Anti-establishment progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick argues that regionalization of Trenton Water Works, state takeovers of urban school districts, and even the deployment of military forces under President Donald Trump share a disturbing common thread: they disproportionately target cities with predominantly Black populations.
She says these actions reveal a deeper crisis in American democracy.
The controversy in Trenton centers on an ordinance that would remove the residency requirement for jobs at Trenton Water Works (TWW).
Former Councilwoman Robin M. Vaughn has issued a forceful call to action, warning that despite council members claiming to oppose regionalization, the proposed change would directly advance that agenda.
“Given Council’s stated opposition to regionalization of Trenton Water Works, I urge you to vote down Ordinance 25-085,” Vaughn said. “Its passage would jeopardize the current workforce, undermine management and institutional knowledge, and increase unemployment in the city. This would expose Trenton residents to devastating economic hardship—loss of housing, health insurance, pensions, and even the ability to cover food, tuition, and basic living expenses.”
Vaughn pressed city council members to disclose whether they consulted AFSCME New Jersey, which represents TWW employees, before advancing the measure.
While Trenton debates the future of its water system, McCormick connects the struggle to larger national issues.
She recalls that Trump’s illegal military deployments began in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.—two cities led by Black female mayors, Karen Bass and Muriel Bowser.
“These first targets were chosen as a political warning to Black women and other women of color mayors,” McCormick said. “It was a message that their leadership could be challenged and undermined.”
Trump escalated his confrontation with D.C. officials by declaring crime “out of control” despite evidence to the contrary.
On January 3, 2025, U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves released data showing violent crime in Washington, D.C. was at a 30-year low, with homicides down 32%, robberies down 39%, and carjackings down 53% from the prior year.
Still, Trump demanded that Bowser hand over control of the police, attempted to replace the city’s Black female police commissioner with a White man, and threatened a federal takeover despite her popular election by the public.
“Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor very long,” Trump said, calling the capital a “crime-infested rat hole.”
McCormick condemned the move as a dangerous erosion of liberty.
“Crime may be down, but so is freedom. As Benjamin Franklin said, those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither. Trump has taken away both,” she warned. “It is only a matter of time before some soldier, guardsman, or federal officer kills an unarmed, innocent American citizen.”
She drew parallels to New Jersey’s history of state takeovers of urban school districts—Jersey City in 1989, Paterson, Newark, and Camden in 2013.
Supposedly justified by financial or academic distress, these interventions often displaced local governance, closed traditional public schools, and promoted charter expansion with little measurable academic gain.
“These communities were sacrificed to normalize the loss of local control—just as armed troops in Los Angeles and D.C. are conditioning Americans to accept militarized rule,” McCormick said.
McCormick even likened the pattern to the early days of Nazi Germany, when Adolf Hitler used the Reichstag Fire as a pretext to strip civil liberties, imprison political opponents, and build concentration camps.
“Trump already has concentration camps for immigrants,” she argued. “His ‘Reichstag Fire’ was a manufactured crisis over a single carjacking in D.C.—a transparent excuse to seize power.”
McCormick was referring to a one-in-a-million attack (out of 702,000 Washington, DC residents), which is an alleged 3 AM carjacking, the victim of which was Edward Coristine, the DOGE staffer known as ‘Big Balls.’
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the state continues to press for control of Trenton Water Works, citing years of mismanagement and underinvestment.
Officials frame regionalization as a way to guarantee safe drinking water for more than 200,000 customers across Trenton, Ewing, Hamilton, Hopewell, and Lawrence.
Critics, however, see the proposal as a power grab aimed at stripping a majority-Black city of a valuable asset.
Trenton leaders have voiced opposition, insisting that reforms should come with community input, workforce protections, and accountability for the state’s own failures, but observers are skeptical about their veracity and resolve.
“That opposition is being demonstrated in the form of a red carpet rolled out by Trenton Mayor Walter Reed Gusciora, of Princeton, along with Joseph Harrison, Jasi Mikae Edwards, Crystal Feliciano, Jenna Figueroa Kettenburg, Teska Frisby, and Yazminelly Gonzalez (some of whom live in the city),” McCormick said.
Despite their expressed resistance, those political leaders appear to be capitulating by advancing an ordinance that eliminates residency requirements for Water Works employees—undermining their own stated opposition to a takeover or regionalization.
“Its passage would jeopardize the current workforce, management, and institutional knowledge at Trenton Water Works, increase the city’s unemployment rate, and expose Trenton residents to economic hardship—including loss of housing, rents, mortgages, vital health insurance, and pension benefits,” said Vaughn.
“Trenton makes, the world takes,” reads the slogan on a city bridge.
But for McCormick and Vaughn, the reality is that powerful interests are taking more than just manufactured goods—they are taking control of city assets, stripping away democratic governance, and eroding liberty itself.
“When you see the parallels between Trump’s fascist tactics, New Jersey’s state takeovers, and the theft of an $800 million utility from Trenton’s residents, the conclusion is clear,” McCormick said. “Both major parties are complicit in a dangerous pattern of exploitation. Our political system is broken, and it is time for Americans to rise to the responsibility of citizenship.”