Governor J.B. Pritzker, D-IL is quickly becoming the face of Democrat resistance to crime control calling the idea of using the National Guard in Chicago an “invasion” (CBS 8/29/25). Earlier Pritzker announced, “The state (IL) will not sit idly by” if President Trump makes good on his intent to deploy the National Guard in Chicago (FOX 8/28/25). He says, “Action will be met with a response.”
His threats remind me of another Democrat, Governor John Letcher of Virginia in 1861 when he refused to provide units of the Virginia militia at the request of President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War. Letcher said, “The Militia of Virginia will not be furnished to Washington (the federal government) for any such use or purpose as they have in view, an object, in my view not within the purview of the Constitution.” He later mobilized that militia against federal troops at Manassas, Va.
Pritzker and Governor Wes Moore, D-MD don’t want you to know New Mexico’s Democrat Governor mobilized the Guard in April and has cut homicides by 24 percent in Albuquerque. The Guard has helped police with ‘non-law enforcement duties such as securing crime scenes, drones, traffic control and booking suspects’ (Axios 8/30/25). All things having to do with municipal policing which Moore says the Guard can’t do (Politico 8/31/25). Even Governor Hochul, D-NY deployed up to 1,000 guardsmen in NYC from March through December, 2024 (NYTimes 8/11/25) to make secure the subways.
Pritzker said on Sunday, the “National Guard don’t belong on the streets of an American city unless there is truly an insurrection (Face the Nation 8/31/25), yet he activated the IL Guard during the 2024 Democrat Convention (NGAUS 7/16/24) as did Tim Walz, another Democrat at the RNC in Minneapolis. Now they defy Trump’s efforts even though 68 percent of their own party say crime is a major problem in U.S. cities (AP 8/25/25).
Do these Democrats offer any alternative to Trump’s efforts other than mobilizing the Guard themselves to combat violent crime? Americans don’t want their bravado, empty rhetoric and hypocrisy.
So is billionaire Pritzker seeing himself as leading a confederacy of obstruction becoming a new Jeff Davis? If he does, his side will be more like the Confederacy envisioned by John Kennedy Toole than the one of 1861.
Ralph Miller