A prominent Democratic leader on the south side of Chicago thinks President Trump should send in the National Guard — and says “probably half” of his colleagues agree, but are too afraid to say it.
Raymond Lopez, the Democratic alderman for Chicago’s 15th Ward, said the city would be foolish to pass up free help the White House is offering to help clean up the city’s crime-plagued streets once and for all.
“This is a very real war that we are fighting here, and we need every tool box to win it,” Lopez told The Post.
“If that means working with a Republican president to keep Chicagoans safe, then that is what we should be doing. We shouldn’t be playing politics with people’s lives,” he added.
Lopez has spent 10 years serving a diverse ward that sprawls across numerous neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side — and has witnessed firsthand crime that’s left his community sometimes fearful to so much as walk down the street with their kids in the light of day.
“We have human traffickers connected with Tren de Aragua here selling women for $150 on Facebook Marketplace. I had high school students gunned down by a Venezuelan migrant on their way home from school a couple of weeks ago,” Lopez said of just some of the crime his ward has seen recently.
“We now even have gang versus gang warfare that’s taken an international turn because of some of the migrants that are here,” he said.
It’s such crime the White House says the National Guard could clean up with a deployment similar to the successful operations carried out in Washington, DC, that cut crime by 45% in August.
And while Trump has indicated that he’s made up his mind to send federal troops to the Windy City, so far nothing has happened and he continues to insist local leaders like Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson should ask for help.
So far, neither have, nor have any prominent local Democrats — except for Lopez, who says “flat-out common sense” has allowed him to see the logic of just asking Trump to send in forces to bolster the desperately understaffed Chicago Police Department.
“I live this everyday,” he said. “I see in real terms, in real time, the criminality that exists in our communities and its impact on my residents and on law abiding people of Chicago who just want to get by, want to be able to go to work, drop our kids off, to sit on the front porch, not becoming the victim of violent crime.”
“I haven’t lost touch with that fact, and sadly, I think many in the Democratic elite have,” he added.
And while Lopez is one of the the only Democrats to break ranks from the “script” of resisting Trump, he thinks a large proportion of his local and left leaning colleagues privately agree that Chicago needs the Guard — but are scared what a billionaire like Gov. Pritzker could do to their careers if they speak up.
“I’d say probably half the city council is in favor of it,” Lopez said, adding that they are “overwhelmingly Democratic from various ethnic backgrounds.”
“I don’t know if anyone is willing to stand up against the billionaire governor because of fear that he would dump money into their opponent’s campaigns,” he said. “But I think there is definitely quiet support between my colleagues and other individuals.”
And he thinks the everyday Chicagoans of Ward 15 even “overwhelmingly” support Trump’s National guard plans.
“They see through the gaslighting that’s going on by many of my colleagues and peers, who are just content on pushing forward the anti-Trump narrative so they can appear to be doing something for the people of Chicago,” Lopez said.
So far, few other Chicago Democrats besides Lopez have spoken out in support of Trump’s plan. But one exception is former Cook’s County 1st Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Milan.
Milan was involved in previous operations that experimented with federal resources bolstering local police in 2016 and the early 2000s — both of which were massive successes, with the former dropping crime citywide by 41% during the single weekend it was tested.
He thinks asking Trump for the Guard is a no-brainer — but that local leaders are too focused on the political spats and pageantry that grab headlines.
“This isn’t a political issue. It’s a safety issue,” Milan said. “Nobody’s talking about the people getting killed in South and West Side.”
“It’s all about versus President Trump versus Mayor Johnson. It’s not about the children, not about these poor families.”
