The American Dictator

Tonight, we have the specter of an American president trying to take control of an American city for thinly veiled political reasons. Not for the first time, or even the second, but for the third. This time, Donald Trump lacks even the veneer of justification he asserted in Los Angeles, when he claimed anti-ICE protests were out of control. He lacks the unique status he holds in D.C. as the head of the National Guard, which gives him greater latitude to act than anywhere else in the country.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday morning, an off-base reference to the famous line in the Vietnam film Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.” “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the DEPARTMENT OF WAR, followed by three helicopters. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was quick to point out “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

In Chicago, Trump will be the invader if he moves in. His claims of rampant crime that state and local authorities can’t handle are undercut by statistics that show serious crime is decreasing, although no one is pretending it’s not a problem. But under our system of federalism, it’s a problem that is left to the states, which have the police power, to resolve.

The Tenth Amendment provides that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” That includes the general police power, which is reserved to the states, because the Constitution does not specify it as a power of the federal government. The Tenth Amendment is the core tenet of federalism, which Republicans used to claim they believed in, offering it up as a reason for the federal government to stay out of all sorts of things far more benign than a federal takeover of a major American city.

The term police powers refers to a broad and somewhat amorphous governmental regulatory power. In 1954, in Berman v. Parker, the Supreme Court characterized it as involving “[p]ublic safety, public health, morality, peace and quiet, law and order,” while noting that “[a]n attempt to define [police power’s] reach or trace its outer limits is fruitless.” In other words, the power reserved to the states in this regard is broad, certainly encompassing Donald Trump’s newfound desire to have the federal government fight crime in the states—something better done by providing support and grant funding, and letting states and localities do their constitutionally assigned job.

But Donald Trump wants to be a dictator. And it isn’t limited to just his first day in office, as he once said on the campaign trail, not that anyone paying attention believed that bogus claim. Illinois’ Governor isn’t having any of it, calling out Trump for what, in essence, is a threat to go to war with an American city. That sort of plain spoken truth is essential. We can no longer afford to try and make nice with a president who so cavalierly talks about taking over Democratic cities, and only Democratic cities, despite the fact that many red state cities, like my home, Birmingham, Alabama, have crime issues too. We know what Trump is doing. We know next year’s elections are coming. We understand the context for this effort to assert the authority to seize control, at will.

Coincidentally, the line in Apocalypse Now, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," was spoken by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall), about the absurdity of war and the profound psychological damage it inflicts on everyone involved. It followed a napalm attack on a civilian population, which is a war crime under international law. Perhaps, as is so often the case, Trump seized on the line without understanding its meaning. Perhaps he just doesn’t care now that he has his “Department of Warfare.” But it is not a president’s job to go to war against the American people. Apocalypse Now is about a man driven insane by war, a movie about how hollow war can make people. Donald Trump, unintentionally, has invoked just the right image for what is to come.

We’re in this together,

Joyce