility that the federal takeover (or “surge” as she kept reframing for reporters) would be extended, Bowser openly offered to form a collaborationist government with Trump, saying “we will be prepared to take advantage of additional federal officers to focus on the beautification to support the federal task force.” Her final words to DC residents who feel as though their lives and neighborhoods are being offered up as collateral? That she’s sorry people are so anxious, but to remember “we all have a role to play in advancing and protecting our democracy.” One wonders how giving billions to billionaire settlement-funder Josh Harris in a stadium giveaway (one that includes a Bowser-approved fine waiver to chop down heritage trees) advances democracy.
Many of DC’s councilmembers (CMs) were quick to condemn Bowser’s endorsement of the takeover. In a forceful response, CM Robert White expressed outrage at the mayor’s abdication: “This federal takeover is not necessary for any purpose other than the authoritarian takeover he is planning to take to other states… this is not intended to help us… this is wild!” CM Lewis George delivered her plea to DC residents and allies across the country, in a message broadcast across social media: “Friends and family are being broken apart… it is not okay. It will never be okay. I don’t care what the Mayor said in her presser or anywhere else, this is not something we are welcoming. This is not something that is good.”
At a quarterly U Street Neighborhood Association meeting, Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau said that she “disagrees strenuously” with Bowser’s statements. Even if most of the cops “want to keep us safe,” CM Nadeau said, the situation is out of their control. CM Nadeau alleged that MPD is routinely responding to calls while the feds are simply eavesdropping on the radio calls and showing up. CM Nadeau committed to request body camera footage to try and uncover ICE’s associations with MPD to see how often the other agencies were inviting themselves along on MPD calls. Even though the councilmember repeatedly said that she’s doing everything in her power to stop the takeover and protect DC residents, this was the only specific action she promised to take. Responsibility shifted to the very helpers Bowser would rather pretend don’t exist — the people. Grassroots organizing, like the support for students at school arrival and dismissal as well as the neighborhood surveillance networks, are what Nadeau said will ultimately end the occupation of DC.
Want to join the fight against occupation?
As occupation continued, the MDC DSA Weekly Update reported on bike patrols to protect our communities, solicited attendance to the September 6 mass march, and illustrated the precise details of Muriel Bowser’s capitulation: the logical conclusion of her long-term neoliberal agenda.
DC popular front launching mass march to demand an end to Washington’s occupation — Saturday, September 6
The continued occupation of DC interrupted a well-deserved Labor Day respite for working people in the DMV. Federal officers, National Guard, and Trump-controlled police have continued their campaign of harassment, surveillance, and detainment of residents, immigrants, youth, and the unhoused. Coordinated defense networks — which have continued to grow and attract wider support among DC residents — have sustained rapid mobilizations to document and confront gestapo jump-outs and checkpoints. In response to growing hostility from locals, federal occupiers and their MPD lapdogs have begun travelling in larger columns. The occupiers’ behavior, too, has grown increasingly erratic: officers have lashed out, cursed, and jeered bystanders who document or confront their neighborhood invasion with far greater frequency. The occupiers’ escalation is concerning, although a sign that the resistance effort is successfully impacting morale.
The popular front against occupation continues to grow. Last weekend brought several marches and demonstrations to the streets of Washington, with continued mobilizations planned this weekend.
On Saturday, September 6, the popular front is staging its largest march yet. The march/rally — dubbed WE ARE ALL DC — will be joined by organized labor, neighborhood associations, and all manner of civil society organizations in the city. The objective is to unify the local opposition movement, move together, demonstrate strength, and sap the occupation of its ability to contain mass resistance. The rally will meet on the green at Malcolm X Park (16th St NW & W St NW) at 11am, with plans to march at 12pm. Metro DC DSA has endorsed this event and has called on all members and allies to engage if able. Attendees can look for red roses to identify Metro DC DSA’s contingent.
An additional mobilization is planned for tonight, September 5, to converge at Navy Yard Metro Station at 7pm. This is the third round of Mass Cop Watches initiated by the DC Against Trump Coalition (Metro DC DSA is a lead in this coalition). Federal presence has swelled in Navy Yard since the occupation began. A curfew zone has been initiated to imprison local youth and scare off those who have resisted intensifying gentrification in the neighborhood.
And on Sunday, September 7 at 2pm in Malcolm X Park, socialists will host a Rapid Response Art Build and Bike Tune-Up. Organizers in the chapter have been responding to the fascist takeover of DC with large morning patrols by foot and bicycle in targeted areas. On Sunday, socialists will be painting banners and signs to use on patrols and helping cyclists tune up their bikes for the coming week’s rides. Additionally, antifascists can sign up here to join future patrol efforts. Another way to help keep neighbors safe and informed: Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and DC Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid have launched Film the Police DC, a central hub for community members to send photos, videos, and tips at report@filmthepolicedc.org.
