President Donald Trump threatened Chicago with the newly-named Department of War in a meme posted to Truth Social Saturday.
The meme also featured the president in a hat with helicopters, a city skyline, and flames behind him.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” the meme says. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
There’s also text on the image that says, “Chicopalypse Now.”
The meme appears to be a reference to Trump’s recent directive to change the Department of Defense to the Department of War, and his crime crackdown on major cities. He has threatened to deploy the National Guard to other major cities after the deployment of the D.C. National Guard and the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles.
Protesters in Chicago have been urged by Democratic leaders in the area and state to de-escalate their conduct to avoid a justification from Trump to send the National Guard in. “We need people to get out and protest peacefully,” Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) said in a recent interview. “Pull out your iPhone, your Android phone, and film everything you see happening where ICE is trying to harass people.”
Pritzker believes ICE enforcement operations will happen in the city more often as Mexican Independence Day approaches on Sept. 16. Some organizers have cancelled celebrations in fear of ICE raids. Organizers of El Grito Chicago said they were postponing their Sept. 13 festival.
“To proceed in spite of the advice we’ve received directly from city and state officials and potentially expose our community to becoming collateral damage would be irresponsible,” German Gonzalez, the El Grito Chicago organizer, said in a statement. “That’s a risk we are not willing to take.”‘
The War Department has approved the usage of a Navy base near Chicago as a staging area to conduct federal immigration raids. It’s unclear what role military personnel will have in the process.
Pritzker reacted to Trump’s meme post on Saturday, saying it’s “not normal.”
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“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker said in the post.
“This is not a joke. This is not normal,” he added.
