Trump’s Federal Police Surge and Israel’s Gaza Takeover: The World Is Watching, and It’s Not Going Well

President Trump sent a surge of federal officers into D.C. despite falling crime rates, while Israel advanced a controversial plan to seize Gaza City. Here’s what happened, and why it matters.

Aug 08, 2025

Trump’s Power Flex in D.C.: “If D.C. doesn’t get its act together…”

President Donald Trump has ordered a federal law enforcement surge into Washington, D.C., beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday, in what he claims is a response to “out of control” youth crime. Never mind that violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low and down another 26% in 2025. Facts? Nah, we prefer fiction here in America…

The deployment will pull agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, U.S. Marshals, DEA, and twelve other agencies, and place them in “high-traffic tourist areas and other hotspots” — which conveniently includes most of the city. These officers will be in full gear and “highly visible,” as if the militarization of public space is supposed to calm people down.

This is not about crime. This is a game of optics, fearmongering, and control. The beating of a government employee by teenagers earlier this week provided the White House with the perfect viral fodder. The President responded with an old Trump classic: blame the youth, threaten a federal takeover, and drop the phrase “they’re not afraid of Law Enforcement” like it’s a horror movie tagline.

Brie’s Take:
This is vintage Trump… overstep your bounds, lie about the stats, and deploy force as a show of strength. And yet, it’s still unclear whether they even have the manpower for all this posturing. He keeps making decisions like he’s got a thousand-person army just chilling in a bunker somewhere, waiting for orders. Maybe he does, but I doubt it. Either way, it’s another page ripped out of the authoritarian playbook: create a problem, scream about it, then play the “strongman” with a solution nobody asked for.

Gaza Takeover: The World Condemns, Netanyahu Pushes Ahead

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Israel's Security Cabinet approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City — a move that’s already being labeled a “new war crime” by Hamas and heavily condemned by world leaders and the UN.

This latest step is part of Israel’s five-point plan, which includes:

Disarming Hamas
Returning hostages (dead or alive)
Demilitarizing Gaza
Establishing Israeli security control
Installing a civilian administration that is not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority

Let me say that last one again for the folks in the back: the new administration would be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. So... who exactly is running this show? Netanyahu vaguely told Fox News he’d hand Gaza over to “Arab forces,” but didn’t clarify who. Jordan and Egypt, the most obvious candidates, have already said hell no to occupying Gaza on Israel’s behalf.

World reaction has been swift. Germany halted all arms exports to Israel that could be used in Gaza. The UK’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, called the move “wrong” and likely to “bring more bloodshed.” Even Israel’s military officials are raising eyebrows and reportedly fighting with the Cabinet over this plan.

Brie’s Take:
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again; it’s hard to look at the body count and not see cruelty in the math. Four hundred killed in a single strike, for five Hamas officials. Gaza City is a graveyard. I get that Israel wants to dismantle Hamas, but let’s not pretend that this doesn’t look a hell of a lot like ethnic cleansing. When Netanyahu claims he doesn’t want to govern Gaza — just control it, demilitarize it, displace the people in it, and dictate who runs it — that’s occupation, no matter what you call it.

What These Stories Have in Common

Here’s what links these two stories: control, narrative, and optics.

Trump’s D.C. surge is a domestic example of authoritarian aesthetics. It doesn’t matter that crime is down; he’s built a presidency on fear and spectacle, and this is just the next installment. Deploy the feds, stoke panic, and paint Democrats as soft on crime. Repeat.

Israel’s Gaza operation, on the other hand, is a geopolitical time bomb built on the same logic. Even after bombing the city into dust, even with 75-88% of Gaza already under Israeli control, they’re moving forward. The “handover to Arab forces” language is window dressing. The message is: we’ll control this place, and we don’t super care what you think about it.

If This Is the Plan, We’re Screwed

Let these two stories serve as a perfect case study in how authoritarianism thrives — by mixing theater with brute force. If this country still values democracy, we’d better start acting like it. We need more than outrage, more than memes, more than “get out the vote” campaigns.

We need a vision. A plan. Something that isn’t just a reaction to Trump or a polite scolding of Netanyahu. If these are our leaders… the strongman in D.C., the conqueror in Tel Aviv, and the silent bystanders in Congress… then the rest of us had better find the courage to say out loud what’s become increasingly clear:

This isn’t freedom. This is a show.

And the curtain’s closing fast.