A Tale of Two Occupations: The Ghost of Katrina Looms Over the Invasion of D.C.

4 minutes read time.

Twenty years ago this week, as Hurricane Katrina drowned the city of New Orleans, the world witnessed two distinct but inseparable catastrophes. The first was the storm itself, a natural disaster of immense power. The second, and in many ways more damning, was the catastrophic failure of the federal government, an institutional collapse that transformed a natural disaster into a man-made humanitarian crisis. The enduring image of that failure was not just the floodwaters, but the arrival of armed, combat-equipped National Guard troops who viewed the desperate, predominantly Black citizens of their own country not as people to be rescued, but as a hostile force to be contained. Now, two decades later, the ghost of Katrina looms large over Washington D.C., where the Felonious Punk administration is deliberately and cynically replicating the very same mistakes, deploying a militarized occupying force against its own people under the false pretext of a “crime emergency.”

A Manufactured Crisis, A Familiar Playbook

The entire federal operation in the nation’s capital is built upon a foundation of deliberate falsehood. The administration has painted a grim, apocalyptic picture of a city consumed by “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor.” The reality, according to all available data, is the precise opposite. Violent crime in the District of Columbia is at a 30-year low. This is not a response to a crisis; it is the manufacturing of one. This playbook is eerily familiar. In the first days after Katrina, false and often racist media reports of “roving bands of rapists” and snipers created a perception of lawlessness that was used to justify a heavy-handed, militarized response. Today, the Felonious Punk is using his own social media platform and a compliant right-wing media ecosystem to create the same false perception, justifying an occupation with lies.

The Human Cost of a Political Stunt

While the administration touts its success, the reality on the ground is one of fear, chaos, and the systematic erosion of trust. A stunning on-the-record admission from a D.C. Metropolitan Police sergeant revealed the cynical nature of the operation, confirming that masked ICE agents were deployed to a pre-dawn raid near an elementary school not for any legitimate law enforcement purpose, but as a distraction to intimidate and disperse community members who had gathered to protest. This has had a devastating and predictable impact, particularly on the city’s Black and Brown communities. The New York Times has documented how the federal presence has forced Black parents to revive “the talk” with their children about how to survive police encounters, a heartbreaking regression after years of reform. “There was some true equality that was starting to form within our nation,” one mother said, “but now it’s just like we took 100 steps back.”

The Guard as a Political Instrument

The decision to deploy armed, out-of-state National Guard units is the most dangerous escalation in this manufactured crisis. As a powerful op-ed in The Washington Post reminds us, the National Guard has a long and complex history of being used as a political instrument. In 1957, the Arkansas governor used the Guard to defy federal law and block the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Weeks later, President Eisenhower federalized that same unit and ordered it to protect the Black students. The Guard is a neutral tool; its moral alignment is determined entirely by the orders it receives. The Trump administration’s decision to deploy them in a “policing” posture, with some units now carrying firearms, sends a clear and chilling message. As the Louisiana governor warned during Katrina, troops with M16s who are “locked and loaded” are not there to rescue; they are there to “shoot and kill.”

“Put Those Damn Weapons Down”

The enduring lesson of Katrina was delivered not by a politician, but by the no-nonsense Army General, Russel Honoré, when he took command of the chaotic military response in New Orleans. Seeing armed troops pointing their weapons at desperate citizens, he famously barked, “Put those damn weapons down. This is a rescue mission, dammit.” His words reframed the entire crisis, reminding the nation that there were no enemy combatants in the floodwaters, “only hurting people in need of relief and aid.”

This is the fundamental choice that the Felonious Punk administration has deliberately failed to make. By treating the citizens of Washington D.C. as a problem to be contained rather than a community to be served, they are not just repeating the mistakes of Katrina; they are embracing them as a political strategy. The armed occupation of the nation’s capital is a profound betrayal of the lessons learned from one of our darkest moments, a cynical and dangerous political stunt that is terrorizing a community and pushing the nation closer to a constitutional crisis.