Republican governors who have mustered National Guard troops for deployment in blue-state cities may re-examine their deployments if federal intervention significantly brings crime down.

David Chen
New York Times
September 1, 2025

… Red-state governors sending their National Guard troops to blue-state cities is just another example of the political divide in the country that has become the standard. It is also another example of Republicans going out of the way to curry favor with Mr. Trump.

… Jeffrey A. Butts, executive director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, noted that even in Washington, federal resources are not actually being targeted where they would make the most difference, in high-crime neighborhoods far from the photogenic monuments and government buildings where National Guard troops are patrolling.

“If you accept the premise that it is OK to use military resources in the name of securing public safety, which is very debatable and I think historically should be rejected, they would be in the communities with the highest rates of gun violence,” Mr. Butts said. “They’re not doing it to improve public safety,” he continued. “It’s designed to humiliate political opponents.”

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