MURIEL THE MARIONETTE: While locals revolt against occupation rule, Bowser embraces collaboration in DC — teach-in on Sunday, September 7 at 2pm
As socialists and community members organize to defend one another, Trump is attempting to shore up his occupation puppet, Muriel Bowser. Bowser spent the last week boosting the surge in the city over the cries of outraged residents, including by signing Executive Order 2025-090, which formalizes cooperation with federal forces. Trump has elevated Bowser’s compliance to plot the siege of other American cities: Chicago and Baltimore have been named as possible targets. Despite the mayor’s surrender, Congressional Republicans have continued their assault on DC home rule.
Bowser’s compliance has been a complete failure for the city. And while there are hard limits to Bowser’s power, her capitulation is not some convoluted attempt at a winning strategy. It is the logical end point of the neoliberal political program she has pursued aggressively over the years: the mass sale of public land at bargain prices to corporate developers, the privatization of city services, overturning ballot initiatives that intrude on capitalist profiteering, austere budget cuts, fighting modest tax increases tooth and nail, ignoring calls for deeper police accountability and gutting tenants’ rights. The result is an administration completely disconnected from mass life, culture, and working-class organization in the city, leaving Bowser reliant on money and the ruling classes who quietly support Trump’s assaults. Muriel Bowser has always been a marionette — it’s just the puppeteer who has changed.
Bowser’s lack of vision for the District has left a void that Trump has been all too willing to fill. The DC Council, which has failed to stop — or marshal a counter-vision to — Bowser’s myopic platform, shares part of the blame. The slow growth of DC’s left bloc, helmed by Councilmember (CM) Lewis George and anchored by CMs Parker, Nadeau, Frumin, and Robert White, has been assembling an opposition, but discoordination — especially from liberal CMs Henderson and Allen — has frustrated the project. There are signs that the council’s left is planning to coalesce grassroots opposition to the puppet regime. CM R. White released a particularly strong statement outlining a clear set of operations DC’s government can take to challenge the federal occupation, and even joined socialists on the streets over the weekend. However, while working people in the city want to trust R. White, his recent council maneuvers to undermine tenant protections and tipped workers’ wage increases risk impeding his wider ambitions.
This crisis did not arise in a vacuum, and DC communities are not helpless to respond. The coalition that led the fight against Secure DC (Us Not Crimnibus Coalition) has organized a teach-in on Sunday, September 7 at 2pm on the status of the federal takeover, how DC got here, and what can be done to fight back.
Organizers expected 5,000 at the September 5, 2025, WE ARE ALL DC rally. At least 20,000 marched from Malcolm X to the White House, as the popular front against fascist occupation continued to swell.
OCCUPIED DC — Trump emergency control expired, but occupation set to continue
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of protesters marched from Malcolm X Park to the White House in a demonstration of local opposition to Trumpist occupation and Bowser’s puppet regime. The wide affair produced striking imagery and demonstrated the power of the coordinated popular front mobilized against the occupation that has been terrorizing residents over the past month.
Mass public opposition to the occupation appears to be working in deterring expanded control over DC. As of Thursday, September 11, Trump’s control over the police department officially expired. Trump previously floated extending federal control, but for now his official seizure of the police department has ended. Under the Home Rule Act, Trump would technically need an authorization from the House and Senate to extend control for more than 30 days. Massive national coverage and local mobilization against the regime, including instances of the public accosting of Trump, have almost certainly soured the Orange Emperor’s appetite for continued control.
Although the Metropolitan Police Department is no longer reporting formally to Trump, the transformation of “Mayor” Bowser into a Trump collaborationist leaves MPD under effective fascist control. ICE and the Federal Gestapo will also still be operating in the city, and have continued informal coordination with MPD. An investigation published in Bellingcat demonstrates how ICE and federal law enforcement exploit MPD’s ambivalence and quiet submissiveness to conduct their raids and jump-out programing. The National Guard deployment is expected to continue past October.
DC is still also under threat from Congress, which is considering 13 bills designed to further subordinate DC autonomy. One would prevent residents from electing their own attorney general; the current attorney general, Brian Schwalb, has used his office to go after landlords, wage theft, and other corporate plots, and has openly defended DC from Trumpist rule. Additional bills would reduce restrictions on police, end no-cash bail, and expand prison sentencing for youth and young adults. These demands aren’t rogue requests from Congress, but are in fact demands from the extortion racket calling itself the “DC police union,” which has eagerly invited and exploited federal takeover of the city. Mayor Bowser and the DC Council have been unwilling to challenge the shakedown, allowing MPD to raid public coffers in provisioning officers a raise of over 13% in the upcoming year.
