I have my own suspicion about what Trump is up to here. And like so many of his major policies this year, what he’s doing has little to nothing to do with what is being talked about by political pundits and on the opinion pages of the mainstream media.

In this case, the issue being discussed is the perfectly legitimate argument about whether the president has the constitutional authority to intervene with state and local problems at all, let alone send in federal troops to achieve some goal. I believe Trump’s secret plan is to take over the city for a month or two, impose virtual martial law in the city, and thereby bring down the violent crime rate down by 90%. (IMHO, that would not be hard to do, so long as he puts the troops in the right – e.g., most violent – neighborhoods.) Once that’s done – if he’s not really going for the king role – he will pull out the federal law enforcement troops and the argument will resume. At which point the mayor and her supporters, as well as conservative Constitutionalists, will be in an awkward position to make their case.