No, Portland is not war-ravaged. President Donald Trump called Portland “war ravaged” and described Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities as being “under siege from attack by domestic terrorists” when he announced sending troops to Portland.
Like Portland, Chicago is another blue city where Trump plans to send National Guard troops to allegedly stop crime. Trump described Chicago as a “disaster,” a “hellhole,” and the “worst and most dangerous city in the world.”
In Washington, DC where the National Guard was deployed in August, Trump justified the action by saying DC was experiencing a severe crime emergency with “bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.”
The Trump administration has deployed or threatened to deploy National guard troops in more than half a dozen American cities that it says are crime-ridden.
Clearly, California Governor Gavin Newsom was right after Trump deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June this year saying, “This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.” Newsom called the federalization of the National Guard a “brazen abuse of power.”
Pushback
Gov Newsom rightly challenged Trump’s uninvited federalization of troops to Los Angeles and a U.S. District Judge Charles R. Justice Breyer determined that the deployment of troops in Los Angeles was in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
Portland is seeking a restraining order against the deployment, saying Trump is overstepping his legal authority.
Like Gov. Newsom, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker of Chicago had sharp words about Trump, saying “the deployment was not about public safety but about sowing fear and division among Americans.” He also stated, “ICE is running around the Loop harassing people for not being white…With one voice, we are telling this unwarranted and unconstitutional occupation by ICE and potentially by military troops to get out of Chicago. You are not helping us,” Pritzker said.
Trump’s deeply disturbing address to US Military Generals
To inflame the situtation, Trump’s address to the nation’s top military brass recently suggests that the militarization of states and Americans could get worse.
Trump said, “In our inner cities…I told Pete that we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military…San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They’re very unsafe places. And we’re gonna straighten them out one-by-one. This is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. It’s a war, too. It’s a war from within.”
This meeting to bring the nation’s top generals to a televised meeting is unprecedented. It’s clear the audience was not just specific to the generals – who could have been addressed privately – but also directed to the American public to whom the president wants to signal a warning that more of the same (militarization of states) plus potentially more is to come. He is preparing the military and U.S. citizens what is likely to be a dramatic escalation.
What the president wants is to instill fear in his opponents, to stop free speech, to stop freedom of assembly to protest him. What he wants is to suppress Americans’ constitutional rights. Trump’s rhetoric of “war within” and “enemy within” is despicable that only tyrants say.
Trump wants to use the military as what ICE is currently doing across the nation, spreading fear and chaos in our communities, arresting suspected illegal immigrants and in the process also detaining countless U.S. citizens who look like foreigners.
ICE is out of control and doing severe damage to our cities, but it would be nothing to what the military could do if Trump were to weaponize them onto Americans, and not just to seize illegal immigrants, but to crack down on whomever Trump deems to be an enemy.
Retired military officials called the meeting “chilling,” “insulting,” “offensive,” saying that the U.S. military must remain nonpartisan. The top military command was brought into a deeply partisan situation and fortunately the generals and admirals acted professionally throughout Trump’s “war within” speech by staying silent.
Our governors, Congress and citizens must not allow our cities to be battlegrounds. They must pursue all legal avenues to prevent the militarization of our communities. We already have local and state law enforcement to deal with safety. Beyond using local police for law enforcement would require extraordinary conditions which are not present.
The end game of state militarization is dangerous and mimics police states in other parts of the world. It’s a threat for all Americans to be alarmed especially as the midterm election approaches. The last thing we want is to see soldiers in the streets intimidating voters, which is a form of voter suppression.
Americans should not fear our government. It should be the opposite that elected officials and political appointees be concerned about citizens’ approval of them. That’s how it’s always been in a democracy.
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