The issue of National Guardsmen patrolling Washington, D.C., at President Trump’s behest has spiraled into a Pete-Repeat process whereby the governors of MAGA-controlled states are following suit with pledges to send National Guard contingents to the streets of the nation’s capital from their own jurisdictions.
Add to the list Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who has indicated such an intention.
Question: Will Lee at some point also consider dispatching state guard members to the Bluff City, which, as he and other members of the state’s GOP-dominated hierarchy have never tired of mentioning, has had crime outbreaks?
And what does GOP state Senator Brent Taylor, he of so much self-generated “Make Memphis Matter” anti-crime theatrics, think of the idea of further state or federal intervention in Memphis crime control?
In one of several Facebook posts last week, Taylor said, “President Trump’s focus on crime is exactly what we need in Memphis, and I appreciate [GOP U.S.] Senator Marsha Blackburn’s tireless advocacy to #MakeMemphisMatter with the FBI and DOJ to get federal resources to help us with our crime challenge.”
Taylor cites the recently announced results of Operation Safe Streets, a joint effort at gang control by local, state, and federal authorities, resulting, he said, “in the arrest of 141 violent fugitives, including 14 wanted for homicide, and clearing 163 arrest warrants.”
Says Taylor: “I’m thrilled about the federal presence in Memphis, targeting criminals and making our streets safer.” He bestows much credit for the outcome of Operation Safe Streets to Blackburn, whose campaign for governor, formally announced last week, Taylor has endorsed.
Blackburn has, for her part, made a point of praising Taylor in several recent public statements and online communications and encouraging his local and statewide efforts on the crime-control issue.
Taylor failed to get any traction for his much-ballyhooed and clearly unrealistic effort in the 2025 session of the state General Assembly to force state removal from office of Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy, but he continues to hector Mulroy on various procedural issues.
And the state senator maintains that the stock of his “Make Memphis Matter” campaign is still rising, citing an overflow turnout for him last week at a fundraiser at the home of veteran Memphis political broker Jack Sammons.
“There were more than 225 people there and I am still collecting checks,” boasts Taylor. “I am receiving checks in the mail from people who are saying on their note that it was so crowded they left and mailed me their check. We anticipate reporting $250,000 raised at this event.”
Among the attendees at the fundraiser were numerous local Republicans and such state GOP figures as Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally and state Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson. The other major announced Republican candidate for governor, 6th District Congressman Paul Rose, was also there.
Tellingly, perhaps, the event even attracted a few well-known Democratic figures, like former county commissioners Sidney Chism and Van Turner, who may have attended out of courtesy or simple curiosity.
One invitee who did not attend the affair — because of a schedule conflict, she said on Facebook — was local Democrat Norma Lester. “I won’t be making a donation but absolutely will attend if the opportunity again presents itself,” Lester added. “Before tongues wag, let me go on record as saying I am an independent Democrat and not missing anything of interest because of party-loyalty bullshit!”
What all of this portends is that the crime issue still looms, iceberg-like, on the civic and political horizons of Memphis and Shelby County, and that, locally as well as nationally, concerns about the matter are not being dissipated by statements, however authentic, from various official sources claiming statistical reductions in the incidence of crime.
