House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that Democratic mayors who run the cities President Donald Trump is threatening with troops should stop resisting. “Yield, man,” said Johnson, R-La. “Let the troops come into your city and show how crime can be reduced. It’s a morale boost for the country, and it’s safe and right for everybody involved.”
Not since Vice President Dick Cheney told us that U.S. troops invading Iraq in 2003 would be “greeted as liberators” have we heard a Republican make the preposterous claim that a people — in this case Americans! — would welcome a U.S. military occupation. And, to be clear, an occupation is what Trump has been promising. As a characteristically tasteless social media post from Trump over the weekend put it, Chicago is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
Suppose Speaker Johnson believes that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson — or Chicagoans in general — should bend the knee to a president promising such aggression. In that case, he’s telling us that he doesn’t believe that they are fully American, that he doesn’t believe they’re rightful heirs to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the traditional American ideas of freedom. This is a preview of Jarvis DeBerry's latest column. Read the full column here. |
