I have seen with my own eyes masked federal agents deploy tear gas and rubber balls without warning on peaceful protestors who posed no physical threat to them, including a pastor who they shot in the head with pepper balls.
This is a “political” post. If that makes you want to turn away, I urge you to keep reading — it’s a personal account of what is unfolding around my home in Chicago.
I have seen a phalanx of federal agents storm out the gates of the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, and begin beating and arresting people exercising their First Amendment rights — after they were already contained and directed where to stand by Illinois State Police.
I have heard the chilling sounds of whistles in the streets and people screaming desperately as they are thrown to the ground and whisked inside unmarked SUVs. My friends and neighbors are scared to go to school or church, leave their houses for groceries, or show up to play soccer in the park.
It doesn’t matter where you fall on the very complicated issue of illegal immigration in the United States (which is a misdemeanor, by the way, not a felony). There is simply zero question that what this administration is doing — and how they’re doing it — in Chicago, Portland, and all over the country is wrong and inhumane.
Anne Frank: “Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
The secret police wear masks, answer no questions, show no IDs or badges, and have no standard uniform. They defy court orders designed to create accountability and reduce violence. The terror is the point.
In a show of force earlier this month, agents dressed in military gear marched among tourists downtown. Gregory Bovino, their on-the-ground commander who I saw myself at Broadview, has publicly admitted that they are rounding up people based on what they look like and what language they speak.
Now the national guard from a red state has arrived in a blue state with the President and his lackeys falsely calling Chicago a “war zone.” I can assure you as a resident, this is simply not true: Crime here is at historically low rates — lower, in fact, than cities in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, and Louisiana.
To anyone who is intellectually honest, it is obvious that they are following a plan:
Lie about the situation in a blue city
Deploy secret police and militarized guards to the cities in question
Provoke demonstrations and unrest against these occupying forces
Exaggerate the behavior of the protestors
Escalate and create a situation that may lead to violent resistance
To be clear: the protests against ICE brutality have remained remarkably calm. Elsewhere, neighbors on rapid-response teams have confronted the secret police in the streets with an understandable level of belligerence. As Barbara Walter, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, sagely points out:
The quickest way to piss people off is to send soldiers into their neighborhoods especially when there’s no reason for them to be there. It’s inherently provocative, and Trump and his team understand this …
Once citizens begin to view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this. In fact, that’s the point. They are not trying to restore order; they’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns. In the end, violence serves their ultimate end: They want to create the illusion of disorder so they can tighten control and stay in power indefinitely.
This may be practice for the 2026 or 2028 elections. Already, the administration is floating the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act. “If courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I’d do it,” the President told C-SPAN on Monday, Oct. 6.
Of course, there’s deep irony in the fact that he goaded his supporters into an actual insurrection, where they stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the election and hang the sitting vice president. They were pardoned en masse for their service to the wannabe king.
What is there to do, then, in the face of such abuses and usurpations? I spent a chunk of first few months of this presidency overwhelmed and unsure about how one person could effectively resist powerful system. I imagine many of you have felt the same.
When you don’t know what to do, do something. Even a small step means more than you can imagine once you take it. The first time I showed up to the epicenter of the Chicago protests — and saw my neighbors singing, chanting, locking arms, and peacefully dissenting even as they were violently attacked by the government — I felt empowered to do so much more. You will, too.
Audre Lorde: My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”
If you are able, I urge you to make your voice heard at the No Kings marches around the country on Oct. 18. There is certainly one near you — it will be an organized, family-friendly event that could be the first empowering step you take as we figure out what to do next.. If you can’t attend, perhaps you can make signs for those who can.
Here are some slogan ideas. Have a good one to share? Drop it in the comments.
If not gestapo, why gestapo shaped? No secret POLICE.
Leviticus 19:33-34: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.”
When cruelty becomes normal, compassion looks radical
Trump is a faux-king joke
Your ICE costumes look ridiculous (ideally while wearing an inflatable animal)
Thomas Jefferson: “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”
We dumped our ex for much less ↓
The Conflict on the Streets of Chicago
By Geraldo Cadava for The New Yorker (archive 🔗)
My take: Despite offering my personal account above, it is worth your time to read this in full because of the comprehensive and well-reported account of what is unfolding in the city.
Best line: There is plenty of antagonism between ICE agents and anti-ICE protesters. But it is hard to conclude that the protesters’ resistance constitutes a rebellion or an insurrection. To many Chicagoans, the warlike atmosphere is the result of the increasing aggression of the federal government. Worthington, among others, has speculated that Trump is looking for a reason to put Chicago in an even tighter vise than it’s already in. “Sometimes I wonder if what the Trump Administration is doing is looking for cities that they know aren’t going to just take it lying down,” he said. “Part of me wonders if they’re not testing out, first, what they can get away with in different places, and, second, how they can provoke and escalate it to a point where we have a serious national crisis on our hands.”
‘Operation Inflation’ collecting costumes for Portland ICE protesters by Samantha Swindler for The Oregonian
My take: I do apologize for the negative bent of the links in this issue; every day that goes by reveals that we are living in bizarro world, and I pinball between feeling morose or deeply sardonic about it all. At my core, I believe satire is one of our most effective weapons against the nonsense. Now is, quite simply, the time to act. (Also, it would be even funnier to call the blow-up costume movement the ‘2025 Inflatada.’)
Best line: In the absurdist, satirical tradition of the post-World War I Dadaist movement, Jordy believes this costumed protest tactic is key to countering President Trump’s narrative that Portland is “war-ravaged.”
“Every person in an inflatable costume,” Jordy said, “makes it harder for the Trump administration to invoke the Insurrection Act or try to spread this messaging of Portland being a dangerous place.”
The creatives and academics rejecting AI – at work and at home by Emine Saner for The Guardian
Best line: “They’re trying to convince people they can’t do the things they’ve been doing easily for years – to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies – to write that for you.” We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, “that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won’t know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can’t do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won’t have to process grief, because you’ll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it’s going to destroy humans, long before there’s a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people.”
Authoritarianism Feels Surprisingly Normal — Until It Doesn’t by Gisela Salim-Peyer for The Atlantic (archive 🔗)
Best line: “My father used to say that living in Venezuela was like driving a car that you know is not being maintained. For now, the car works fine, but one day it will break down. And when it does, the moment to repair the car will have passed.”
home tour
Samin Nosrat’s Kitchen Is a Small and Efficient Dream
By Bobby Finger for Dwell
My take: There is an undeniable…”cognitive whiplash” when you watch the Empire fall. On one hand, it requires dedicated and unflinching resistance. On the other, it also requires the willingness to celebrate and be present for joyful moments. I am so glad Samin and her collaborater Hrishi Hirway are back with their podcast, Home Cooking, which gave me so much comfort during the pandemic.
Best line: With the help of Young America Creative in Oakland, California, the veteran chef and bestselling cookbook author designed a workhorse of a home kitchen meant for home cooking and professional prep work; one that’s compact yet airy, pristine yet prepared for a mess. Eye-catching aesthetic choices, like the sea green tile, wall-to-wall maple cabinets, and raw brass fixtures, are apparent, but the bulk of the kitchen’s beauty is in its obvious efficiency. It’s hard to gaze at photos of the space without instantly fantasizing about what you’d cook there first. Leave it to the chef who famously distilled the art of cooking into four essential elements to apply a similar kind of brevity to her home cooking space.
Seth Putnam is an editor and writer in Chicago. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in a 1920s home that is the epitome of a work in progress.
“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver