Just the other day, Donald J. Trump—the same man who once described himself as “your retribution”—announced that Chicago may be the next city “taken over” by the military. His ostensible reasoning, repeated like a blunt instrument, is Chicago’s murder rate. Local police, he suggests, are asleep at the switch, derelict in their duties, incompetent by design. But peel back this paper-thin excuse, and you find not concern for public safety but rather the familiar obsession of the authoritarian: control.
This is, of course, the same pretext used when he dispatched the military into Washington, D.C.—not to police crime, but to flex his muscles on the capital itself, as if the republic’s beating heart were merely another casino floor to be bullied and subdued.
One cannot help but notice a recurring motif: Washington, D.C., and Chicago are both deep-blue cities. Trump swears this is coincidental. And perhaps, if you are credulous enough to believe that his hair is natural, you might believe this too.
But if crime statistics were truly the issue, why not Memphis or St. Louis—cities Axios and other outlets consistently rank at the very top for murders per capita? Why not Little Rock, or Toledo? According to FBI data reported by Newsweek, the most violent cities in America today are overwhelmingly in red states, governed by Republicans who spend more time railing about drag queens than dealing with homicide rates. Yet curiously, there are no calls for tanks on Beale Street, no helicopters over St. Louis, no soldiers patrolling Little Rock. In Trump’s moral arithmetic, the blood spilled in red states is merely “unfortunate,” while the blood in blue states is a pretext for martial law.
This is not about crime. It is about power. It is about using “law and order” as a costume for authoritarian rule, a fig leaf for what amounts to a creeping coup.
And the facts betray him. Both Washington, D.C. and Chicago have seen crime falling in 2024 and 2025, not rising. Trump insists the opposite, but then Trump has always had a clumsy relationship with reality. He prefers the spectacle—the reality-TV tableau of “skyrocketing crime,” the blaring chyron, the pantomime of strength. It matters little whether the claim is true, so long as it can be shouted loud enough to drown out the truth.
Let us pause on the sheer absurdity of militarizing American cities. The military is not trained in community policing. It is trained to kill and to occupy. To unleash it domestically is not “law enforcement” but an act of war against one’s own citizens. We saw this already in Portland during the BLM protests—federal troops snatching civilians off the streets, unidentified and unaccountable. Again, the target was a blue state.
Contrast this selective outrage with Charlottesville, South Carolina, where a neo-Nazi terrorist plowed his car through peaceful demonstrators, murdering one and maiming dozens. Trump sent no military there. He did not thunder about domination or control. Instead, he offered his infamous equivocation: “very fine people on both sides.” Red states, you see, get indulgences. Blue states get occupation.
This is not incompetence; it is intent. It is the calculated weaponization of state power against political opponents. Criminalize Democratic cities. Militarize them. Normalize the notion that opposition equals disorder. Then, once the precedent is established, extend it further. Washington and Chicago today, Philadelphia and Los Angeles tomorrow, until every major blue stronghold lies under martial law in everything but name.
And do not say we weren’t warned. Trump himself has said, “If we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections.” That line, which in saner times would have disqualified a candidate instantly, was instead met with laughter, as though tyranny is funny when delivered with a smirk. Hitler, too, once laughed about dictatorship before making it grim reality.
The parallels are unavoidable. Hitler informed the court in 1924 that, once in power, he would reshape Germany as he saw fit. Trump has promised no less. Hitler boasted that millions had greeted his rise with jubilation; Trump crows about the “largest inauguration crowd in history.” Hitler replaced officials with loyalists; Trump vows to purge the “deep state” and install his own yes-men. Hitler spoke of “blood poisoning” by foreigners; Trump rails about immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.” Hitler shrugged off the Reichstag fire as justification for crushing opponents; Trump toys with military occupations of blue cities and teases ending elections outright.
We know the end of that story. And the opening chapters sound hauntingly familiar.
What is unfolding before our eyes is not “law and order.” It is the slow, deliberate normalization of authoritarian control, one blue city at a time. A coup in slow motion—disguised in stars and stripes, justified with fear, and excused by those too timid or too tribal to name it for what it is.
And when it comes, when elections are treated as optional and the military as domestic police, do not say you were surprised. Say, rather, that you were warned.
Why It Matters
This is not crime prevention—it is the calculated weaponization of fear and force to undermine democracy. By selectively targeting blue cities, Trump rehearses authoritarian control while conditioning the public to accept military occupation as normal. History teaches us where this leads, and the warning could not be clearer: democracy dies not in silence, but in applause for “strength.”
Key Takeaways
- Trump repeatedly threatens to militarize blue cities under the guise of “law and order.”
- FBI data shows the most violent cities are in red states—yet they escape militarization.
- Crime is falling in Washington and Chicago, undermining Trump’s claims.
- The tactic mirrors authoritarian playbooks: criminalize opposition, normalize occupation.
- Parallels to Hitler’s Reichstag fire reveal where this road leads.
Further Reading
- Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power – Timothy W Ryback. – From the internationally acclaimed author of Hitler’s Private Library, a dramatic recounting of the six critical months before Adolf Hitler seized power, when the Nazi leader teetered between triumph and ruin. https://civilheresy.com/takeover hitler’s final rise to power
- Fascism: A Warning — Madeleine Albright. A historical and personal reflection on how fascism takes root. https://civilheresy.com/fascism a warning
- Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present — Ruth Ben-Ghiat. A global history of authoritarian leaders and the tactics they use to rise and stay in power. https://civilheresy.com/strongmen
Don’t just read Civil Heresy—wear it. Join the movement with tees, mugs, and caps that say what others won’t.
