The attack makes the troops’ Washington DC exit less likely and offers a convenient data point for rightwing narratives
“Washington DC is considered a safe zone,” Donald Trump declared on Tuesday, veering off topic at the national Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House. “This was one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the United States. It is now considered a totally safe city.”
A day later, two national guardsmen from West Virginia were shot in a busy area a few blocks from the White House in downtown Washington. The ambush took place outside the Farragut West Metro railway station within sight of the Guardian’s office (I had been in the station three hours earlier and witnessed national guard troops milling around).
In a speech from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Wednesday evening, Trump said the suspect entered the US from Afghanistan in 2021. For the president it was a political opportunity and he was determined to exploit it. Immigration? Check. Law and order? Check. All Joe Biden’s fault? Check.
Trump accused his predecessor of allowing millions of violent criminals into the US and launched a xenophobic attack on Somalis in Minnesota: “Hundreds of thousands of Somalians are ripping off our country, and ripping apart that once great state.” Notably, the previous evening, his aide Stephen Miller had decried “the Somalification of America”, telling Fox News: “Look how powerful the Democrat Party became in Minnesota once they flooded it with 100,000 Somalians!”
