Democrats’ National Guard deception

OPINION:

Left-wing governors and mayors, who couldn’t care less about federalism when they have their hands out for our tax dollars, are suddenly screaming about the separation of powers as the administration tries to save lives and enforce the immigration laws.

Democrats’ latest deception is wanting Americans to think that President Trump is replacing local police agencies with the military. They want us to believe National Guard members are the new Nazi SS: uniformed, armed storm troopers of the Trump administration.

They are fully aware that none of that is true.

The National Guard does not have police powers in these jurisdictions. They are not patrolling streets in place of local law enforcement and making arrests. They are not trained law enforcement, and it would be dangerous for them to engage with gangs and other criminals.

The National Guard protects federal facilities and federal personnel. The Texas National Guard members just called up to Chicago have very specifically been tasked with the protection of those facilities and federal law enforcement personnel, including ICE facilities, under attack by Democrats and left-wing protesters.

Still, U.S. District Judge April Perry, who took office in the waning days of the Biden administration, has delayed deployment of the force for two weeks.

True to form, Democrats want the public confused, scared and angry.

They want to control the messaging and the language used to describe these deployments to deflect from their own failure to stop the carnage on the streets of these cities for decades.

The facts are plain that federal deployments of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals Service, not the National Guard, are leading the charge to reduce crime and arrest criminal illegals.

Democratic socialists such as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker know they can’t easily demonize ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies, so they attempt to create the illusion that Mr. Trump is creating a military dictatorship.

They know they can’t defend gangs and domestic terrorist groups such as antifa, so they want Americans to be more scared of the National Guard than the folks who kill thousands every year on the streets of our cities, riot and engage in political violence, not to mention the drug and human traffickers and criminal illegals let into the country under the Biden administration.

This is the same messaging they used in 2020 and in 2024 to try to portray Mr. Trump as a fascist.

What they also won’t acknowledge, of course, is that the administration’s efforts to reduce crime in largely minority communities and arrest criminal illegals are working.

In Chicago, Operation Midway Blitz has, up to now, led to more than 1,000 illegal aliens being arrested, including pedophiles, child abusers, kidnappers, gang members and those wanted for armed robbery.

In Memphis, Tennessee, in just the past two weeks, authorities have made at least 562 arrests and seized 144 illegal guns.

In the District of Columbia, since the engagement of federal resources, there has been a 39% decrease in violent crime incidents and a 75% drop in carjackings. Ten missing children have been found, and 25 gang members have been arrested, including at least one member of Tren de Aragua.

Overall, more than 4,000 arrests have been made in our nation’s capital, and 381 illegal guns have been seized, according to the Department of Justice. Who could argue with that? Apparently, the Democratic Party.

Democrats may want to suddenly embrace the Constitution, but the 10th Amendment, which has all but been abrogated since the New Deal, cannot be used to allow socialists who abdicate their responsibility to maintain law and order, to permit violence and death in their jurisdictions.

Why is it acceptable that 2,000 people were shot in Chicago in 2024, for instance?

In 2022, there were 13,466 Black homicide victims in the United States. Black Americans represent less than 14% of the U.S. population but that year accounted for 54.1% of all homicides. Democrats never talk about it because left-wing politicians today see people as pawns in their game against Mr. Trump, not lives to be saved.

It’s easier to paper over failure with platitudes and deflection than it is to solve a problem.

Mr. Trump is trying to save lives. He is trying to restore order. He is not militarizing the country. He is supporting local law enforcement, which is what he promised. Remember, cops want safer streets. They want criminals and illegal guns out of communities.

The further left cities such as Chicago, New York and Portland, Oregon, go, and the more mayors pit their police departments against federal law enforcement and the National Guard, the more these departments will collapse from resignations, retirements and an inability to recruit.

So, the next time some Democrat or socialist steps up to a microphone to slam the president’s use of the National Guard, know it’s a deception. It’s not the military that’s doing the crime fighting. Know that Democrats again are willing to sacrifice lives and the rule of law so they can attack the president. It’s sick. It’s evil, and it may even be criminal.

• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV.