Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Vincent Alban/Getty

As Donald Trump’s goon-squad occupation of the nation’s capital wends its way into its third week, the president is already eyeing the next Democratic stronghold he’d like to strangle with his bruised hands in the name of “fighting crime.” Among the municipalities facing the mad king’s wrath is Chicago, which has loomed in far-right lore as some kind of Third World hellhole. While we wait for many Democratic leaders and media elites to take Trump’s authoritarian spree seriously, TNR editor Michael Tomasky this week urged Illinois officials to steel themselves for what’s to come. “Okay, JB Pritzker,” he wrote, “you’re up.”

It didn’t take long for the reply to come. In a Monday afternoon news conference, Illinois’s Democratic governor joined a slew of state leaders speaking out about Trump’s plan to deploy troops to Chicago. Pritzker has, over the past year, begun to cement his national profile ahead of what many presume to be a presidential run in 2028. He has firmly planted himself in the same “fighter” lane as California Governor Gavin Newsom—the better to distinguish himself from, say, whatever it is that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer thinks she's been doing lately.

Pritzker ended up being the headline figure of that Monday news conference, thanks to the simplicity and directness of his message. “Mr. President, do not come to Chicago,” he said. “You are neither wanted here nor needed here.” He offered some satisfying digs at the evident decline of Trump’s mental faculties. He hit many of the right notes for someone who wants to establish himself as a leader of a dissident movement. But Pritzker saved his best for last, when he promised to take the fight against Trump a step farther than most Democrats have allowed themselves.

Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous: We are watching and we are taking names.

This is where Pritzker has leveled up over his fellow Democrats, by promising a future of accountability and retribution for the destruction Trump and his minions are doing to the constitutional order and our individual freedoms. As I wrote back in May, the Trump White House and the GOP are no longer a political party by any definition; rather, they are a sort of criminal syndicate with an extensive portfolio of white collar crimes, violent offenses against our civil rights, and an ongoing sort of imposed cultural tyranny that is killing off the well-paying jobs of the future by decimating academia, and literally sparking public health crises at home and abroad through the Lysenkoism of key administration figures like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Join The New Republic and David Blight, Yale University’s Sterling Professor of History, for a discussion about how Trump is trying to change our sense of who we are. Blight will be joined by historian James Grossman, Northwestern University’s Leslie Harris, and Carleton College’s Amna Khalid to outline how we can fight to preserve our history as well as democracy.

As I noted at the time, “There is a certain necessary logic to what has to follow corrupt misrule of this kind: tribunals, trials, punishment, prison, and the running to ground and defunding of the entire Trump syndicate.” The only thing we were lacking then was an ambitious political figure who was willing to say that they were ready and willing to make accountability a key plank in their platform. Pritzker has made a timely arrival. 

As Discourse Blog’s Rafi Schwartz points out, this isn’t the only uniquely consequential aspect of Pritzker’s speech. The Illinois governor—channeling the feelings of so many who’ve forewarned of what was to come in a second Trump term—told those assembled, “If it sounds to you like I am alarmist, that is because I am ringing an alarm, one that I hope every person listening will heed, both here in Illinois and across the country.” 

Pritzker's willingness to straightforwardly announce the existence of a crisis with “no caveats” and “no conditionals,” Schwartz writes, helps to “[neutralize] the latent anxieties of those worried about coming off as unduly panicked or oversensitive to the political realities around us.” In short, Pritzker allows those so inclined to finally grant themselves the permission to see the fascism that’s on the march, and speak of it out loud.

In the same way, I think that Pritzker has kicked open a door to an alternate future: One in which the restorative work of post-Trump patriots involves accountability for criminals and reparations for the people they've harmed. The taking of names and the doling out of punishments: This is now part of the larger political discussion; this is now part of the Democrats’ intraparty debate about What Is To Be Done. By including this as part of his political ambition, and broadly suggesting it may be the major goal of some future Pritzker administration, he allows us to imagine this future and have a hand in creating it.

And it sure sounds like Pritzker wants to put his hands to the task right now. “If you hurt my people,” he said, “nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.” In a week where Beltway Democrats passed their time pointlessly debating whether or not they were using words like “food insecurity” too much, and congratulating each other for calling the D.C. occupation a “stunt” or a “distraction,” hearing a Democratic politician speak in plain English is pleasingly bracing. These are, indeed, encouraging words to hear after Democrats long implored us to “look forward, not backward” and allowed misrule to go unpunished, thereby paving the road for Trump’s fascist second act. 

—Jason Linkins, deputy editor

Join a special group of readers and supporters on a lovingly designed, all-inclusive tour of one of the most spellbinding places in the world. Drawing on The New Republic’s special contacts among local historians, artists, and chefs, we’ve created a first-class experience that will immerse you in Cuba’s colorful and unique history, politics, and culture.

This week, Tim Noah has a fresh account of how Trump is bringing back fascist corporatism. Not to be outdone, Matt Ford goes off on the president’s plan to bring back unconstitutional remedies for flag burning. And Alex Shephard warns of one of the more worrisome outcomes of Trump taking over the Fed: a new recession. Elsewhere, Monica Potts dives into the weird and self-destructive phobias that Democrats have of the mythical swing voter. Brabim Karki assays the damage that could be done by Trump’s new trade war with India. Virginia Heffernan explores how AI’s failure to be a reflexive MAGA proponent is a source of tension with Trump and his acolytes. Meredith Shiner explains how D.C. residents’ perennial second-class treatment paved the way for Trump’s takeover. 

 Update your personal preferences for _t.e.s.t_@example.com by clicking here. 

Our mailing address is:

The New Republic, 1 Union Sq W Fl 6 , NY , New York, NY 10003-3303, United States

Do you want to stop receiving all emails from ? 

Unsubscribe from this list. If you stopped getting TNR emails, update your profile to resume receiving them.