After President Trump shared a meme on Truth Social, suggesting that he and his administration were going to go to “WAR” with Chicago, Illinois leaders responded without jest.
Illinois Government leader JB. Pritzker in response to Trump’s post wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Trump “is going to war with an American city. Illinois won’t be threatened by a wannabe dictator.”
The meme that Donald Trump posted used the 1979 film Apocalypse Now as a way to show himself as a powerful and noble leader for declaring a war on Illinois, a Democratic state vocal about supporting immigration. Although in the film, the character he is using to represent himself is meant to be seen as the antagonist in terms of cruelty during war. Additionally, in the post Trump quotes “I love the smell of deportations in the mornings,” referencing a character in the movie related to Kilgore’s quote, “I love the smell of napalm in the mornings.” Napalm is similar to gasoline but it causes severe burns and can asphyxiate anyone who comes into contact with it. Trump is directly comparing himself to Kilgore, a character whose goal is to order a napalm strike against the Vietnamese.
Trump displays that he has a warped perspective and does not care about how others may view him. In order to compare a deadly attack such as napalm strikes to deportations, there should be a sign as to the impact that it has on the people. Nonetheless, the racist ideology where one group of people is to blame for all the problems in America is not a new occurrence.
Discrimination against immigrants of color has deep roots in American history, ever since the early 1800s. Immigration has been limited to visually white people such as Europeans, while Indigenous immigrants have been forcibly removed. Donald Trump’s behavior closely resembles the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which sought out to deport immigrants who were seen as threats to the country.
Although the recent government has aggressively targeted people who are viewed as aliens, that doesn’t mean that 20th century Chicanos didn’t fight back. For example, in the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, Chicanos protested against the unjust death of Jose Diaz during wartime, which worsened the racial tensions that had been going on for decades. Due to the fashion of the zoot suiters, it was easy for people to spot them and make them a public enemy.
Similar to the way that the Zoot suiters were treated, immigrants now have been made the scapegoat of America’s issues. There is no basis for the mistreatment of these people, as now anyone who doesn’t look Caucasian can be detained and questioned. Deportations now are essentially holding people in prison like conditions and allowing them to be treated inhumanely. Immigrants today are being treated as if they don’t matter, such as smashing car windows even if they’re stopped and pulled over. ICE agents are even going out of their way to conceal their identities as they deport these immigrants. Even immigrants who have lived here for years, work, and even pay taxes are also being deported. At this point of time, with America being under Trump’s administration, if you don’t present as Caucasian, it appears that you are unwelcome in this country.
America is a nation of immigrants, yet President Trump, the grandson of an immigrant, is defiling the American Dream. This issue is not a new one as it dates to the origins of the country, although now it can be argued that it is now the worst it has ever been, and the people of America have the right to defend themselves from this unjust system.