Metro DC DSA is continuing resistance coordination efforts. The chapter is organizing members to conduct patrols in ICE hotspots to make sure eyes and ears are on the streets.
As masses mobilized against occupation, the DC Council passed a new law that rescinded decade's old tenants rights. The loss of tenant power should not be seen as a seperate current, but as the de-facto hand-over of any semblence of working- class autonomy in the city.
On Wednesday, the DC Council voted to pass the terrible RENTAL Act. The law was pushed by Mayor Bowser and ushered through the DC Council by Robert White. The law makes it easier to evict tenants and broadly strips tenants of their rights under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). This new legislation shortens the timeframe for evictions, allowing landlords to evict tenants 10 days after serving notices. TOPA will not apply to new housing built in the city and also robs any tenant who lives in a building constructed within the last 15 years of their TOPA rights.
Councilmember Janeese Lewis George said in response: “These changes to TOPA are about power: Who has it, who loses it. And who gets written out of the process entirely.”
“I don’t want to move this bill,” White said from the dais. “This is terrible!” he continued, chuckling as though he was not the primary force behind the bill. But Robert White has greater ambitions. White’s ushering of the RENTAL Act is a transparent ploy to garner support among the real estate lobby and landlords in a future election. In exchange, he has traded the rights of tens of thousands of DC tenants.
Other councilmembers spelled out the politics clearly. Councilmember Henderson: “[Reducing TOPA rights] is not only about new construction…We need investors to find us attractive again.” To attract these investors, CM Henderson has offered up the rights and housing stability of the city’s working class. And in a dastardly surprise move, the council approved an amendment from Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-at large) to exempt buildings with four units or less from TOPA, further reducing tenant rights. (The council previously voted to strip single-family house tenants of their TOPA rights in 2018.)
But in a very small abatement, the council voted to pass an amendment circulated by CMs Nadeau (Ward 1), Lewis George (Ward 4) and Mendelson (chair) which most notably rescinded the TOPA exemptions to properties with affordability covenants from TOPA, in addition to striking language that would have allowed landlords to bypass TOPA to maintain units at 80% of the median area income ($86k/year). This amendment softens the blow and is a testament to the legislative skills of CMs Nadeau and Lewis George, but there is no denying that TOPA, and tenant rights as a whole, have been irrevocably damaged.
The TOPA repeal effort was a plot coordinated by the landlord lobby. Similar to the way Initiative 82 was repealed, highly paid lobbyists and neoliberal spin-doctors used questionable data, misleading reports, and sham polls to insinuate broken policy and political support. The DC Council’s failure to stand against this ploy stands in stark contrast to councils in the neighboring Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. In both jurisdictions, their councils moved instead on initiating strong rent control protections as mobilized tenants outmaneuvered landlord lobbyists.
All the while, Congress continued its assault on DC autonomy, passing two bills (with key support from dozens of Democrats) that attacked DC’s Judicial Nominations Commission and would expand police power to engage in dangerous vehicular pursuits. The connection between the council’s attack on working-class residents and Congress’s assault on home rule cannot be ignored. DC’s democracy can only be protected and won with a wide workers’ and tenants’ movement, connected to a broader political program that defends the material autonomy of DC’s working class.
......
At time of writing, the resistance to DC's takeover continues, but it brings this writer no pleasure to report that signs of fatigue appear to be setting in across the city.
Organizers response networks remain sharp, but sorties are diminishing. Economic crises - caused by the federal shutdown, DOGE cuts and demoralizing presence of federal troops have sapped the working class' capacity for mobilization and response. Bowser's Puppet regime has been aided by the DC Council, whose assaults on wage protections (I82 repeal), benefits cuts (budget assault), local autonomy (stadium deal approval) and tenants rights (passage of the RENTAL Act) have created a numbed disposition across the city.
Appetite for mass resistance is still present, as evidenced by the recent NO KINGS rally drawing some of the largest crowds DC has ever seen and in upstart protests against Bowser's sham listening tours across the city. But it is hard to ignore that the assault and Trumpist occupation of DC has largely succeeded in subordinating the city. Although Home Rule is still the law, the connection between the people of Washington and their local government is strained and rife with distrust. Invasions of other cities across the country have met more concerted resistance from political leaders and locals — this writer hopes that the resistance of DC's people have, at least, played some part in inspiring battle against the Trump regime.
Metro DC DSA's Publications working group will continue to write about the occupation of DC in the chapter's Weekly Newsletter, which publishes every Friday at 9am. There will come a time when DC is freed from the Trumpists' grip and Statehood is achieved — we will be here to document it.
