A blog on US politics, Math, and Physics… with occasional bits of gaming

DC & Chicago residents largely oppose National Guard deployments to their cities

There are rumors (and conservative propaganda) that the majority of people directly affected by the President’s recent deployments of the National Guard to US cities are in favor of those deployments. Those rumors are false:

Given nationwide polling and the strongly Democratic leanings of both Washington, DC and Chicago, you should be strongly suspicious of any assertion that residents of DC & Chicago are largely in favor of the Republican President's troop deployments.

Community & elected leaders in DC seem to be splitting the difference, objecting to the deployments in general while also noting that the National Guard troops have been more useful in picking up trash than investigating & prosecuting criminals. Maybe increasing DC's budget and directing the funds be used to hire & train police would be more effective at the stated goal of reducing crime. Also note that mainstream media tends to "present both sides" when in doubt about the net opinion, or when trying to get views from both sides of the spectrum. Similarly, politicians tend to hedge their bets if they want to get re-elected and avoid legal trouble. Those tendencies are strongest in initial reactions, before the media & politicians have consulted pollsters, constituents and lawyers.

City-level polling is sparse in general, but the little I've been able to find shows that the vast majority of DC residents oppose the National Guard deployments in their own city. (It’s the same poll in both links, but the second has more detail and is paywalled; "About 8 in 10 D.C. residents oppose Trump’s executive order to federalize law enforcement in the city, with about 7 in 10 opposing it 'strongly.'".)

Chicago has similar polling data: 65% of residents oppose the National Guard deployments.

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