Protests against the National Guard in Washington, D.C., illustrate the dangers of hyper-partisanship.
Train stations are usually synonymous with movement. But in recent days, Union Station in Washington, D.C., has seemed more static.
On Columbus Circle outside the station entrance, the National Guard, deployed by President Trump to combat crime in the district, are scattered about in groups. The vagrants who usually roam the exterior asking for money or raving incoherently have been dispersed. Now, the soldiers have little to do besides stand and observe their surroundings through sunglasses, occasionally taking questions or absorbing abuse from passersby. Two Humvees flank Columbus Fountain, the circle’s grand centerpiece. Families stop to stare at the tableau and pose for pictures with the troops. The air is alive with the typical bustle of a transport hub, but there are no scenes of disorder.
The guardsmen aren’t the only ones occupying the circle. A commune of sorts has formed beside them, composed of protesters who fall somewhere between Yippies and the similarly unwashed radicals of Occupy Wall Street. They have erected marquee tents and filled them with enough supplies to sustain a monthslong demonstration — whiteboards, stickers, snacks, water bottles. The tents are adorned with protest signs that range from the prosaic — “Resist,” “Impeach Convict Remove” — to the more elaborately profane — “You really wanna clean up crime?! Start with that orange sh**stain in our White House.” More are being crafted by a greasy-haired group at a long table. Its members include an elderly hippie couple and a young woman in a battle jacket. Alongside the standard progressive slogans, she has emblazoned it with a pentagram.
Like the troops, these protesters are largely immobile. They linger by their tents and wait for curious bystanders to approach them. There’s one striking exception, however: a man clad in an orange hi-vis jacket, baseball cap, punk rock T-shirt, and cargo shorts. He’s perched on the edge of the fountain, dancing back and forth to Talking Heads songs that blare from a portable speaker beside him. As “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” and “Once in a Lifetime” play, he clutches two metal flag poles and bangs them together in time with the music. Between the poles are an inverted American flag and a white banner with text crudely scrawled in black and red: “Trump + Epstein Putin BFForever.”
The man behind this bizarre display is an ironworker from Allentown, Pa. This isn’t the first time he has abandoned his work and traveled to Washington to protest Trump’s agenda. “I’ve been down here a bunch of times,” he tells me while puffing on a marijuana joint. The National Guard deployment was simply the latest in a line of offenses that demanded retaliation. “Every other thing was the last straw. I’m ready for it to pop off. Resistance. Just be ready.”
What does dancing to the Talking Heads have to do with opposing the government? The answer isn’t terribly clear. “It’s just the way I work,” he says. “I don’t know. I just know when to emphasize points.” How long his protest will continue is also uncertain. But as long as his car isn’t towed, he can stick around comfortably. “There’s no set schedule or plan. I have a shady spot down the street that I already got. . . . [It’s] where I slept last night, too, for just a couple hours. . . . I already got my first $30 ticket on it. If that’s all for the day, that’s a good deal.”
His fellow protesters have adopted a similarly crunchy approach to accommodation. “We actually have a crowdsourced Airbnb for a bunch of us,” says Jake, a spokesman for those who are camped out at the station. “So a kind of communal living situation where we take care of each other. Completely grassroots funded.” He and many of his companions arrived in April, and they have no intention of ending their “24/7 occupation” anytime soon.
“As long as the fight is viable,” Jake says, “I’m going to be out here trying to spur this country into standing up to [Trump]. . . . I dropped everything to be out here, because this is too important.” Originally from San Diego, he has found a greater purpose than full-time employment. “I’m going to do everything in my power to . . . get back to being a decent country, get rid of systemic racism that [Trump’s] applying right now, and stand up for the people that can’t stand up for themselves.”
Another protester is a high school student from Maryland. She has left her studies on the first day of a new academic year to join the group, though she probably won’t stay long. For now, she’s fighting such universally recognized issues as the “economic racism that’s happening in this country due to AI.”
To these protesters, engaging with a commune for months on end is a version of fulfillment. In a moment ruled by tribalism, even the silliest of political displays can take on outsized importance to those involved if they feel they are making progress in the endless war against the other side. One of the dangers, of course, is that the possibility of dialogue across partisan lines becomes ever more remote.
That protester dancing on a monument in an orange vest? Prior to 2025, he tells me, he had “the most minimal” of political discussions with friends and co-workers. Now, he admits that he “can’t shut up.” Politics, he says, is “a wedge in my family and . . . with guys I work with.” The guardsmen, he continues, “feel like guys I could work with.” “I guarantee I relate to these guys a lot.” But it’s doubtful that he’ll be sharing a beer with them anytime soon.