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On Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he wanted two of his Democratic political rivals to be imprisoned.
Trump has been at odds with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both of whom have opposed the president’s plan to increase Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Chicago and deploy the National Guard there.
The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois have filed a lawsuit to block the deployment of the National Guard. Although a federal judge refused to take immediate action, a hearing on the matter is scheduled for Thursday, with a decision likely to come later this week or early next.
Trump suggested in his post that the mayor and the governor should be punished for not cooperating with his plan to militarize the nation’s third-largest city.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump wrote.
The statement is indicative of Trump’s growing authoritarian zeal since reentering the White House. He has, for example, said he is considering invoking the Insurrection Act to send U.S. military troops to Democratic-run cities across the country. His administration has also (perhaps illegally) used government resources — including workers’ emails and federal websites — to blame Democrats for the current government shutdown.
Trump has relentlessly attacked Democrats in general, sharing a meme last week, for instance, that referred to the Democratic party as the party of “hate, evil and Satan.” He has also threatened to use military force to quell protests of his policies, describing protesters as “terrorists” and people with leftist views as “the enemy from within.”
Both Pritzker and Johnson have responded to Trump’s post.
“This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a Black man unjustly arrested,” Johnson wrote on X. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I will not back down,” Pritzker said in his response. “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”
According to independent monitors, Trump’s descent into authoritarianism has indeed escalated in recent months. Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that describes itself as an “anti-authoritarianism group,” surveys around 1,000 scholars daily on their views regarding freedom levels in several countries, including the U.S. According to their most recent calculation, the U.S. is currently at a 3.3 rating on a scale of 5, placing the country at a “severe threat” status.
The threat of authoritarianism has more than doubled since March, an examination of Protect Democracy’s scoring on Wednesday showed.
New polling of U.S. voters shows that most side with Pritzker, Johnson and other leaders opposed to Trump’s militarization of large cities. According to an Economist/YouGov poll published this week, only 37 percent of Americans are in favor of Trump deploying the military to U.S. cities, while 52 percent are opposed.
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