Allow me to shock some of my readers by declaring my opposition to President Trump’s plan to send the National Guard into crime-ridden cities. My objection has nothing to do with constitutional authority. Having studied the matter, I believe the president does, in fact, have the power to deploy federal forces to address rising urban crime.

History also shows such interventions can work. The drop in violence in Washington, D.C., after federal forces arrived to restore order is evidence enough.

If residents wanted leaders who took crime seriously, they would vote for them. Their refusal to do so exposes their political priorities.

I also concede that a case can be made for this step in the District of Columbia. Washington is under congressional jurisdiction, and the president, operating within that framework, has made the city safer for residents, political leaders, and foreign visitors. The mayor has even expressed appreciation for the assistance, although the District’s electorate — heavily black, heavily Democratic, and deeply hostile to the administration — continues to seethe at the very idea of federal involvement.

And for the record, the president is entirely justified in directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue illegal aliens with criminal records. These offenders have no right to remain in the United States, and the Democratic effort to preserve them as foot soldiers for the party is as cynical as it is transparent. The administration deserves credit for removing these “high-value” assets from the Democratic client network.

Ungrateful, unwanted

My problem arises with Trump’s call for federal intervention in cities where the local government — and most of the population — passionately opposes it. Even if the president can deploy the National Guard without a governor’s approval, prudence suggests he shouldn’t.

I can think of few officials more odious than Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) or Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D). Yet both remain far more popular in their city than Trump or the GOP. Johnson’s approval is collapsing, but it is almost certain that whoever succeeds him will be another black or Hispanic Democrat who wins votes by railing against our supposedly “fascist” president.

Residents of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods express emphatic disapproval of Trump’s plan. These are people who live amid constant danger yet habitually vote for leftist mayoral candidates. The same pattern holds in Portland, Charlotte, St. Louis, and Baltimore — cities Trump proposes to “liberate” with federal intervention.

Voters chose this

I cannot imagine why Trump should insert himself where voters clearly do not want him.

If residents wanted leaders who took crime seriously, they would vote for them. Their refusal to do so exposes their political priorities. I consider those priorities misguided and even self-destructive, but it is absurd to claim “the people are demanding” help when most are vocally rejecting it.

Voters should be allowed to live under the governments they choose. If they wanted different policies, they would stop electing Democrats who call for defunding the police, eliminating bail, and condemning crime prevention as racist. Despite the Fox News narrative, minorities who vote this way are not “victims” of Democratic manipulation. That idea is as fanciful as the GOP refrain that today’s Democratic Party is simply the slaveholding party of the 1830s. Voters who elect leftist Democrats are not trapped. They are expressing, clearly, the type of society they want.

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The vote that counts most

Ben Shapiro recently said something that rattled some listeners but which I find eminently defensible: If you abhor the politics of the place where you live, move. He followed his own advice, leaving deep-blue California for increasingly red Florida. Some interpret this as a call to uproot families and abandon long-standing communities.

But what exactly is the alternative? Should the federal government override election results because a city or state radicalized itself? Should Trump nullify votes? That will not happen. Nor can we easily disenfranchise those who lawfully exercise the franchise and continue electing the mayors, prosecutors, and governors responsible for our collapsing urban order.

Those who reject the leftist agenda retain one real option: vote with their feet. This path frees citizens from majorities who have democratically chosen anarcho-tyranny — not only for themselves but for everyone else who lives under their jurisdiction.

If a community insists on preserving violent disorder, permissive prosecutors, and ideological governance, the federal government cannot save them from themselves. Only the voters can. And until they do, they deserve the government they support.