For Trump, the ‘enemy from within’ keeps getting bigger

Federal law enforcement officers push protesters away from an ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, on September. Photo / Jamie Kelter Davis, The New York Times

In the span of a few hours yesterday, United States President Donald Trump threatened to jail the Democratic governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago and suggested a Democratic senator should be punished for questioning his Administration. He described left-wing protesters in Portland as “insurrectionists” and endorsed out-of-state troops descending on Democratic-run cities.

Increasingly, Trump has made it clear what he views as the top threat against America: what he calls the “enemy from within”.

And his definition of that enemy is expanding, particularly as he looks to deploy the military on the streets of American cities.

“He is escalating his rhetoric to focus on domestic enemies, and it’s pretty open-ended,” said Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

“It’s very clear it’s on the liberal side of the house. But it’s not clear where the boundaries are.”

Trump gathered his attorney-general and other top officials for a roundtable discussion at the White House, where he tried to raise alarm about antifa, the loosely defined left-wing anti-fascist movement.

During the event, conservative journalists told horror stories of violent encounters with left-wing protesters, some during Trump’s first term.

Trump described the protesters as “insurrectionists” and “terrible people”.

“We’re going to be very threatening to them, far more threatening to them than they ever were with us, and that includes the people that fund them,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Trump said that Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, both Democrats, should be jailed, escalating his campaign of retribution against those he sees as his political foes.

During the event targeting antifa, Trump accused the men of failing to protect ICE agents in their states.

“I understand that’s a criminal offence,” he said.

Pritzker and Johnson have opposed Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the Chicago area and have criticised the aggressive way in which the Trump Administration has carried out immigration raids.

Johnson signed an executive order to establish “ICE-free zones” in Chicago to prevent federal agents from staging operations.

“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

During his round table event, Trump said that Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, should be punished after he questioned Attorney-General Pam Bondi during an oversight hearing on Wednesday.

He compared him to former Representative George Santos, (R-New York), the serial fabulist who was removed from Congress and convicted of fraud.

Trump did not define precisely what punishment he believed Blumenthal should face, but suggested others have gone to jail for less.

“He looks at people like Pam, and he starts criticising her, and she’s a patriot,” Trump said of Blumenthal.

“They ought to do something with that. You know, we have a young congressman that’s right now in jail for lying about where he went to college and other things. It was, you know, frankly, not good. It was pretty bad, but it was nothing compared to Blumenthal.”

Trump was referring to a controversy that dogged Blumenthal in 2010 over his military service.

The broad-brush targeting of the left, from street protesters to elected Democrats in high offices, was an outgrowth of Trump’s comments from a week ago, when he stood before 800 generals and admirals and spoke of threats to America.

“It’s a war from within,” Trump said.

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

His speech came just days after he signed a memo aimed at “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organised Political Violence”.

It called for a co-ordinated law enforcement strategy to target groups that it said were motivated by “anti-Americanism, anticapitalism, and anti-Christianity”, including “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality”.

The wide-ranging nature of Trump’s crackdown plans became even clearer this week, when the National Guard was deployed to Portland to deal with a small group of anti-ICE protesters, while National Guard troops from Texas travelled to the Chicago area.

Johnson and Pritzker said in social media posts that they would not pull back. “This is not the first time Trump has tried to have a black man unjustly arrested,” Johnson said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Pritzker said: “Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”

In an interview on MSNBC yesterday, Pritzker dared Trump to arrest him, saying: “Come and get me!”

The threat to jail Democratic officials who fight Trump’s actions came as the President has taken myriad steps to harm those who oppose him.

He has pulled protective details from members of his first Administration who faced death threats from Iran.

He has revoked or threatened to revoke the security clearances of former President Joe Biden, members of the Biden Administration and dozens of others.

His Administration has also taken steps to target members of the media seen as unfriendly, slashed entire agencies perceived as too liberal and fired or investigated government workers deemed disloyal.

James Comey, the former FBI director and one of Trump’s highest-profile targets, appeared in court yesterday on charges filed against him by the Trump Administration.

Jeremi Suri, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said that Trump was trying to subvert other branches of government, including local and state officials.

“Most other presidents believed in constitutional limits,” he said.

“I don’t care who it is. They don’t want someone outside of Illinois saying that they’re going to put their governor in jail and sending troops from Texas into their state.”

Suri added: “I do think he has crossed a line that is now creating more opposition to him. Whether that will stop him? I don’t know.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Luke Broadwater

Photograph by: Jamie Kelter Davis

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