Trump's Threat to Go to War...with Chicago

Trump escalates his military rhetoric. It's an alarming turning point.

Thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Chicago Saturday. (Photo by Scott Olson via Getty Images)

Donald Trump posted something so grotesque on Saturday that it cannot be dismissed as just another sick or empty display of his strongman saber-rattling. With violent, war-mongering visuals targeting Chicago, Trump is not only making clear that his hunger for war is intensifying, but that we as a nation are at a turning point.

There’s no getting around it. We can’t look away. We have to call it what it is.

There should be no more doubt about whether Trump “means it” when he makes threats against we, the people. There should be no more doubt about whether he will illegally exploit our nation’s military to achieve his ugly ends or whether we are descending into fascism.

Fascism is here. And he’s daring us to deny him.

Trump will play his usual games and skirt his real intentions, just enough to ensure that those who are indifferent or those who are not paying close attention are not roused from their slumber. That’s why when NBC reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked him yesterday if he’s going to war with Chicago, he dismissed her by saying “that’s fake news,” as well as insultingly telling her she should “be quiet, listen” and “you never listen.” He also claimed that his only interest is not war, but “to clean up our cities.”

Uh-huh.

You’ve probably seen the post by now, in which Trump is dressed as the war-hungry Bill Kilgore from the Vietnam War classic, Apocalypse Now, who famously said, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” This rendition opens with “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” And then, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” followed by three helicopter emojis. And behind Trump as Kilgore, choppers flying with a reddened sky, flames rising and—for anyone who didn’t get it—this text at the bottom: “Chipocalypse Now.”

Once again, this post will be dismissed as no big deal by those who support Trump’s accelerated demolition of our nation’s norms, values and laws. The desire to intensify and expand their hostilities was underlined Friday when Pete Hegseth declared that a rebranded “Department of War” would be defined by “violent effect, not politically correct” and “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”

That abandonment of America’s norms, values and laws was also clear when Hegseth proudly boasted about their bombing of a Venezuelan boat and the killing of its passengers without due process, without Congressional approval and, subsequently, without showing evidence that these people were—as they claimed—“narco-terrorists” as opposed to migrants at sea. But dead men tell no tales, enabling the Trump regime to spin the narrative of these deaths however it suits them—at least for now.

This regime is convinced that they can assert what’s true and false, what’s right and wrong—that it can invoke or abandon the law freely. In case you had any doubt, note this social media exchange involving one JD Vance, who seems to have conveniently forgotten he swore an oath to defend the Constitution and his responsibility—as both a public official and a citizen—to abide by the law.

This is the quality of discourse and the level of respect toward the office that the sitting vice president of Trump’s America offers the public. When he says “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” he might just as well have said, “I don’t give a shit what any American thinks if they disagree with me.”

Let’s return to Trump’s embrace of Bill Kilgore for a moment. Not only did the fictional character created by Francis Ford Coppola express his love for the smell of napalm, he also went on to say that smell is the smell of “victory.” He says this as American aircraft are firebombing a Vietnamese village.

And its no wonder that Coppola introduced the massive napalm strike with The Ride of the Valkyries. This opera music was often used by the Nazis in its propaganda broadcasts and composed by Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer, Richard Wagner.

Trump is surely too illiterate to know these connections, but let’s not doubt that he embraces the Kilgore character, portrayed by Robert Duvall, for his arrogant display of strength. Coppola’s purpose was to condemn the imperialism and hubris that justified such a deadly war; Trump, meanwhile, attracted to the surface violence, either doesn’t grasp that or couldn’t care less.

One additional factual note here: Between 1963 and 1973, the U.S. military dropped 388,000 tons of napalm during the Vietnam War, contributing to the death of more than a million North Vietnamese people.

Trump’s amused embrace of Kilgore’s pyromania with Chicago’s skyline in the background—oh, what a clever cultural reference!—could not be more disgusting.

Let’s remember this won’t be the last assault on Democrat-led American cities, nor the last abuse of our National Guard troops justified with the language of war. Recall how Kristi Noem, Homeland Security’s sociopathic chief, explained the regime’s attempt at a federal takeover in Los Angeles.

“We are not going away,” she threatened in June. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

But make no mistake: Trump’s rhetorical escalation portends his increasingly desperate hunger to exploit our military for the creation of the police state he dreams of leading.

This comes amid rising revulsion toward him and his mounting failures, including rising prices and rising unemployment driven by his foolish tariffs, the continuing coverup of the Epstein files and rejection of the lawless mass deportation operation.

But the more the public’s hatred and opposition increases, the more dangerous he becomes. It doesn’t help that the billionaire tech crowd continues to capitulate to Trump’s whims, most disgracefully displayed during a White House dinner this week by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg promising Trump a made-up number of $600 billion in new investment.

There are two quotes from Steve Schmidt’s Substack essay published yesterday that I’d like to share with you. One is a warning from Upton Sinclair: “Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” The other is from Ulysses S. Grant, written soon after the newly formed Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter in April of 1861:

Whatever may have been my political opinions before, I have but one sentiment now: that is, we have a government, and laws, and a flag, and they must all be sustained. There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter.

I hope I am wrong. I hope this weekend was not a turning point and that the coming weeks will not see an escalation that pits Americans against Americans and Democratic-led cities and states confronted by a federal government and military troops that ignore the Constitution and states’ rights.

I am also encouraged that Chicagoans and Illinois’ leaders will not tolerate Trump’s hostile assault—an invasion by the federal government that they do not want. Public protests this weekend and Gov. JB Pritzker’s response to Trump’s ugly threat of “Chipocalypse Now” also encourage me.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker posted. “This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

We are living in dangerous times when a White House occupant threatens war against an American city and its people. This traitorous talk is alarming, but we shouldn’t doubt that most Americans reject federal troops in our cities.

These are times when the indifferent and the too-comfortable need to be roused. This is an opportunity to stand up for American democratic values and principles and the rule of law. In the binary choice between traitors and patriots, let’s not lose sight of who’s who as the Trump regime falsely imagines their rule will never end.

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