JB Pritzker Might Become the Face of America’s Resistance by Taking on Trump’s Authoritarianism
By targeting Illinois, the president might have created his nemesis even as the national Democratic Party flails around for an effective message
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When the Trump administration launched its “Operation Midway Blitz” in Illinois, one obvious objective was to instill fear. Masked agents in full combat gear, armored vehicles rolling down streets, helicopters thumping overhead, and liberal use of tear gas and flashbang grenades all serve that purpose. Just before the federal undertaking began, the president brayed on Truth Social that Chicago is “about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
To some extent, all this has worked: Many residents who are undocumented immigrants, or who fear being mistaken as such, have stayed away from workplaces, stores, and food pantries for fear of being arrested or brutalized. Some organizations have started delivering meals to people who feel unsafe going to the grocery store.
But if Kristi Noem and Tom Homan hoped to achieve mass intimidation, they failed. Noisy protests have become a regular event at the ICE processing facility in suburban Broadview. Community groups have handed out whistles, to be used to sound the alarm when immigration officers show up. Citizens have turned out to honk horns and jeer at the armed interlopers. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson barred ICE from using city-owned parking lots as staging areas. A pure Chicago moment came one recent Saturday after agents tackled a 70-year-old in a residential Northwest Side neighborhood, prompting Brian Kolp, a former Cook County prosecutor, to storm out his front door, barefoot and wearing Chicago Blackhawks pajama pants, to scream “Nazi” and “Gestapo” at the armed goons. The immigration agents finally drove away—though not before unleashing a cloud of tear gas that forced the cancellation of a children’s Halloween parade.
If there has been a face to the resistance, though, it’s that of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has stoutly denounced both the feds’ brutal tactics and the president who unleashed the onslaught. “The federal government has chosen to treat the people of this country as an adversary,” he said. “We will not meet intimidation with fear. We will meet it with truth.” He’s gone on Fox News to tussle with Bret Baier over what he described as Trump’s “authoritarian” methods. The president, he’s said, “is out of his mind and has dementia.” Pritzker established an Illinois Accountability Commission, headed by a former federal judge, to solicit information from citizens and “create a public record of the conduct of federal agents during ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ and the Trump Administration’s military-style operations throughout the Chicagoland area.”
He sees this as a way to publicize and penalize, if not deter, abuses by ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. “There will come a time where people of good faith are empowered to uphold the law,” Pritzker vowed. “When the time comes, Illinois will have testimony and the records needed to pursue justice to its fullest extent.”
He has ample grounds to object. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis dressed down Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, noting that her preliminary order restricting the use of force by federal agents had been repeatedly violated, painstakingly reminding him of each requirement and threatening to put a ban on tear gas. “If they are using tear gas, they better be able to back it up,” Ellis said. “And if they can’t, then they will lose that as something they can use.” She ordered Bovino to start wearing a body camera, ensure that officers all display identification and appear personally before her every day at 6 p.m. to report on the day’s events—though on Wednesday, an appeals court put a stay on the latter order. Today, Judge Ellis made her injunction permanent. “I see little reason for the use of force that the federal agents are currently using,” she wrote. “The use of force shocks the conscience.”
Meanwhile, another federal judge, Robert Gettleman, found conditions in the ICE detention facility “inhumane” and, reported the Associated Press, ordered that every detainee be provided “with a clean bedding mat and sufficient space to sleep, soap, towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, menstrual products, and prescribed medications.”
Pritzker’s resistance has earned him abuse from the administration. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson has called him “an incompetent slob” who “has blood on his hands.” Trump labeled Pritzker “weak” and “pathetic” and said he and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson belong “in jail for failing to protect ICE officers.” White House aide Stephen Miller, with Pritzker in mind, warned that “if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice.” Vice President JD Vance said the governor should “suffer some consequences” for allegedly violating his oath of office, which “seems pretty criminal to me.”
