Members of the National Guard patrol along a street in Memphis, Tenn. Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. [AP Photo/George Walker IV]
Encouraged by the silence of the Democratic Party, aspiring dictator Donald Trump escalated his war on the American people on Friday. In Memphis, Tennessee, armed National Guard soldiers began deploying on the streets with police; and in Chicago, federal immigration Gestapo were filmed assaulting and kidnapping residents and journalists.
In Memphis at least nine armed National Guard members, wearing body armor with the label “military police,” were recorded visibly patrolling near a tourist center near the Mississippi River, which flows alongside the second largest city in Tennessee. Republican Governor Bill Lee is cooperating with the Trump administration in deploying 150 members of the Tennessee National Guard alongside local and federal police agencies under the “Memphis Safe Task Force.”
In Chicago, Illinois, federal immigration agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were recorded violently assaulting residents, including a worker from news outlet WGN.
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In a video taken by a bystander, Debbie Brockman is shown being handcuffed on the ground by masked CBP thugs. Near the end of the video, Brockman yells out in pain as the agents cuff her. Not only is Brockman a WGN employee; she is also a US citizen.
After Brockman was kidnapped, DHS propagandist Tricia McLaughlin claimed Brockman was “arrested for throwing objects at law enforcement.” McLaughlin refused to elaborate exactly on what “objects” were allegedly thrown.
Nothing uttered by the immigration Gestapo or the Trump administration as a whole should ever be taken at face value. Shortly after McLaughlin posted her statement, WGN and other outlets reported that Brockman was released and had not been charged with a crime. If there was any evidence that Brockman actually assaulted police thugs in some way, she would have been charged with a crime.
In addition to Brockman at least six people have been kidnapped by immigration police in the last 48 hours. One person was taken while at a Home Depot. A custodian for an apartment complex was also kidnapped.
In another video recorded on Friday, a vehicle driven by masked CBP agents is shown ramming an SUV driven by a woman. After CBP agents rammed the SUV, they got out with their guns drawn and pulled the screaming woman from her car as angry residents yelled at masked thugs, “She’s trying to go to work! You guys hit her, now you are trying to arrest her?!”
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Mass anger is bubbling up throughout the city. To counter ICE kidnapping operations outside schools community members have started forming rings around entrances to protect children and parents. Roving anti-ICE patrols that beep and video ICE thugs have sprung up in North Side neighborhoods.
In response to ICE activity near schools, several were forced into lockdowns for hours. A Chicago Uber driver reported to WSWS that “ICE hit the rideshare staging lot today. Thank God I missed it. This is the ugliest fucking thing. In my worst nightmare I would never come up with this.”
A Chicago resident posted on X, “I live a block from Cicero. ICE visited my home yesterday. ICE didn’t knock. ICE tried to forcefully open my window. ICE opened my screen and asked me to sign papers. I AM an American Citizen. Born on U.S. soil. ICE forcefully tried to enter my home! WAKE UP AMERICA!”
The Democrats, while posturing as opponents of Trump’s coming dictatorship, are doing everything in their power to assist Trump and tamp down popular anger. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, after filming a bit with Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday in which he downplayed the federal occupation of the city, ordered Illinois State Police under his command to again attack anti-ICE protesters outside the Broadview ICE facility on Friday.
Speaking outside the same facility later in the day, Democratic Illinois Senator Dick Durbin revealed that ICE has refused him entry into the facility on four separate occasions. Yet, Durbin made clear that the Democrats were not actually trying to stop wanton ICE and CBP violence. “We just want to be briefed on what they are doing. What’s happening on the streets. They have refused to tell us this information. … Something is going on in there that they don’t want us to see.”
While Democrats do nothing to actually stop Trump’s attacks on the democratic rights of the entire working class, Trump again threatened on Friday to invoke martial law. The oldest person ever sworn in as president, claimed that every time he looks at Portland, “it’s burning down, there are fires all over the place.” Trump added, “That’s almost an insurrection that place.”
Trump’s drive towards dictatorship and attempts to brand all opposition to his Nazi-inspired policies as “antifascist terrorism” are being taken up by the Republican Party leadership.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Republican-Minnesota) said on Friday that Democrats’ refusal to provide votes to end the government shutdown was aimed at scoring “political points with the terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold a hate America rally in DC next week.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) echoed Emmer in an interview on Fox News. “I’ve had it with these people,” he said. “They have a hate America rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people … this is serious business hurting real people. “
October 18 is the next iteration of the “No Kings” rallies, which have been organized by Democratic Party groups, as well as individuals opposed to Trump’s attacks on the Constitution and democratic rights. Like the June 14 protest, which drew millions of people in over 2,000 cities, the October 18 demonstration is shaping up to be a massive outpouring of anger against the Trump regime.
The October 18 demonstrations, as the World Socialist Web Site analyzed in a recent Perspective, “should mark the beginning of a counteroffensive against Trump’s dictatorial and fascistic rampage.” The same government that is sending troops into cities, kidnapping workers and family members and eviscerating what remains of the social safety net cannot be reasoned or bargained with.
The only social force that can stop the social counterrevolution and defend democratic rights is the working class, united on a socialist program independently of the Democratic Party, which is a party of capital and the police no less than the Republicans.
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