Fixing America’s Front Door
President Donald Trump is cleaning up America’s crime-ridden capital city. In response to recent crimes, he invoked the District of Columbia Home Rule Act and deployed 800 National Guard troops onto the streets and placed the city’s Metropolitan Police under federal control.
In remarks to the press on August 11, the president said, “My father always used to tell me—he was a wonderful father, very smart—he used to tell me, ‘Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don’t go in. Because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also.’ Same thing with our capital. If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty.”
On August 5, Edward Coristine and his girlfriend were approached and intimidated by a group of black teenagers. Coristine, who played a role in the Department of Government Efficiency, ended up lying in the street, shirtless, battered and bleeding.
This incident turned the spotlight onto Washington, D.C., crime and showed the whole world that America’s front door is dirty.
Predictably, the corporate media is trying to downplay the severity of D.C. crime and assert that the president is overreacting. Yet D.C. Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton told nbc Washington in July that there was an organized attempt underway to manipulate the crime data to make D.C. look cleaner than it is.
Anyone who has spent much time outside the main tourist spots in our capital city knows the crime there is bad and that taking bold action to address the problem is warranted. In addition to the National Guard troops and temporarily federalizing the D.C. police, President Trump also wants to create a Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force with the capacity to deploy National Guard troops to cities across the nation in the event of riots and other serious disturbances.
Relying on the wisdom of his father, Fred Trump, he is scrubbing down America’s front door before he gets into the kitchen. His use of the National Guard to put down anti-deportation riots in Los Angeles earlier this year was effective, so his plan may help bring down Washington’s crime rates. In the long term, however, the Bible prophecies that America’s crime problem will get worse unless we as a nation address the actual cause: We must repent toward God!
One prophecy in Ezekiel 7:23 states: “Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.” This prophecy is talking about an epidemic of violent crimes occurring one after another, like links in a chain. Many American cities are already experiencing such a chain of bloody events. President Trump is not talking about repentance, but the actions he is taking at least show us something about God’s mind.
Bible history and prophecy show that God confronts evil. Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in The Wonderful World Tomorrow that when Jesus Christ returns, He will bring about “utopia by two basic courses of action.” First, “All crime and organized rebellion will be put down by force—divine supernatural force.” Second, “Christ will then set His hand to reeducate and to save, or spiritually convert, the world.”
President Trump is trying to use some measure of firmness to stop criminals from robbing and beating innocent citizens—while liberals argue picky points about crime statistics reporting and lawlessness runs rampant.
America is suffering from some serious problems right now. In Isaiah 1:5, God says “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint,” which is another way of saying the front door is dirty enough that you don’t want to see what the rest of the establishment looks like. What this nation needs most of all is deep cleansing—in other words, Repentance Toward God.