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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday defended the Trump administration for mulling a broader deployment of National Guard troops to major cities to fight crime, but he was noncommittal when it came to a federal law enforcement crackdown in his own district.

“I don’t know, that’s not my call,” Johnson said in an interview on CNN’s “News Central” when asked if the National Guard should be deployed in Shreveport, La. “It may be necessary; I don’t know. Let’s take one city at a time and see.”

"We have to address the crime problem in any city where it is, if it’s a problem like that,” he added.

Like I get he’s a hypocrite, but could we just not have any military in any city bc I feel like having National Guard also in Louisiana cities just kinda helps shift us all more towards authoritarianism.

Editing to add this: I posted about Newsom calling Johnson out over Shreveport’s own crime rate a little over a week ago.

But, I am also growing very suspicious of Newsom. In the last few days he has made some calls that seem to be taken directly from the Louisiana authoritarian playbook of Jeff Landry.

I actually just wrote something about this yesterday. As Newsom pushes for greater state control, California cities should be cautious

  • ryper@lemmy.caEnglish
    33·
    9 days ago

    You left out why this came up:

    Shreveport — the most populous city in the northwest Louisiana district that Johnson has represented since 2017 — has a higher crime rate than D.C. and outpaces the state of Louisiana as a whole, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics. CrimeRate, an independent analysis of crime statistics, deems Shreveport’s violent crime as being “higher versus other cities of the same size.”

    “FBI statistics, actually, [show] violent crime per 100,000 residents higher in Shreveport last year than Washington, D.C.,” CNN’s John Berman told Johnson on air Friday.

    If DC’s crime is bad enough to require the National Guard, why not Shreveport?

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
      103·
      9 days ago

      That’s why I say he’s a hypocrite.

      I posted about Newsom calling him out about this a little over a week ago.

      But I am growing very suspicious of Newsom. In the last few days he has made some calls that seem to be taken directly from the Louisiana authoritarian playbook of Jeff Landry.

      I actually just wrote something about this yesterday. As Newsom pushes for greater state control, California cities should be cautious

      3 months ago I wrote this post on my old lemm.ee account: Blue cities in Red states being used to test authoritarian take over

      Keep in mind too, these people are very sneaky. They’re unlikely to just try to take over the entire state or city at once. They gain ground they need slowly (usually by pushing and seeing what they can get away with.) They may try to take control of the area around a state border following a disaster, and little by little, find excuses for why they need to encroach a little more. Maybe it’s to provide aid or an excuse they need to do so to help keep Americans in neighboring states safe. Like I said, you probably won’t realize what is really happening until it’s too late.

      Cities in California (and cities in every state) should be very cautious about allowing increased state control within their cities.

      And yeah, technically Shreveport is in Johnson’s district, but it’s also a majority black democratic city, and the way the Louisiana districts are drawn is wonky as fuck (big shocker right?)

      Militarizing democratically controlled cities like Shreveport would be a big victory for people like Johnson and Landry. If they do it to Shreveport they will definitely be doing it to New Orleans and probably Baton Rouge as well.

      We should be demanding national guard leave DC. We should not be normalizing more military control of U.S. cities. Doing so is helping their agenda.