“This is exactly the moment for people to stand up. And do I see enough people doing it? No, I don’t,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Tuesday, as national guardsmen from Texas were being deployed in Chicago. “It shouldn’t be that there are Democrats that are afraid, because you know what? We’re the targets. We need to be strong, we need to fight back.”
Pritzker also noted that Trump is “out of his mind and has dementia.”
Trump’s occupation of American cities — as well as his threats to redistrict more red states to eke out more Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections — is making potential heroes out of Democratic governors who are forcefully standing up to him.
This has consequences for the 2028 presidential race (assuming our democracy lasts that long).
The tendency of the media is to look to Congress to find potential presidential candidates — an understandable response, given the Washington-centric views of much of the national political media.
But it may be that the states harbor the most formidable candidates. Trump is giving them a chance to show their stuff.
When Trump occupied Los Angeles, California Governor Gavin Newsom noted that:
“Trump’s militarization of Los Angeles seems to have been just the start of an authoritarian takeover of American cities. This is not leadership. This is a scary, unlawful grab for power, and we should all be deeply concerned.”
Newsom has been highlighting Trump’s wacko behavior by imitating Trump’s all-caps social media posts. He’s also been mimicking Trump’s merch — offering flags that say “Make America GAVIN Again” and caps emblazoned with “Newsom was right about everything” after Trump appeared with a cap saying “Trump was right about everything.”
Trump’s occupation of Chicago has now put Pritzker into the spotlight. After Trump called Chicago a “killing field,” Pritzker responded:
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he’s causing families.”
Pritzker put the issue of Trump’s sending troops to Chicago into a larger context.
“This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s founders warned against. And it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional. It is un-American ….
This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city in a blue state to try and intimidate his political rivals. This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey Stephen Miller searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections. There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. There is no insurrection.”
When Trump asked Pritzker to request federal troops for Chicago — an unintended admission that Trump lacks the authority to do this over the governor’s objection — Pritzker punched back:
“Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.”
Pritzker accurately noted that “13 of the top 20 cities in homicide rates have Republican governors. None of these cities is Chicago. Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states is Illinois.”
Importantly, Pritzker has asked the media to do its job.
“To the members of the press who are assembled here … I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president’s actions. Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish his dissidents, and score political points. If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab.”
Finally, Pritzker issued a warning “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.”
Maryland Governor Wes Moore is also showing backbone in response to Trump’s threats to send troops to Baltimore.
Moore invited Trump to join him on a walk through the streets of Baltimore — an invitation delivered, according to Trump, in “a rather nasty and provocative tone.”
One of Trump’s posts suggested that Moore — who served in Afghanistan and received a Bronze Star for acts of valor in combat — had lied about getting a Bronze Star.
Moore’s response, referring to Trump’s student deferments during the Vietnam War for alleged bone spurs, is attracting attention because, like Newsom’s and Pritzker’s, it’s both tough and dismissive:
“President Bone Spurs will do anything to get out of walking — even if that means spouting off more lies about the progress we’re making on public safety in Maryland. Hey Donald, we can get you a golf cart if that makes things easier. Just let my team know. Did Donald Trump, the President of the United States, lie about an injury to dodge the Vietnam draft?”
While Newsom is leading the charge of Democratic governors actively seeking to redistrict their states to offset the Republican mid-decade redistricting in Republican-dominated states, Moore is also stepping up to the plate, saying:
“[W]e…need to make sure that if the president of the United States is putting his finger on the scale to try to manipulate elections because he knows that his policies cannot win in a ballot box, then it behooves each and every one of us to be able to keep all options on the table to ensure that the voters’ voices can actually be heard.”
Trump is also inadvertently putting a spotlight on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was targeted in an arson attack in April.
Shapiro recently delivered a powerful denunciation of political violence in America, warning against the kind of “selective condemnation” coming from Trump.
“I don’t care if it’s coming from the left or the right: We need to be universal in our condemnation. The president has once again failed that leadership test, failed the morality test, and it makes us all less safe.”
Americans want leaders who will stand up to Trump with tough, intelligent, pro-democracy clarity — in contrast to Trump’s adolescent neofascist belligerence.
Trump’s threats to occupy major blue cities, redistrict red states, and condemn violence on the left but not on the right are giving four governors in particular — Newsom, Pritzker, Moore, and Shapiro — a national stage to show their stuff. They are doing so with wit, eloquence, and determination.
One of them could be our next president.
- Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
- Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.
