TL;DR: When Gavin Newsom sweeps San Francisco’s streets for an international summit, the press frames it as pragmatic urban stewardship. When Donald Trump orders a similar crackdown in Washington, D.C., it’s cast as an authoritarian takeover. The cleanup looks the same; the narrative is worlds apart.

In November 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom admitted plainly that San Francisco’s sudden transformation—tent encampments gone, streets power-washed, graffiti scrubbed—was tied directly to hosting President Xi Jinping for the APEC summit. He likened it to tidying your home before guests arrive. Media coverage largely accepted the explanation: yes, the effort was timed for a diplomatic photo-op, but it was also evidence that the city could, when it wanted, restore order and civility.

Fast-forward to 2025. President Trump, in his second term, orders a sweeping public safety operation in Washington, D.C. Federal agencies, the National Guard, and a temporarily federalized Metropolitan Police are deployed. The stated goals: end smash-and-grab retail crime, stop carjackings, dismantle open-air drug markets, break up illegal ATV takeovers, and make the capital safe for residents, tourists, and investors.

The optics are similar: encampments cleared, streets quieter, police presence visible, sidewalks usable. But the coverage is very different. Newsom’s cleanup is framed as a civic refresh; Trump’s is depicted as a “coup,” a militarized occupation meant to “crush Black culture” and erase the city’s character.

Here’s the double standard: The underlying actions—removing encampments, dispersing disorder, and signaling control—are nearly identical. The difference lies in the political framing. Newsom operates inside a media environment inclined to see him as a well-intentioned progressive trying to solve an intractable problem. Trump, by contrast, is cast as an existential threat; his motives are presumed malicious regardless of stated policy goals.

This asymmetry mirrors the immigration debate. When Trump says he’ll deport all 20 million undocumented immigrants, critics recast it as targeting only the most violent offenders—implying dishonesty or cruelty either way. In truth, violent offenders go to prison; it’s the clean-record undocumented population that deportation actually affects. But reframing the policy into a moral litmus test changes public perception.

The D.C. sweep fits the same mold. Supporters see it as long-overdue law-and-order; detractors see it as cultural suppression. To those inside the media’s dominant narrative, Trump can never be normalized, and any exercise of executive authority is suspect—no matter how closely it resembles what a Democratic leader might do without controversy.

The stakes go beyond partisan grievance. If public disorder is tolerated until an ally’s event, but condemned as tyranny when an opponent acts, then public space becomes a proxy battlefield in America’s endless political war. The broom is the same. The hands holding it determine the headline.