Pentagon readies military deployment in Chicago

What happened

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker assailed President Trump for his threat to send the National Guard into Chicago, calling it an illegal and "un-American" scheme hatched by a "wannabe dictator." Trump cited Chicago, New York, and Baltimore as possible next targets for federal intervention, while claiming his takeover of Washington, D.C.'s police force and deployment of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement agents to the nation's capital had made the "hellhole" city safe. The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has spent weeks sketching out a plan that would see thousands of Illinois National Guard deployed in Chicago; the use of active-duty troops had also been discussed. Calling the nation's third-most populous city "a killing field," Trump said he could "solve Chicago" in a week or less. Pritzker noted Chicago has seen a 32% homicide drop since last year, and that many Republican-run cities have higher murder rates. Trump's real goal is not to fight crime, the Democrat said, but "to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections."

Trump signed an executive order directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to create a "quick reaction force" in the guard "available for rapid nationwide deployment" to "cities where public safety and order has been lost." Under Hegseth's orders, some of the more than 2,200 guard troops in D.C. began carrying weapons on patrol. The troops have largely been stationed in heavily touristed areas like the National Mall, and some have been assigned to trash removal and landscaping duties.

Trump said Democrats who oppose his blue-city interventions are walking into a "trap," and that his shows of force would be welcomed by a crime-weary public. "They say, 'He's a dictator, he's a dictator,'" Trump said at an Oval Office event. "A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we'd like a dictator.' I don't like a dictator." He dismissed questions about whether he can legally deploy soldiers to Chicago without Gov. Pritzker's approval. "I have the right to do anything I want to do," he said. "I'm the president of the United States."

What the columnists said

"No thank you," said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. We've seen what's unfolded in D.C., where residents have endured "the dystopian presence" of armed soldiers patrolling neighborhoods that fit nobody's "definition of crime-riddled." The show of military power in Georgetown and on the Mall exposes the supposed "crime emergency" as "little more than a pretext for Trump to display his vision of a muscular executive branch intervening in the affairs of urban America." That's "the last thing Chicago needs."

"Trump is selling a dangerous lie about the city I've made a life in," said Kimberly Atkins Stohr in The Boston Globe. D.C. is a vibrant metropolis where, despite Trump's claims, nobody was afraid to go out to dinner. But restaurants are suffering now because residents are staying home, spooked by an armed occupation that "bears all the hallmarks of a fascist regime." In immigrant neighborhoods, there are deserted streets and a "palpable sense of fear," said Daniella Silva and Megan Lebowitz in NBCNews.com. Residents report groups of ICE agents grabbing men off the streets and checkpoints where every driver is asked for identification. Margarita, a Salvadoran immigrant who runs a restaurant, said half her employees are afraid to come to work. "People are traumatized," she said.

This is tricky territory for Democrats, said Rachael Bade in Politico. Eight in 10 Washingtonians oppose Trump's D.C. occupation, but Trump "is playing to a national audience." Crime stats in D.C., Chicago, and other cities may be down, but citing numbers only goes so far when people feel unsafe, and Democrats who dismiss their concerns are playing a losing game. They need to look at last week's Harvard poll, which showed that 54% of voters think Trump's actions in Washington are "justified and necessary."

My hometown of Chicago and other big cities "really are irreparably broken," said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. But in Chicago, so vast it makes D.C. look like "a torn postage stamp," flooding the Loop with troops won't fix anything, no matter how "brilliant" it might be politically. And there's another catch: It's blatantly illegal. Trump's lust for power can't override a Constitution that "grants police powers to the states," not the federal government.

Trump's goal of a civil rapid reaction force is sparking alarm among some former National Guard brass, said Anne Flaherty in ABCNews.com. The guard's mission is to help fight foreign enemies or aid Americans "in times of extraordinary crisis." But Trump wants units whose purpose is to "dominate and police the American people," said retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner. "And that is extremely disturbing." Using troops for domestic law enforcement could have unsettling consequences, said retired Maj. Gen. Linda Singh. "What happens if there's an escalation and civilians are killed?" she said. "We are setting precedents we can't come back from."

America has turned a dangerous corner, said Garrett Graff in his newsletter. We've suddenly become a country "where armed officers of the state shout, 'Papers please!'" at people heading home from work, a country where masked men throw people into unmarked cars, "disappearing them into an opaque system where their family members beg for information." Now Trump is threatening domestic opponents such as Pritzker with D.C.-like occupations, claiming "emergency powers in a moment where the only emergency is his own abuse of power." This "is what American fascism looks like."

What next?

We now have a clear sign that Trump "intends to expand the U.S. military's role in domestic law enforcement," said Zachary Cohen in CNN.com. His National Guard executive order also calls for every state to create specialized units focused on "public order issues." But questions remain "about how the order will work in practice." The guard "already has reaction forces" in each state and territory, who are under the command and control of governors. Trump's order doesn't say what authority the new units would report to if they're deployed over a governor's objection. Nor does it say how such units would train "or whether there would be coordination between those units across the states." Whatever the details, the alarming upshot is clear, said William Kristol in The Bulwark. The National Guard is being "turned into the president's own rapid domestic deployment force, to be used at his unchecked discretion." The guard deployments in Los Angeles and Washington were "presented as exceptional." Now "it is to become the rule."