Trump's law-and-order tour headed for Memphis

Sorry I am late today. Forgot to set the alarm.

In 1991, Michael Cohn was depressed and about to pack it in when he went to Memphis. The gospel music, barbecue and the ghost of Elvis restored him and his music. He wrote a song about it, which contained two memorable passages:

Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said
"Tell me are you a Christian child?"
And I said "Ma'am, I am tonight"

He’s Jewish. The second highlight was:

Saw the ghost of Elvis
On Union Avenue
Followed him up to the gates of Graceland
Then I watched him walk right through
Now security they did not see him
They just hovered 'round his tomb
But there's a pretty little thing
Waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room

It was a delightful tune. But walking in Memphis was dangerous. The homicide rate was 32 per 100,000 people.

In 2023, Memphis suffered a homicide rate of 48 per 100,000 people—50% higher than dangerous. Memphis has a homicide rate higher than all but 29 cities and most of them are shitholes in the Third World.

Enter Donald Trump, the Elvis of presidents. He issued an executive order, which began:

The city of Memphis, Tennessee, is suffering from tremendous levels of violent crime that have overwhelmed its local government’s ability to respond effectively. This situation has become dire in one of our Nation’s most historic cities. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memphis in 2024 had the highest rate of violent crime per capita, including some of the highest per capita rates of murder, robbery, and aggravated assault, and property crimes such as burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft, in the country. The city, a beacon of American culture that was Elvis’s home and is often called the birthplace of rock and roll and the blues, should be safe and secure for all of its citizens and Americans who visit its historic landmarks such as Graceland, Beale Street, and the Memphis Pyramid. To restore public safety and order, State and local leaders have requested Federal assistance, and I will act quickly to ensure that Federal authorities assist Memphis law enforcement to the fullest possible extent.

Tennessee’s Republican governor and two Republican senators are all for it. The mayor opposes it because he likes crime and the death and the chaos crime brings.

The city is 64% black.

The black homicide rate was 67 per 100,000 people last year.

A racist media is OK with the black death toll because Trump opposes it.

AP said:

Shortly before Trump’s announcement, the White House posted on social media that the Memphis total crime rate was higher than the national average and suggested that the rate had increased since last year, bucking national trends.

That’s despite Memphis police recently reporting decreases across every major crime category in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in previous years. Overall crime hit a 25-year low, while murder hit a six-year low, police said.

Still, Memphis has dealt with stubborn gun violence problems for years. In 2023, the city set a record with more than 390 homicides.

Wow, murder is at a 6 year low. Tell that to grieving mothers, grieving widows and grieving children.

Bragging about that 6-year low of 24 homicides per 100,000 people in 2018 is a sign of how little the people at AP care about black people. Only if a cop kills a black man does a black death make the news.

The New York Times was determined not to be outdone by the wire service:

The Democrat mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, has said that he did not ask for help from the National Guard, and does not agree that its presence would help reduce crime. The F.B.I. already has an operation in Memphis, as well as a task force of Tennessee Highway Patrol officers dedicated to fighting crime in the city.

“We don’t have a say in the National Guard, but our goal is to ensure that we have influence in how they engage in this community,” he told reporters on Friday.

Several Democrats in the city are concerned about what the addition of National Guard troops might mean to Memphis. They want to know what the role of the Guard would be, how it would be identified to the public and where it would be based in the city or surrounding Shelby County. Like some of the other cities Mr. Trump has singled out, Memphis has a significant share of black residents; more than a third of the state’s black residents live there.

“I do not think it is a wise or necessary move for the National Guard to come in,” said Earle Fisher, a Memphis pastor and community activist, on Friday. It was, he said, “the inverse” of when troops were called in to other Southern cities to protect demonstrators during the civil rights movement.

Fisher does not believe that walking in Memphis without fear of being slain is a civil right.

The mayor has no say, but when he said “our goal is to ensure that we have influence in how they engage in this community” that sounded like a threat to the Guard. What does he mean by ensuring that he has influence? Confrontations? Riots?

The governor can send the National Guard in to help federal officials do their jobs of collecting illegal aliens for deportation and the like.

The press never confronts Democrat mayors with the fact that they oppose Trump protecting black men from being gunned down. No reporter confronts race activists like Pastor Fisher with these facts and asks what have they been doing for the 34 years since Walking In Memphis was a hit to make Memphis as safe as it suburbs.

That’s the goal.

Walking in Memphis changed Michael Cohn. Trump walking into Memphis can change Memphis for the good as well.

* * *

Lexi Kuenzle update: The New York Post reported, “A New Jersey surgeon who allegedly “cheered” Charlie Kirk’s murder while at work has resigned—and the nurse suspended for calling him out has been reinstated, their hospital said Monday.”

President Trump should bring her to the White House for a photo of the real thing instead of a cardboard cutout.