Cities led by Black women are the first targets of Trump's political power grab

Source: Salon/The 19th

Published August 23, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


Republican President Donald Trump’s continued power grab in the nation’s capital, and his threat to expand his militarized takeover to other Democratic-led cities, is setting up a high-stakes showdown over the country’s democracy that pits him prominently against a familiar political foe: Black women.

On August 11, Trump declared that crime in the District of Columbia was “out of control,” despite violent crime being at a 30-year low, and directed Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Black woman, to hand over control of the city’s police force. Trump then attempted to oust the city’s police commissioner, a Black woman, and replace her with a White man, before backing down after the city threatened legal action. Now, his Justice Department is investigating the accuracy of the reported crime statistics, which the agency touted in a still-available press release earlier this year.

Earlier this summer, Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests over his administration’s immigration raids — the first time in 60 years that a president had taken such action without a governor’s request. Los Angeles is led by Mayor Karen Bass, another Black woman, who confronted the uninvited federal agents in a high-profile exchange at a city park.

Using the District of Columbia as a template, even though 79 percent of its residents oppose Trump’s actions, according to a Washington Post/Schar School poll, the president has, citing crime, threatened to send federal law enforcement back into Los Angeles, and to Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland and New York — all cities led by Democratic Black mayors, including Barbara Lee in Oakland.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2025/08/23/cities-led-by-black-women-are-the-first-targets-of-trumps-political-power-grab/