Dupage Policy Journal

Naperville's Republican chairman disagrees with Sen. Tammy Duckworth's (D-Ill.) apparent refusal to support the police and protect residents in her rejection of President Trump’s offer of assistance to curb looters in Chicago. 

“Illinois definitely has a dividing line and when you have one county controlling the entire state, making decisions for everyone, including the idea of not supporting our police with the military and not protecting our residents and their businesses," said Naperville GOP Chairman Jim Ruhl. "I disagree with Tammy Duckworth's impression of that.” 

Ruhl responded to a June 3, tweet on Twitter by Duckworth stating, “Our military is one of the most diverse institutions in this country. And for Donald Trump to pervert it, politicize it and use it against fellow Americans exercising their constitutional rights sickens me to the core.”

Duckworth is misinformed, according to Ruhl, who added, “If you look at the facts, 12 presidents in 19 circumstances have used the military when the local government is not able to keep order in particular situations." 

Trump announced that he would send in military troops after Chicago erupted into “No Justice No Peace” protests led by Black Lives Matter (BLM), an international human rights organization that demanded the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who pinned an unarmed George Floyd to the ground and strangled him to death with his knee May 25.  

Chauvin was ultimately arrested and charged with murder on the third day of rallies, some of which have turned into episodes of looting that Trump and other government officials say have been instigated by Antifa, a far-left, antifascist, non-unified network of activists. The group allegedly believes that more aggressive resistance to the Nazis in pre-World War II Germany would have kept Adolf Hitler from coming into power, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

On June 1, it was reported in Business Insider that the extreme right-wing group, Identity Evropa, called for violence and looting in white neighborhoods on Twitter under the guise of being Antifa or BLM members. 

“When I saw video of Antifa members walking down our street this week, I felt comfortable knowing that at some point our state police and our federal government would be willing to step in and help protect me when I don't feel protected by my own local government,” Ruhl told the DuPage Policy Journal.

In a video embedded within the tweet, Duckworth went on to label Trump, “a draft-dodging wannabe tin-pot dictator," and ended with, “I am sickened to the core by this man.”

“She better read history because many a president, including Lyndon B. Johnson as a Democrat, did the very same thing that Trump is offering during a time when a local government was not able to control things,” Ruhl said in an interview.

As previously reported in Chicago City Wire, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Fox allegedly isn't detaining looters that are caught because the courts are closed. ABC reported that Gov. J.B. Pritzker deployed the Illinois National Guard troops to the suburbs on June 1, after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a curfew May 30.