What do you do when you’re mayor of a blue city and a far-right president sends the military to your streets? Right now, we’re seeing two very different answers.
In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser has chosen capitulation: she’s made clear she “greatly appreciate[s]” Donald Trump’s military occupation of her city, gushed that it has lowered crime, and, with troops’ time in the city expiring, ordered the city to keep indefinitely cooperating with federal law enforcement “to the maximum extent allowable by law.” White House officials have praised her for “working with the administration behind the scenes,” dismissing her criticisms of the president’s actions as just “things she says in public.”
In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson is choosing a different path: defiance. He has vowed to “defend our democracy” and “protect the humanity of every single person” in the city, attended a protest against the deployment, and pointed to the plunge in crime he has presided over — including a 32 percent drop in homicides and 21 percent drop in all violent crime. This past weekend, he issued an executive order pushing back against the impending deployment of federal agents and the National Guard to the city.
With Trump indicating his military ambitions are much bigger than the three cities he’s targeted so far, Chicago may be a model for municipalities looking to resist future federal overreach from his administration — or any future right-wing president’s.
Johnson’s August 30 order was signed on the mayor’s own initiative. But it’s also the culmination of an approach that has given working-class community groups a seat at the table and the ability to influence policy decisions under his…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
