There they were — the sons and daughters of America, dressed in uniform, sent from Mississippi and Louisiana and God knows where else — raking mulch in D.C. like overpaid gardeners in camo. That sound you heard wasn’t a cherry blossom rustling in the breeze. It was George Washington groaning from six feet under.
This isn’t satire. This is Trump’s federal occupation of the nation’s capital dressed up as a landscaping project.
More than 2,200 National Guard troops have been deployed to Washington, D.C. Not for a riot. Not for a hurricane. Not for an invasion or emergency. No — they’re picking up trash, pulling weeds, and spreading mulch under cherry trees. Because somewhere between “law and order” and “lethality,” the Trump administration decided the Guard should fill in for the National Park Service, which it gutted earlier this year in one of its many hatchet jobs on the federal workforce.
So now, America’s weekend warriors — the same troops trained to deploy to war zones — are bagging soda bottles and doing lawn duty because the Park Service was stripped down from 200 workers to 20. That’s not cost-cutting. That’s deliberate sabotage followed by forced military labor.
Let’s call it what it is: photo-op fascism.
Trump declares a “crime emergency” in D.C., calls in the troops like it’s Fallujah, and then puts them to work making the place look clean enough for a campaign ad. It’s not about stopping crime — it’s about staging a narrative. A bunch of camo-clad troops raking mulch under cherry blossoms? That’s not policy. That’s set design.
And the Pentagon? They’ve gone from barking about “lethality, lethality, lethality” to “rake, bag, repeat.” Remember Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth? The one who told Congress he’d strip the military of distractions and refocus on winning wars? Looks like the only war he’s interested in is the one against graffiti.
Let’s not kid ourselves: this is a banana republic move. You take soldiers out of the barracks and put them on the street in peacetime, not to protect the public, but to make the president look good — or at least make the parks look tidy enough to hide the rot.
Even the troops know this is a joke. One D.C. Guard member told The Washington Post, “I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident… but there are different things we could be doing.” Damn right. Like training. Or responding to real emergencies. Or maybe not being turned into the Commander-in-Chief’s Cleanup Crew.
Heck, if Trump really wanted to clean up the Mall, he could’ve just rehired the Park Service workers he laid off instead of turning the National Guard into his landscaping crew.
Meanwhile, the brass in the Pentagon mumble through press statements about how proud they are of the troops for “making D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again.” What’s next? Sending the 82nd Airborne to mop the floors at the Smithsonian?
Here’s the hard truth: This isn’t a mission. It’s a stunt with soldiers. And it sets a dangerous precedent. Militarizing domestic civil work is the opposite of what the Guard was built for. It erases the line between civilian governance and martial force. Today it’s mulch and trash. Tomorrow it’s checkpoints and curfews.
And while the White House smiles for the camera, the Guard quietly becomes the new janitorial wing of a government that would rather gut agencies than govern.
So here’s to the troops — not for raking mulch, but for showing up, even when the mission is a farce. They deserve clarity. They deserve respect. And they deserve orders worthy of their oath — not the whims of a president playing emperor with a leaf blower.