Let’s climb into the ol’ time machine and dial it back to 2023. More specifically, let’s look in on the gubernatorial campaign that year.
That was the campaign in which two-term Attorney General Jeff Landry, the chief law enforcement officer in the state looked around and said there was too much crime which he said was holding Louisiana back. Accordingly, he promised to “make our state safe again.”
He campaigned vigorously against what he described as “soft on crime” policies of the John Bel Edwards administration.
It apparently worked because he was elected easily and in February 2024, he called a special session dedicated exclusively to crime. He signed into law more than 20 bills designed to fight crime by:
- Eliminating parole for most new convictions,
- Removing incentives for good behavior while incarcerated,
- Lowering the age to allow 17-year-olds to be prosecuted and sentenced as adults,
- Expanding execution methods.
He even deployed state police to New Orleans to fight crime in that city.
Apparently not of that worked.
Fast forward to yesterday:
Apparently, none of Landry’s reforms worked. In an apparent admission of abject failure, he has requested The Don to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to Louisiana cities to augment law enforcement.
This despite a downward trend in the New Orleans crime rate because there is always Baton Rouge and Shreveport, he must have reasoned.
Of course, as governor, Landry could have deployed the guard himself but by making his request to the Pentagon and Trump, he gets the feds to pick up the tab – unlike when he dispatched guardsmen to the Texas border to help defend against the hordes of illegals, probably because we don’t have a common border with Mexico and Landry was jealous.
But will any deployment end up like it did in Washington, D.C., with national guardsmen being sent out on trash and litter patrol?
Maybe Landry will don an orange vest and pick up a little trash himself.
Louisiana Voice 
John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, won the governor’s race in large part because he had the support of law enforcement. I believe he had their support because he is the son and brother of sheriffs. Herr Landry tried to gain the same support by aiming to increase the number of people incarcerated and then farm them out to sheriffs. This guard deployment is pure butt-kissing of POTUS. Whatever it takes to keep Landry in office.
And, count on most mayors, to avoid retribution, will voice support for the troops in their cities. If anybody believes we are not already in an authoritarian state and country, they need to pay more attention to the news.