Democrats thought they could score political points Monday by mocking President Donald Trump’s aggressive plan to crack down on Washington, DC’s spiraling crime problem. Instead, their stunt backfired almost instantly.
Earlier in the day, Trump announced that he was invoking Section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act to place the city’s Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. He also activated the National Guard, citing an “emergency” to address violent gangs, “roving mobs of wild youth,” drug-fueled street chaos, and skyrocketing crime.
“This is a tragic emergency,” Trump told reporters. “This once beautiful capital has been overtaken by violent gangs, bloodthirsty criminals, and drugged-out maniacs. You can’t walk down the street without fearing for your safety.”
Rather than address the substance of the crime crisis, the Democratic Party’s official X account tried to get cute. They posted a DC map with the White House circled and the caption, “Found the home base of criminals in D.C.” But the internet wasn’t buying it.
Replies flooded in, roasting the Democrats and pointing the finger back at their own party. One user “fixed” the post by circling the Democrat National Committee headquarters instead. Another posted photos of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and prominent Democrats, captioning it, “The Biden Crime Family has left the building.”
“You guys should probably avoid playing this game,” one user warned, attaching a map showing where fatal shootings in DC have actually occurred. Others accused Democrats of “cheering on crime” and ignoring the city’s record-high murder rate.
Critics slammed the tone-deafness of mocking efforts to restore public safety in a city residents increasingly fear to walk through. “It’s a 90/10 issue,” one commenter wrote. “People want safety for their families, and Democrats consistently drop the ball — on purpose?”
Trump, for his part, stressed that his actions weren’t about partisan politics, pointing out that even liberal journalists have been crime victims in the city. “I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but you don’t want to get mugged, raped, shot, or killed,” he told the press corps. “You want to leave your home, go into a store, and feel safe — and you don’t have that now.”
The exchange highlights a sharp contrast in approach: Trump is framing DC’s lawlessness as an urgent crisis requiring decisive federal intervention, while Democrats appear more focused on political one-liners than solutions. The problem for them is that voters are overwhelmingly concerned about crime — and social media made clear that mocking law-and-order measures is a losing strategy.
With the National Guard now deployed and DC police under federal oversight, Trump’s move marks one of the most forceful federal takeovers of local policing in decades. Whether it produces measurable improvements quickly will be closely watched, but politically, Monday’s events showed that in the battle over public safety, the mockers can easily end up the punchline.
