Good morning, Chicago.

President Donald Trump has increased federal agents’ presence in Chicago and other American cities such as Portland over the past week and has again threatened to send the National Guard to Chicago. Steve Chapman puts these tense conflicts in context with other moves by the administration in his column today.

“Past presidents have sometimes employed fierce martial rhetoric to deter foreign adversaries. Trump directs it at American cities and citizens, treating opposition as insurrection,” Chapman writes.

Yesterday, Trump continued the militaristic rhetoric in his speech to the nation’s military commanders. He referred to protests as “civil disturbances” and suggested that the country needed to deal with “the enemy from within.” The editorial board calls Trump’s words “disturbing” in its first piece today.

Stephanie R. Toliver, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been monitoring the ways in which the White House has been making changes to civic and history education and writes in an op-ed today about what the response should be to what she sees as attempts to sanitize history.

The board also writes today about the Des Moines school superintendent, Ian Roberts, who was recently detained by ICE because he is allegedly not in the country legally. The situation asks bigger questions about how employment verification tools such as I-9 and E-Verify are used, the board writes.

Also, don’t miss our columnist Laura Washington with a scathing critique of a new ordinance that would allow dogs in restaurants.

Thanks for reading.

— Grace Miserocchi, opinion editor

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