Letters from an American - October 8, 2025

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

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October 8th, 2025. Yesterday, journalists observed members of the Texas National Guard at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, Illinois, about 55 miles, or 89 kilometers, southwest of Chicago. This morning, the Defense Department announced the federal activation of about 200 soldiers from the Texas National Guard and about 300 from the Illinois National Guard, saying they would be protecting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE agents, and other federal agents who are performing federal functions,

including the enforcement of federal law and to protect federal property. The statement said the National Guard soldiers are under federal command and control in a Title X status. The section of the legal code to which the announcement pointed was the one permitting the president to call into federal service members of the National Guard whenever the U.S. is invaded or in danger of invasion by a foreign nation, there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the U.S. government, or the president cannot execute the laws of the United States with the power of regular law enforcement. It is this power under Title X that White, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller yesterday claimed was plenary or absolute.

The idea that exceptions to the rule of law reveal who is really in charge of the government was central to the political philosophy of German political theorist Carl Schmidt, who joined the Nazis and whose work is increasingly popular among the radical right in the U.S. these days. Since taking office in January, Trump has declared at least eight national emergencies that the administration has used to justify the use of emergency powers. As JV. Last of the bulwark laid out clearly last night, there is no crisis in Chicago that makes it necessary for the administration to send in National Guard troops. Last points out that any instability in Chicago has been caused by the administration's surge of federal agents into the

city, where they shot and killed Chicago resident Silverio Villegis Gonzalez, raided and ransacked an apartment building, leaving residents, including U.S. citizens and children, bound outside for hours, shot an unarmed woman Marimar Martinez and aimed a weapon at a resident who was simply recording what the agent was doing. In each case, the government initially insisted the federal agents were either under attack or were rounding up the worst of the worst, but subsequent information has shown the federal agents were the aggressors in each situation. Federal agents have held journalists who are now suing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for the use of extreme force against them, and pummeled them with tear gas and pepper spray. As last notes, local police chief

Thomas Mills has testified that the use of chemical agents by federal agents at the ICE facility in Broadview has often been arbitrary and indiscriminate. At times it is used when the crowd is as small as 10 people. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker warned that the administration is deliberately trying to cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them. Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act so that he can send military troops to our city. As Joseph Nunn of the Brennan Center explained earlier this year, the Insurrection Act brings together a number of laws Congress passed between 1792 and 1871. They make up sections 251 through 255 in Title 10 of the United States Code.

Together, they suspend the Posse Cometatis Act that prohibits the U.S. military from taking part in civilian law enforcement. The Insurrection Act permits the President to deploy troops to suppress any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy in a state that opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws. Courtney Kubay, Catherine Doyle, Carol E. Lee, and Garrett Hake of NBC News report today that White House officials, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, have been having increasingly serious discussions about having Trump invoke the act. This morning, President Donald J. Trump's social media account posted,

Chicago mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE officers, Governor Pritzker also. But Pritzker is standing up to the administration. I will not back down, he posted. Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power. What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism? His masked agents already are grabbing people off the street, separating children. from their parents, creating fear, taking people for how they look, making people feel they need to carry citizenship papers, invading our state with military troops, sending in war helicopters

in the middle of the night, arresting elected officials asking questions, we must all stand up and speak out. In an interview with MSNBC senior political correspondent Jacob Soberoff, Pritzker noted that Trump, who is a convicted felon, has a lot of nerve calling for Pritzker's arrest. This guy's unhinged. He's insecure. He's a wannabe dictator. Pritzker said directly to Trump, if you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me. We've done nothing wrong here, and it's Donald Trump that is breaching the Constitution, breaking the law. Illinois has sued to stop the administration from sending federalized National Guard troops from any state to Illinois because it is unconstitutional, Pritzker said. It's important to recognize that the Trump administration doesn't seem to respect any laws in the United States.

They just do what they want to do and they'll keep doing it unless someone stops them. Here in Illinois, we're stopping it. We're doing everything that we can to push back. The administration is engaging in a show of force, Pritzker said, because it wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets before the 26 elections. I believe that he's going to post people outside of ballot boxes and polling places.

And if he needs to, in order to control those elections, he'll assume control of the ballot. boxes and let the administration count the results. Prisker said we will have free and fair elections in 2026 if we all stand up and speak out. Today, the White House tried harder than ever to push the idea that the country is consumed by violence from the radical left. This afternoon, a press release from the White House claimed that for years an Antifa-led hellfire has turned Portland into a wasteland of fire bombs, beatings, and brazen attacks on federal officers and property, yet the fake news remains in shameful denial about the radical left's reign of terror.

In fact, before Trump ordered troops into the city, federal agents described the small protests at the ice facility as low energy, consisting of people standing in front of vehicles, raising a middle finger, and playing loud music. To push the administration's narrative, Trump held an Antifa roundtable at the White House this afternoon. There, far-right influencers tried to make the case that Antifa is real and has harassed them. Although, as the Guardian noted, many of those influencers feed their media channels

by confronting protesters and filming the responses they've provoked. The press release claimed that terrorists have laid siege to the ICE Office in Portland, Oregon. And at the meeting, Trump claimed that paid anarchists want to destroy our country. Bizarrely, he claimed that, I don't know

what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. Antifa is a term used by the far right to define anyone who does not support MAGA. It means anti-fascist. During the meeting,

Influencer Jack Posobiac, a proponent of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, warned that Antifa went all the way back to Germany's Weimar Republic. As Holly Baxter of the Independent pointed out, it is absolutely true that there were anti-fascist protesters in the Weimar Republic. If you'll remember, those were the people taking issue with the early versions of the Nazis. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.