A cornered, wounded animal
Donald Trump is still our raging narcissist-in-chief
I don’t usually find Dan Rather “and Team Steady” all that informative. But I want to call attention to Rather’s column today (August 11) because he wrote along the same lines I was thinking on Donald Trump’s takeover of Washington, D.C., policing.
Rather knocks the legs out of Trump’s rationalizations: There is homelessness in Washington, sure. There’s even homelessness in Erie, Pennsylvania, for that matter—and no, I have no idea how they survived this last very brutal winter. But Washington’s unhoused population is proportionately far lower than other cities[1]—I remember seeing encampments that stretched for blocks in Oakland, California.
And many have noted that Washington’s crime rate has been decreasing, not, as Trump claims, increasing.[2]
Some think the move was provoked by an alleged unarmed carjacking which injured Edward Coristine, who is also known by the nickname “Big Balls” for his audacious budget cuts while working for the infamous Department Of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”).[3]
Irie Sentner, Sophia Cai, and Ben Johansen at Politico point instead to an anecdote Trump offered today: “I had a wonderful father, very smart,” Trump began, “and he used to say, ‘Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don’t go in, because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also.’”[4] Trump, in this telling, applies this metaphor to Washington with the usual urban filth, homelessness, and crime, as the nation’s “front door” in which a city, being a city with the problems of a city, reflects badly on the entire country.[5]
I was thinking however that this was all about a distraction from the ongoing[6] clamor over the Jeffrey Epstein files, which I presume implicate Trump as a pedophile.[7] Rather writes, “So there is no crime wave or homeless crisis in D.C., but there is a public relations emergency at the White House. It makes one wonder what Trump is trying to hide from: the still lurking Epstein scandal? Rising grocery prices? Criticism over meeting with a war criminal [Vladimir Putin] on U.S. soil? It’s becoming embarrassing to watch him manufacture stunts to change the subject. The president must think he needs a win. And he must believe marching the National Guard down Pennsylvania Avenue will give him one.”[8]
The Coristine story of course points to another possibility that Trump might still want a distraction from the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is cutting, among other things, Medicaid,[9] which it seems a lot of white Christian nationalist voters rely on.[10] Then there’s those declining public approval ratings[11] and that nasty redistricting battle in Texas. Trump needs a distraction from so many issues that we might think of him as a cornered, wounded animal.
But the man is still our raging narcissist-in-chief. His move on Washington illustrates the danger.
[1] Dan Rather, “Capital punishment,” Steady, August 11, 2025, https://steady.substack.com/p/capital-punishment
[2] Michael Birnbaum and Perry Stein, “Trump orders federal takeover of D.C. police, deploys National Guard,” Washington Post, August 11, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/11/trump-national-guard-dc-crime-crackdown/; Avery Lotz, “A tale of two Guards: Trump deploys D.C. troops as California trial kicks off,” Axios, August 11, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/08/11/trump-dc-national-guard-deployment-la; Eli Okun, “Trump sends in the troops,” Politico, August 11, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook-pm/2025/08/11/trump-sends-in-the-troops-00503781; Dan Rather, “Capital punishment,” Steady, August 11, 2025, https://steady.substack.com/p/capital-punishment; Irie Sentner, Sophia Cai, and Ben Johansen, “Judging a book by its cover,” Politico, August 11, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/08/11/judging-a-book-by-its-cover-00504151
[3] Michael Birnbaum and Perry Stein, “Trump orders federal takeover of D.C. police, deploys National Guard,” Washington Post, August 11, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/11/trump-national-guard-dc-crime-crackdown/; Dan Rather, “Capital punishment,” Steady, August 11, 2025, https://steady.substack.com/p/capital-punishment
[4] Donald Trump, quoted in Irie Sentner, Sophia Cai, and Ben Johansen, “Judging a book by its cover,” Politico, August 11, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/08/11/judging-a-book-by-its-cover-00504151
[5] Irie Sentner, Sophia Cai, and Ben Johansen, “Judging a book by its cover,” Politico, August 11, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/08/11/judging-a-book-by-its-cover-00504151
[6] David McAfee, “‘What are you afraid of?’ JD Vance's Epstein interview answer instantly backfires on him,” Raw Story, August 10, 2025, https://www.rawstory.com/jd-vance-afraid-of-epstein/; Riley Rogerson, “GOP Lawmakers Left Washington to Escape the Epstein Issue. It Followed Them Home,” News Of The United States, August 11, 2025, https://www.notus.org/congress/gop-lawmakers-escape-epstein-home
[7] David Benfell, “Will ‘The Big Beautiful Bill’ crack Donald Trump’s white Christian nationalist monolith?” Not Housebroken, August 6, 2025, https://www.disunitedstates.org/p/will-the-big-beautiful-bill-crack
[8] Dan Rather, “Capital punishment,” Steady, August 11, 2025, https://steady.substack.com/p/capital-punishment
[9] David Benfell, “Will ‘The Big Beautiful Bill’ crack Donald Trump’s white Christian nationalist monolith?” Not Housebroken, August 6, 2025, https://www.disunitedstates.org/p/will-the-big-beautiful-bill-crack
[10] Peter Hart, “MAGA on Medicaid,” Center on Economic Policy and Research, March 3, 2025, https://cepr.net/publications/maga-on-medicaid/
[11] Megan Brenan, “Independents Drive Trump's Approval to 37% Second-Term Low,” Gallup, July 24, 2025, https://news.gallup.com/poll/692879/independents-drive-trump-approval-second-term-low.aspx