The Chicago Rubicon and What Comes Next

We aren’t at the worst-case scenario yet. But if you squint, you can see it looming out there, just over the horizon.

(Composite by Hannah Yoest / GettyImages / Shutterstock)

I don’t like sending out “emergency” newsletters, but I’ve had my eye on the situation in Chicago all day and tonight Texas National Guard troops arrived on Illinois soil, in defiance of the wishes of the Illinois governor and the Illinois National Guard’s adjutant general.

This moment has elevated the crisis so that it is no longer just a conflict between the federal government and a state, but between two states. We now have armed soldiers from the state of Texas eagerly volunteered by their governor to impose the president’s will on the citizens of Illinois.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but this is an emergency. It is incumbent on us to name the thing we are seeing and be unflinching as we describe it.

That’s not a lot of power; but it’s the only power we have in this moment.

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1. Chicago

Today President Trump’s military invasion of Chicago crossed another Rubicon. He not only activated and took command of the Illinois National Guard, but just in case the hometown troops are not willing to do his bidding, he has shipped in National Guard troops from a politically reliable territory.

Here are the ultra-butch, lethal warrior warfighters from Texas, arriving Tuesday afternoon:

We should be exceedingly clear:

There is no crisis in Chicago that requires the National Guard. To the extent that there is civil instability in Chicago it has been caused by Trump’s surge of federal agents into the city and their lawless assault on the citizens of Chicago.

Specificity is required:

• September 12: ICE agents shoot and kill Chicago resident Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park. ICE claimed that González was shot after he “seriously injured” an ICE agent. But bodycam footage shows the same agent immediately after the encounter describing his injuries as “nothing major.”

• September 30: Some 300 federal agents raid an apartment building in the dead of night. Some rappel from a Black Hawk helicopter positioned over the building. They ransack apartments and detain not only children but several U.S. citizens, including one Rodrick Johnson, who spoke with Block Club Chicago:

Rodrick Johnson, who lives in the building and is a U.S. citizen, said he heard “people dropping on the roof” before FBI agents kicked in his door. He was stuffed inside a van with his neighbors for what felt like several hours until agents told them the building was clear, he said.

“They didn’t tell me why I was being detained,” Johnson said. “They left people’s doors open, firearms, money, whatever, right there in the open.”

• October 4: CPB agents shoot an unarmed woman, Marimar Martinez. They claim that she provoked them by ramming their vehicle with her car. Martinez’s lawyer tells the Chicago Sun-Times that there is bodycam footage that shows an agent turning left into Martinez’s vehicle, after which an agent says, “Do something, bitch.” The agent then gets out of the vehicle and shoots Martinez.

• October 7: A masked federal agent is caught on camera aiming a weapon at a resident who is reportedly doing nothing more than documenting his activity. This act is reported by Chicago Tribune reporter Laura N. Rodríguez Presa:

From a Guardian story about the ongoing clashes:

There have also been arrests of local officials and candidates for office who were protesting, including Illinois’ ninth congressional district Kat Abughazaleh, who went viral with a video of an Ice agent slamming her to the ground, Daniel Biss, the Evanston mayor, and a city alderman who were aggressively arrested while trying to advocate in a hospital setting. . . .

Reverend David Black of the First Presbyterian church of Chicago, said that he was pelted with about seven or eight “pepper exploding pellets” that hit his head, face, torso, arms and legs, while in a position of prayer. . . .

Local journalists have been detained or attacked by federal agents as well. Over the weekend, Steve Held, Unraveled Press co-founder and reporter, was detained by agents while covering a protest outside of the facility. A Chicago-Sun Times reporter was also tear-gassed and pelted with “rubber projectiles”, according to the outlet.

On Sunday morning, CBS Chicago News reporter Asal Rezaei, was attacked by an Ice agent who shot a pepper ball into her car from about 50ft away and was exposed to chemicals on her face. She said in a social media post that after the incident, she was “puking for two hours”.

In addition to protesters and journalists, legal observers, often delineated in the Chicago-land area by their bright neon green hats that read “legal observer” were also attacked in recent weeks by Ice agents.

