Our democracy has never been perfect; neither have our local city politics. However, we are at a critical fork in the road, and history demands that we make hard choices. I have been a professor of U.S. history for the past 30 years, but you don’t have to be a student or scholar of history to know what an unscrupulous power grab looks like. Donald Trump’s threat to militarily occupy Chicago, overriding the wishes of local elected officials, is indeed an unconstitutional overreach, but it is more than that. It is a move that follows the playbook of dictators and wannabe dictators throughout history.
I say this with no hyperbole. It is a sign of a regime moving to consolidate authoritarian power.
Authoritarian regimes rely on fear and xenophobia to manipulate people into accepting the theft of their rights and sovereignties. The saying that the Italian fascist Benito Mussolini “made the trains run on time” is a nod to the supposed efficiency of authoritarian regimes. But at what cost? If you forfeit your agency, your autonomy, your power to make decisions as citizens and residents, the strongmen and their troops promise to clean up the streets and make everything work like a well-oiled machine.
And what about those who don’t fit in or get in lockstep with the new rules? Well, in most cases they will, in one way or another, disappear. And the slippery question of guilt or innocence does not matter much to dictators. If you are suspected of being a part of the problem or getting in the way of the master plan, you are subject to elimination. This was a tactic of the Dirty War in Argentina, which disappeared around 20,000 people under the military dictatorship, or more recently the anti-drug sweeps in the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte that, according to Human Rights Watch, “could amount to crimes against humanity” and that resulted in thousands of deaths without any semblance of due process.
And of course, it is reminiscent of the violently enforced law-and-order dictates of Nazi Germany, where millions of Jews were murdered along with communists, gay people, Roma, and those with mental illnesses and disabilities. And for the rest of the population, Adolf Hitler’s police state ruled with a heavy hand, punishing and jailing people for small offenses and anything the state deemed immoral behavior.
The conservative neoliberal economist Milton Friedman argued that unpopular and far-reaching changes could be achieved in moments of crisis, “real or perceived.” Trump has invented two crises, rhetorically turning ongoing problems into emergencies. In response, he purports to solve these crises overnight with armed soldiers trained for combat, not urban crime or homelessness.
And of course, some of the most vicious attacks have scapegoated migrant and immigrant communities from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, characterizing them as bloodthirsty killers and rapists with absolutely no evidence. The scenes of shackled men with heads shaven and forcibly bowed, trotted before television cameras before being deported, should have alarmed and frightened every citizen and resident of this country. That is what militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement problem-solving looks like. We have to ask: Is that what Trump has planned for cities like Chicago?
Washington, D.C., now has armed National Guard troops in its streets where a key target has been unhoused communities and people living in poor neighborhoods. “We are going to get rid of the slums, where they live,” Trump declared. There is no mistaking who “they” are — poor Black and brown communities.
The real crisis is one of poverty, unaffordable housing, inadequate mental health care, not enough jobs, and the lack of programs to help de-escalate conflict and offer young people positive outlets for their energies. All of these are the short- and long-term solutions our mayor, Brandon Johnson, has been trying to put in place in Chicago, while turning no one away. These are policies of compassion and caring, coupled with practical efforts to get at the root causes of harm and crime in our city. Significantly, violent crime has indeed gone down under his administration.
We don’t need a mean-spirited racist demagogue or more and bigger guns to solve our city’s problems. We need resources, support, unity and a little bit of optimism. If critics of the mayor would pitch in and stop trying to sabotage and undermine his leadership, we would be a stronger, better city and able to resist the illegal occupation that Trump is orchestrating, while rebuilding stronger, healthier, safer communities.
With more raids and attacks on our immigrant neighbors and vulnerable unhoused communities looming, as well as the promised targeting of low-income communities, this is the moment to decide where you stand. I hope the overwhelming majority of my fellow Chicagoans will stand with our mayor and other principled elected officials and, most importantly, on the right side of history.
Barbara Ransby, Ph.D., is an award-winning historian, author, professor, a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a longtime social and racial justice activist.
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