"Against Illinois governor JB Pritzker's objections, Donald Trump's Pentagon has ordered hundreds of national guard troops to join his regime's assault on Chicago communities. Trump subsequently called for Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and Pritzker to be jailed for not supporting his agenda. These are simply the latest steps in Trump's plan not to govern as the president of all Americans but to rule as the dictatorial head of a punitive factional state."
"Federal funding to Democratic cities is being slashed through executive maneuvers; the justice department is conducting politically targeted investigations and arrests; and the military is being deployed to intimidate fellow citizens. Los Angeles, Portland, my home town of Chicago and other cities have been cast as enemies to be subdued, not communities to be served. This weaponization of federal power represents a sharp break with constitutional tradition."
"As the anthropologist Janet Roitman argued in her study of taxation and sovereignty in central Africa, acts of fiscal disobedience emerge not simply as refusals to pay but as political interventions that expose ruptures in the reciprocal obligations underlying fiscal authority. Taxation is never merely technical. It is the material expression of political belonging and shared obligation. When the state weaponizes fiscal power against certain communities while continuing to demand unquestioned revenue from them, it undermines its own claim to legitimate authority."
Federal forces were ordered into Chicago over state objections while the president called for jailing local Democratic officials for failing to support his agenda. The administration is cutting federal funding to Democratic cities through executive maneuvers, pursuing politically targeted Justice Department investigations and arrests, and deploying the military to intimidate citizens. Major cities are being treated as enemies to be subdued rather than communities to be served. Selective fiscal coercion forces Democratic residents to continue paying significant federal taxes while receiving punitive treatment. Taxation functions as a material expression of political belonging, and withholding or redirecting tax flows can act as political resistance when fiscal authority is weaponized.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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