CHICAGO—Hard on the heels of his military occupation of D.C., President Trump, according to numerous reports, is ready to invade Chicago. The Pentagon, which has even discussed a plan to use active duty troops, not just the National Guard, to do so, could set the military takeover of the city as early as this week, in the lead-up to Labor Day.
The Washington Post and other outlets have said the move is about to happen and could be in coordination with ICE, which would simultaneously step up its illegal immigration raids in the city.
The labor movement in Chicago, civil rights and immigrant rights organizations, the city’s mayor, the governor of Illinois and others have already mapped plans to try to stop the plan and, failing that, to resist when it happens.
The signs of the coming military takeover were clear days before reports this weekend that it was imminent. “Chicago’s a mess,” Trump told reporters on August 22. “You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent. And we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That’ll be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough,” he bragged.
His statements, based on his white nationalist view that big cities are reeling from lawlessness and crimes being committed by Black people, are proven lies. They produced outrage from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., and Chicago Teachers Union/AFT Local 1 Vice President Jackson Potter—along with announcements of a plan of resistance.
Churches in Chicago notified immigrant members of their congregations not to show up for services last Sunday in case of any stepped-up ICE raids. A pastor on the South Side told People’s World that such precautions would continue as long as the danger of illegal abductions of people by the government continues.
The Washington Post reported on August 24 that Trump’s Pentagon has even considered using active-duty troops for his invasion. The report said that, at the very least, the Pentagon would mobilize National Guard members, but it did not say from where. By law, it can’t get them from Illinois without the governor’s consent, and Pritzker has said “no.”
That leaves states run by right-wing MAGA Republicans as the likely source of any National Guard troops that would be sent into Chicago.
Neither the Pentagon or Trump would confirm the exact date of their planned military takeover in Chicago. Concern in the labor movement is at a high level because city unions plan a massive Labor Day parade here on September 1, featuring outspoken Trump critics Randi Weingarten, the Teachers/AFT President, and Rob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor.
Activists note that using red-state National Guard troops in blue cities is one pattern in Trump’s troop deployments. In Los Angeles, he also sent in Marines,
The other clear pattern is that he targets cities with majorities of people of color and with African-American Democratic mayors: Muriel Bowser in D.C., who tried to placate him, Brandon Johnson, a Chicago Teachers Union member and former shop steward, in Chicago, and Brandon Scott in Baltimore.
Tried to take over police
Trump also tried to take over the D.C. police force, but backed off under threat of a lawsuit from the city’s Attorney General. Trump also federalized the D.C. National Guard. He doesn’t have the power to do that in the states unless governors request it. The red-state governors who sent National Guard troops to D.C. did so after talking with Trump. Pritzker won’t send the Illinois National Guard to Chicago.
“There is no emergency warranting deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago,” Pritzger declared.
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families,” the governor wrote on twitter/X.“We’ll continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect Illinoisans.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a CTU member and former union shop steward, and CTU Vice President Jackson Potter, speaking to the Progressive Democrats of America on August 24, took the same stand.
Chicago “doesn’t need a military occupation,” said Johnson, noting increased community-oriented policing produced a drastic drop in murders and other crimes, as has also occurred in D.C. and Baltimore City, which is extremely racially polarized.
“We’re not going to surrender our humanity to this tyrant,” Johnson told MSNBC. “I can tell you this: Chicago has a long history of standing up against tyranny, resisting those who wish to undermine the interests of working people.”
“We can’t afford to sit back and watch,” as Trump, backed by U.S. oligarchs such as Elon Musk, and white nationalists in the MAGA ranks, takes over Chicago, Potter added. He said even unions that until now have been relatively quiet about the Trump threat, such as the Carpenters and “the dockworkers”—he wasn’t specific which ones—are now outraged.
“We need unity to defeat the bad bosses, such as Trump and Elon” Musk, the multibillionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX and a union-hater.
Plans when Trump invades, says Potter, include mass meetings in 500 schools, led by union members, to work out organizing, issues, and strategy, he added. That’s what unions are good at, Potter added, to combat “these marauding federal forces invading.”
D.C. is different, though. It’s limited home rule puts Trump in charge of its National Guard. So its own guard, plus several thousand guard members from red states, including West Virginia and Mississippi, are patrolling the streets of downtown, in monster Humvees. After an order from Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, they’re now armed with rifles and machine guns.
Potter said he “understands a lot of the National Guards in D.C. have been harmless,” standing by and letting Trump agents from ICE, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Border Patrol carry out actions. Over the weekend, however, more and more of the National Guard troops there have been armed.
Even so, D.C. residents have conducted non-violent resistance, such as directing drivers how to avoid federal roadblocks, Potter noted.
“We’re going to push” Pritzker and California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom “to do better and not let Trump lock up labor leaders,” added Potter. That’s what Trump’s ICE agents did to David Huerta, the California SEIU state leader in Los Angeles, who was peacefully protesting a violent ICE raid there.
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