The Political Theater of the National Guard’s D.C. Occupation
What a bizarre show.
by Nic Rowan
January 18, 2021, 12:13 AM
Washington, D.C. — “I’m going to need to see some identification,†a National Guardsman told me as I pulled up to a downtown security checkpoint.
I fumbled for my wallet and produced an expired, chipped driver’s license that has earned me several warnings from police officers in the past month. The guardsman glanced at it and waved me through.
“Thanks, that’s great,†he said.
Lackadaisical security check-ins have become common since more than 25,000 guardsmen descended on D.C. last week. I’ve heard reports of Capitol Hill workers breezing through security lanes and mantilla-draped church ladies rolling through Chinatown roadblocks uninhibited. In the most dramatic instance, an office worker near the White House convinced two guardsmen to move a Humvee so he could park his car in a locked-down garage.
Pedestrians wishing to enter The Zone may also do so without much hassle. The gates hanging off the seven-foot, non-scalable fence encircling the city’s core are almost always left open and unguarded. Inside, concrete barriers designed to prevent crowds from forming are easily stepped over.
National Guardsmen stand on nearly every street corner, holding unloaded guns and chatting amongst themselves. Many are bused in daily from the Virginia suburbs, where they spend their evenings eating pizza and playing video games. They’re generally pretty friendly people. This isn’t their day job, after all. They can afford to breathe a little.
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https://spectator.org/national-guard-d-c-political-theater/
