“This is a man who’s suffering dementia. This is a man who has something stuck in his head. He can’t get it out of his head. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date. It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities. And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that’s what he’s doing.”
Pritzker wants you to think the president is losing his mind. That is the story the Tribune chose to print. But stop for a second. Five hundred National Guard troops are not a symptom of dementia. They are there to protect federal facilities during a tense immigration enforcement operation. Calling it madness is not critique. It is theater.
Look at history. Eisenhower sent soldiers to Little Rock in 1957 to protect Black students. Lyndon Johnson sent troops to Chicago and Montgomery to enforce civil rights in the 1960s. George H.W. Bush did the same in Los Angeles in 1992. Each time the law required action. Trump’s use of the same authority is suddenly evidence of obsession. The reversal is not accidental. It is political.
Pritzker claims Posse Comitatus is violated. Courts will weigh in. The law allows exceptions through the Insurrection Act. It has always done so. But the governor ignores that. He frames the debate as dementia versus sanity. And that framing spreads. People start to see federal enforcement not as law but as optional. That is the real risk. Local officials might hesitate to follow orders next time. Every delay adds danger.
And ask yourself, who benefits? Politicians in blue states get to act tough against the president while appearing moral. The media prints insults as fact. Citizens are primed to cheer state defiance. This is not about troops. It is about who holds authority when politics outweighs law.
Trump is exercising power exactly as the Constitution allows. Pritzker is flailing rhetorically, trying to turn federal enforcement into a personality flaw. Meanwhile the country watches and wonders if the rules matter anymore. If this keeps happening, every legal challenge will become a theater, every lawful action subject to partisan mockery.
This is the moment when law starts to bend to narrative. And it is not Trump who breaks the system. It is every official who treats enforcement as personal, every journalist who prints insult as truth.