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Don’t take the word of journalists for it. Here is sworn testimony from a local police chief Thomas Mills in Gov. Pritzker’s lawsuit against the Trump administration:

• According to the sworn statement of the Broadview police chief who witnessed this conduct daily, the “use of chemical agents by federal agents at the ICE facility in Broadview has often been arbitrary and indiscriminate. At times it is used when the crowd is as small as ten people. The deployment of chemical agents is dangerous to the health of both demonstrators and first responders on the scene. In addition, when ICE agents deploy chemical agents, it causes the crowd of protesters to disperse, sometimes running into the road, which is dangerous both for them and for motorists. Broadview police officers have had to attempt to position themselves in a way that directs the crowd to disperse in a safe manner. Over the course of my career in law enforcement, the way in which federal agents have indiscriminately used chemical agents in Broadview is unlike anything I have seen before.”

• According to a sworn statement by the Broadview Police Chief, the next morning, Saturday, September 27, Bovino and several CBP agents came to the Broadview Police station. They told the Broadview Police that the DHS agents would bring a “shitshow” to Broadview that weekend, including that they would be increasing deployment of chemical arms, such as tear gas and pepper spray.

We should say what is going on here in clear and unsentimental terms:

The president instructed federal agents to use extralegal violence against both immigrants and citizens in Chicago. When the citizenry of Chicago objected to these violent acts, the president used their First Amendment demonstrations of protest as pretext to deploy the Texas National Guard into the city, so that armed soldiers from Texas could impose the president’s will on the people of Illinois.

He is setting not just the federal government against one of the states, but pitting armed soldiers from one state against the citizens of another.

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2. Federalism

Our friend Amanda Carpenter—who is nobody’s idea of a bleeding heart—is alarmed. You should be, too.

Trump is dangerously and perversely fusing the roles of the U.S. military and domestic agencies. The U.S. military is trained and equipped to confront foreign adversaries, operating under rules of engagement designed for war. Agencies like DHS and ICE are constrained by the U.S. Constitution and are supposed to protect constitutional rights. What we are seeing now is the worst of both worlds: domestic agents adopting military tactics, and the military itself being drawn into domestic political conflicts. Neither the military nor federal agents are trained or legally intended to perform each other’s roles. . . .

In our nation’s history, the extraordinary federal power to override a governor has been a last resort in moments of true crisis, such as when enforcing desegregation in Little Rock or quelling an actual insurrection.

But that’s not what’s happening here. The White House is sending troops from Texas to Chicago, not to address a genuine emergency, but to override political opposition. In sending troops from red states to police blue states who object to their presence, the White House is bypassing that structure and overriding the will of the states.

The troops being sent to Chicago from the Texas National Guard represent an express end run around Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who stated the deployment is a symbol of “gubernatorial authority being trampled, state sovereignty being ignored, and the constitutional balance between states being attacked.” The United States cannot remain a federalist system when soldiers from one state are sent to police another state against the explicit wishes of its elected leaders and when the justification for it is a lie. . . .

Using soldiers to enforce civilian law blurs the line between the police and the military, conditioning Americans to accept armed troops on their streets as normal. It creates loyalty tests for mayors and governors, undermines the nonpolitical standing of our military, and shreds the checks and balances that protect our freedom. This is a hallmark of tyranny, which our Founders recognized clearly when the king’s soldiers patrolled the streets of colonial America, intimidated opponents of the monarchy, and suppressed their speech.

You should read the whole thing.

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3. Insurrection

At the moment, the courts could block Trump’s TexNG deployment, but the president has already announced that if a judge does rule against him, he will invoke the Insurrection Act and then continue the military deployments.

This is where we’ve been headed since January 6, 2021.

The man who attempted a violent coup—who fomented an actual insurrection—will invent a fantasy insurrection to justify overturning the rule of law and deploying the U.S. military against civilians.

The thing about Rubicons is that they can’t be uncrossed. I struggle to understand why this practice won’t become a standard part of American governance going forward.

Think about it this way. Either what Trump is doing is legal, or it is illegal.

If it is legal, then Trumpism must be defeated and there then must be a concerted effort to reform the law—and possibly even the Constitution—to prevent the next authoritarian attempt.

If it is illegal, then eventually, someone has to go to jail for what this administration is doing to the country.

If this story doesn’t end with one of those two outcomes, then we will see it replayed again. And again.

That is the reality we face. I hope you’ll decide to face it with us.