Chicago had one of the BIGGEST protests ever with thousands hitting the streets to stand up against the regime, DHS, ICE & Trump's war on the American people. History is being made in the streets. ✊🇺🇸
Trump threatens to levy war against the United States
Donald Trump, pretending to be a military officer from the movie Apocalypse Now, wrote the following on Saturday:
Chipocalypse now.
I love the smell of deportations in the morning . . . Chicago is about to find out why it's called the Department of War!
The US Constitution, Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 (1789):
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them . . . .
Professor Paul Gowder, Northwestern University School of Law, (Sep. 7, 2025)
The first thing that the treason clause says about that crime is that it is constituted by levying war against the United States. I don't understand how we can interpret that threat as anything other than a threat to levy war against a city in the United States.
The picture of an American city in flames with the statement that Chicagoans are going to see why it's called the Department of War is a quite clear implication that it's a threat to wage war against the city of Chicago.
See CBS News, Chicago leaders slam Trump's "Chipocalypse Now" threat to send troops; "It's really the act of a tyrant"
Among the thousands of idiotic, offensive, and unlawful things Trump has said, his threat to wage war on the City of Chicago—and hence the state of Illinois—has to be a contender for the worst. And that is saying a lot!
Indeed, the statement was so offensive and inappropriate that Trump has attempted to walk it back—something he almost never does.
He even relied on the odious thug Tom Homan to run interference on the Sunday talk shows, where Homan claimed that the statement was “taken out of context,” a laughable defense given that the “context” of the threat was superimposed over a graphic of a city in flames. To the extent that “context” is added, Trump’s statement becomes even more of an explicit threat to wage war on the City of Chicago.
Other Republicans are attempting to revise the statement to suggest that it was a threat to fight drug cartels and capture people breaking the law—something the statement does not say. It does refer to “deportations” and the “Department of War”— activities the Department of Defense is prohibited from engaging in by the Posse Comitatus Act.
Trump seemed to soften his bellicose rhetoric when asked about the remarks by reporters on Sunday, but he cannot erase the never-before-in-the-history-of-our-nation threat by a president to wage war on a US city and state.
It is possible that Trump has been slowed by the aggressive pushback from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and the people of Chicago.
Over the weekend, 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.
And the people of Chicago made their voices heard in large protests outside Trump Tower in Chicago on Saturday. See CBS News, Chicago protesters defiant in face of Trump's deportation threats.
If Trump deploys National Guard troops or ICE shock troops to Chicago, he should expect larger, continuous protests that will undermine the effectiveness and morale of the National Guard and ICE agents
Chicago may become the testing ground for the hypothesis that mass mobilization can shut down the actions of the federal government. Trump understands that it will take only one successful mass mobilization to prove the hypothesis that he can be stopped—if enough Americans join the ongoing grassroots efforts.
Frankly, the sooner that test materializes, the better off we will be. Trump is hinting about national emergencies surrounding the November 2026 midterms. We need to demonstrate to Trump before the midterms that there is a tipping point for the American people and that when that point is reached, Trump will be checkmated by mass mobilization at every turn.
We are bigger, more powerful, more courageous, and more dedicated than Trump. We can beat him. We are in the process of doing so. We need our protests to get bigger, louder, and more frequent. When we do that, we will stop Trump's reign of political terror and anti-democratic rule.
[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]
