The Troop Poker: How Trump Tests His Power Between Chicago and New Orleans

It is one of those reversals that characterize Donald Trump's presidency: just moments ago he was boasting with the certainty of a conqueror "We are going in," and already he is rowing back, leaving options open, shifting targets. On September 3, the president sits in the Oval Office and drops a remark between diplomatic pleasantries that threatens to throw the federal balance of the United States off-kilter. Chicago or New Orleans? The question sounds banal, yet it touches the core of American power distribution: who decides over security in the cities? And what happens when Washington sends its soldiers, whether invited or not?

What is unfolding here transcends the usual law-and-order rhetoric. It is a trial run for a new form of presidential domestic policy in which military means are to become the norm. Chicago, the windy city on Lake Michigan, and New Orleans, the pearl on the Mississippi, are turning into laboratories for an experiment whose outcome no one knows - perhaps not even the experimenter himself.

The capital Washington serves as a research subject. Here, 2,200 National Guardsmen are already patrolling, transforming the streets of the capital into a military training zone. What would be unthinkable elsewhere is possible here: the District of Columbia is directly under federal authority, the D.C. National Guard follows presidential orders without going through a governor. It is a historical exception that Trump wants to make the rule.

The battle for the streets

But the republic is fighting back. In Los Angeles, a federal judge ruled devastatingly on September 2: the use of the National Guard violates the Posse Comitatus Act, that relic from the Reconstruction era that cemented the separation of military and police. The decision applies only to California for now, but its waves reach Illinois and Louisiana. It is a reminder that presidential power in America is not unlimited, that between announcement and execution lies a thicket of laws, precedents, and federal jurisdictions.

These actions demonstrate that Defendants knew that they were ordering troops to execute domestic law beyond their usual authority. Whether they believed that some constitutional or other exception applied does not matter; Ob sie glaubten, dass eine verfassungsrechtliche oder andere Ausnahme Anwendung fand, spielt keine Rolle;

Chicago has dug in. Mayor Brandon Johnson, who swore before angry crowds over the weekend not to tolerate any "militarized force" in his city, is mobilizing resistance on all levels. An executive order obligates city agencies to refuse any cooperation with unconstitutional federal interventions. The Chicago Public Schools are sending letters to parents with tips for "safety in numbers." Churches are planning "Resistance Sundays." The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is activating emergency hotlines. It is a mobilization reminiscent of the great civil rights battles, only this time the opponent is not named Bull Connor but Donald Trump.

The city can point to impressive numbers: violent crime has declined continuously over the past four years. Even Lori Lightfoot, Johnson's predecessor and hardly a revolutionary, confirms this trend. Nevertheless, Chicago remains a symbol of American violence - more murders than New York and Los Angeles combined, despite all progress. It is this ambivalence that Trump exploits: he takes the absolute numbers, ignores the trends, and constructs the narrative of a city in chaos.

New Orleans presents itself as a welcome alternative. Governor Jeff Landry, Republican and Trump loyalist, receives the presidential attention with open arms: "We will take President Trump's help from New Orleans to Shreveport!" he tweets within minutes. The city on the Gulf has its own demons - third place in the national homicide statistics, endemic poverty, the aftershocks of Katrina. But unlike Chicago, Louisiana opens the gates for federal intervention. It is the invitation Trump needs to refute the accusation of overreach. The legal landscape is as complex as it is treacherous. Outside Washington, the president either needs the consent of governors or must resort to exceptional laws such as the Insurrection Act - a rusty sword from the 19th century, last drawn in 1992 during the Rodney King riots. Its activation would trigger a storm of outrage, legally as well as politically. So Trump maneuvers, tests boundaries, looks for loopholes.

The human dimension of the spectacle

Behind the political staging, the real victims of violence disappear. Rochelle Sykes, a grandmother from Chicago's West Garfield Park, puts it with painful clarity: "My grandchildren cannot sit outside. They cannot sit in the living room or at the kitchen table, because a bullet may come through." Her fear can be dispelled neither with troops nor with statistics. It is rooted in the daily reality of forgotten neighborhoods where the state only shows up after blood has been spilled.

The nine dead and 54 wounded of the Labor Day weekend in Chicago are not abstract data points in a political dispute. They are shattered families, lost futures, traumas that last for generations. The debate about National Guard deployments seems grotesquely inadequate in the face of these human tragedies, like trying to treat a gunshot wound with a band-aid.

In Chicago's Mexican neighborhood Pilsen, preparations are underway for the independence celebrations - with mixed feelings. Teresa Fraga, one of the organizers, speaks of a "dark cloud" hanging over the festivities. Additional security forces are being hired, lawyers put on standby, neighborhood patrols organized. The fear of immigration raids blends with the daily fear of violence. It is a microcosm of the larger American crisis: communities caught between state neglect and state overreach.

Chicago's Black churches are also forming up. Reverend Marshall Hatch, an icon of the civil rights movement, puts it bluntly: "We need resources, not troops." Dozens of congregations are planning informational events for the weekend about civil rights during police stops. It is a bitter irony: the very communities that suffer most from violence fear the alleged solution more than the problem itself.

The endgame of the staging

Trump's rhetorical back-and-forth reveals the limits of his power. Within 24 hours, his bold "We are doing it anyway" mutates into a hesitant "We are pretty much waiting to be asked." It is a retreat in installments, masked as strategic flexibility. The president who presents himself as a strongman is bumping up against the realities of American federalism.

Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, himself considered a potential presidential contender for 2028, counters Trump's threats with biting sarcasm: "I cannot live in a fantasyland where I pretend Trump is not tearing this country apart for personal greed and power." It is more than a political exchange of blows - it is a battle for the soul of the American republic, fought on the streets of Chicago and New Orleans.

The irony is that both cities are showing progress in fighting crime. Chicago reports historic declines in violent crime. New Orleans, despite its place in the homicide statistics, is also reporting positive trends. The real problems - systemic poverty, broken social systems, lack of perspective - cannot be solved with soldiers' boots. They require patient, long-term work: investments in education, jobs, psychosocial care. But these are not measures that lend themselves to presidential press conferences.

What remains is a bitter aftertaste. America is fighting a proxy war with itself, projecting its deepest fears and divisions onto the streets of its big cities. Trump may send his troops to New Orleans or continue to threaten Chicago - it does not change the fundamental dysfunction of a system that seeks military answers to social questions.

The real tragedy does not lie in the question of which city sees troops first. It lies in the fact that this question is even being asked. A country that treats its own citizens as enemies, that sends tanks instead of teachers, that confuses control with security, has already lost - regardless of who ultimately wins which battle.

The residents of Chicago and New Orleans will go on living, go on fighting, go on hoping long after the cameras have moved on. They know what Washington seems to have forgotten: true security does not arise from gun barrels but from community, not from occupation but from investment, not from hardness but from healing. Until this lesson is learned, cities like Chicago and New Orleans remain pawns in a cynical power game whose only winner is fear.