'Are you prepared to defend this land?': Chicago defiant over Trump threats to deploy National Guard

Following military deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, US President Donald Trump's threat to make Chicago his next target is being taken seriously by local politicians and activists.

During a press conference on Tuesday, after days of speculation, Trump announced, "We're going in" – words that make his next steps all but certain.

"I think it's imminent. We've seen it happen in DC and in LA. We know when he's threatening it, chances are he's going to do it," Kobi, Guillory, a middle school science teacher in Chicago and a local rights advocate, told The New Arab.

"What we saw in DC and LA was a pretext to bring in the National Guard, which of course means harassing and arresting brown and Black people," he said.

"People are pretty angry and afraid about it. Most of all, people want to fight back," he added.

Chicago is one of several cities that Trump has repeatedly pointed to as a high-crime city that needs intervention, despite its drop in crime in recent years. Other cities on Trump’s deployment list – in addition to Los Angeles and Washington, DC—include Baltimore and Oakland, all cities led by Black mayors.

Chicago is a diverse city with Black and Hispanic populations of around 30 percent each, and the city’s metro area is home to one of the largest gatherings of Palestinians in the country. The city is the birthplace of Labour Day and continues to have an active workers' movement.

On Monday, in a Labour Day speech, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson opened by leading a chant, saying, "No federal troops in the city of Chicago! No militarised force in the city of Chicago! We're gonna defend our democracy in the city of Chicago!"

"Are you prepared to defend this land? ... If this president decides to continue to break this constitution, it's going to be the labour movement that stitches it back together," Johnson said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Anticipating the Trump's move, Johnson had already signed an executive order against a possible deployment of federal agents to Chicago. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Trump's use of federal troops for law enforcement in Los Angeles was unlawful.

Following Trump's press conference on Tuesday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker responded with a fiery speech, accusing the president of already moving forward with plans to deploy troops to Chicago.

"We have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois," he said Tuesday afternoon. "I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump." 

As Trump turns to his next target of military deployment, Democrats are pointing to the much higher crime rates in red states and cities compared with their blue counterparts.

"I was impressed with how forcefully [Johnson and Pritzker] were able to articulate why Trump was wrong," David Frank, a professor of political communication and rhetoric and the University of Oregon, told TNA.

"The most compelling argument is that the crime rates in rates states are much higher than those in Chicago and blue cities that Trump has identified. It's a failure of the federal government to prevent access to guns," he said.

If Trump moves forward with his threats to deploy troops to Chicago, locals are already ready to resist. A Chicago-based group called the Coalition to Resist the Trump Agenda are planning an emergency protest on the day the troops arrive.

"Chicago has been a centre of resistance against Trump. When he tried to have a rally here, he was run out of town. In 2017, when he tried to enact the Muslim ban, protesters shut down the airport," said Guillory. "He's had a problem with Chicago for a very long time."