Given the president’s brazen contempt for the rule of law and ruthless deployment of the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies, these pronouncements can’t be dismissed as empty chatter. It would be no surprise if Attorney General Pam Bondi were to seek an indictment of Pritzker. This is an administration that uses every possible tool to frighten, silence, and punish its critics. But the Illinois governor has not buckled. “Come and get me,” he responded to the administration’s threats. At a forum in Minnesota, he called for a broad national campaign of opposition from his party: “This is exactly the moment for people to stand up. And do I see enough people standing up? No, I don’t.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate, said he and Pritzker have a wager on which of them will be arrested first.
Pritzker’s concerns go beyond the immediate terror being inflicted on Illinoisans. Pritzker argues that Trump’s approach has a larger purpose, specifically in November 2026. “He wants us all in big cities to get used to the idea that it’s OK to have military on the streets. You’re going to see soldiers outside your polling place. That’s going to intimidate a lot of people, and especially it’s going to intimidate people who are not Republicans.”
The governor may seem like an unlikely leader of a resistance movement. The billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, he had never held elective office before winning the Illinois governor’s race in 2018. He was best known for taking a leading role in founding the Illinois Holocaust Museum, a 65,000-square-foot structure that opened in Skokie in 1999. But in office Pritzker proved surprisingly adept at retail and legislative politics, and in 2022 he easily won reelection over a Trumpist Republican.
His staunch defiance of Trump and the administration’s authoritarian approach has put him in a national spotlight. It also stands in stark contrast to the wishy-washy approach of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who have been anything but inspiring. Try to imagine either of them daring to say what the Illinois governor did in a speech to the Illinois Federation of Teachers: “Donald Trump and his cronies can fuck all the way off.” In the battle against thuggish repression, Pritzker is not asking for a truce.
Many Democrats are convinced that the way to win against Trump is not by confronting his tyranny and brutality head on but by focusing on his dismal economic record. But Pritzker has had no choice but to take on Trump’s authoritarianism given that his state has faced the brunt of it. Indeed, he’s blasted the “simpering timidity” of party leaders and called “for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption.” And he slammed “do-nothing Democrats“ who want to blame the party’s 2024 losses “on our defense of Black people and trans kids and immigrants—instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.”
He may well be preparing for a presidential race, where his fortune would ensure adequate campaign funds and his defiance should play well with Democratic primary voters. If he runs, he’ll almost certainly build on his uncompromising opposition to MAGA authoritarianism, a stance that appeals to the millions marching at the Oct. 18 “No Kings” rally. His unabashed attacks on the brutal methods of ICE and CBP should also work to his advantage, given that a majority of Americans now reject Trump’s use of immigration agents and military troops in cities.
And if he’s no Gavin Newsom, he’s got a decent trolling game. At last year’s Democratic convention, he said, “Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.” He recently strolled through a bustling area in a flak jacket for a video mocking Trump’s portrayal of Chicago as a “war zone,” asserting, “There’s no hellscape that I’d rather be in.” Unlike Newsom, however, he hasn’t given a platform to the likes of Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk in an insincere attempt to reach out to MAGA voters.
Pritzker will doubtless get more opportunities to show his mettle. In early October, Trump ordered National Guard soldiers to Chicago, purportedly to suppress crime and protect immigration agents—an order that was blocked indefinitely by a federal court. The dispute is now before the Supreme Court, which may allow the deployment to proceed. Trump has raised the threat of going even bigger in cities that he’s targeted: “I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. I can send anybody I wanted.”
Pritzker, however, is speaking for many of his constituents and other Americans by forcefully opposing the administration crackdown. After Tuesday’s court session, the Department of Homeland Security posted on X a video of Bovino in action with the legend: “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED.” The message the governor is sending is this: We will not be cowed.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Great article! Very uplifting and hopeful that there is a strong leader on the horizon! Thank you for writing this!
Steve, your daily voice is needed - desperately! Come back with your own Substack! Please!