I don’t think even Trump knows what he means by “send in the Feds!”

President Donald Trump got a lot of people stirred up with his latest Tweet from a Twit, the one this week that said he would “send in the Feds” if there wasn’t a dramatic reduction in the rate of violence occurring in Chicago.

Is this really the image people think would make the streets of inner-city Chicago safe?

I suspect that getting everybody all riled up was his purpose. I don’t think Trump has a clue what the actual problem is with regards to the homicide rate in Chicago, or anywhere else in this country. I suspect he could care less – he’d probably find the details “Boring!” and want to move on to something else.

IN FACT, I suspect that with regards to his blurb on Twitter, the most significant part of it for him was the exclamation point that he put at the end of “Feds!” You’ve got to show excitement and outrage!!!!!

Actually dealing with the problem? That’s much less interesting than engaging in actions that allow you to express the sentiment that someone else is screwing up!

When Trump chose to rant on Twitter this week about the city’s homicide rate, most likely what really bothers him is that Chicago is a place where some 80 percent-plus of us are immune to his rhetorical nonsense. We are never going to be amongst the 46 percent of the electorate who actually think he makes a fit president.

So this is just the pot shot of the week at Chicago – as though we Chicagoans really care what a geeky Manhattanite (not even a real Noo Yawker) thinks about us!

IF IT HADN’T been the homicide rate, he would have found some other issue with which to try to trash us. Which ultimately is going to build up our immunity to his rants – who really cares what the cranky old man with the bad orange dye job has to say when it’s obvious he’s not based in anything resembling real fact?

Personally, I’ve noticed that some people are putting their own spin on Trump – largely because his “send in the Feds!” comment is so vague and has no real meaning.

They’d love it if the federal government were to provide all kinds of assistance in the form of Drug Enforcement Agency or Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms specialists to work with the Chicago Police Department. Getting rid of illicit narcotics or firearms would be a significant step toward resolving the conditions in our society that create high levels of urban violence.

TRUMP: Tough to take his talk seriously

Going through Facebook for the stray comments people post, I couldn’t help but notice both former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger and Rev. Michael Pfleger expressing such thoughts.

BUT I ALSO don’t doubt that strengthening such initiatives is the last thing Trump has in mind, although I also doubt he has thought this issue through to the degree of actually authorizing National Guard troops to patrol the streets of inner-city Chicago and shoot those they think pose a threat.

Which may be the image that Trump backers fantasize about becoming reality, but which is one that is so absurd that I even doubt Trump himself would have the nerve to try to impose it.

He’s along the lines of all-talk and no action!

So what should we think about the facts (as presented by Trump) that there have already been 228 shooting incidents in Chicago during the past three-or-so weeks, with 42 people being killed already. Although it has been reported the truthful figures are 182 shooting incidents and 38 homicides.

WHICH, ADMITTEDLY, ARE not something we ought to be proud about. This is a situation that needs to be addressed, perhaps such as Gov. Bruce Rauner did Wednesday in his State of the State address in which he suggested the need to create more jobs to keep people employed and less likely to resort to violence. An idea that I'm sure Trump would have absolutely no interest in pursuing.

RAUNER: Making too much sense for Trump

Looking solely for a law enforcement crackdown would only aggravate the situation. In fact, I’d argue that ridiculous rhetoric such as we’re receiving from the president isn’t going to do a thing to ease the violence level – which in reality is at its highest in parts of Chicago I suspect Trump could care less about.

Can we blame his apathy for the inability to make a dent in the problem? That might be a simple-minded response, but the fact that some are only interested in Chicago’s urban violence for the purpose of scoring partisan political points for themselves is a reality.

Then again, simple-minded responses that don’t address the problem is probably about all we should ever expect to get from this particular president!!!

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Don’t send in the troopers or Guard

We may have seen a bit of evidence as to the potential harm we could face from having Gov. Pat Quinn as the only credible candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor in next year’s election cycle.

He has too much time on his hands, and we may wind up getting a lot of potentially hair-brained schemes inflicted upon us as a result!

I’M REFERRING TO the news accounts circulating this weekend that are being interpreted by some as evidence that Quinn is considering sending in the Illinois State Police, and potentially calling out the National Guard, to treat Chicago as a combat zone in trying to address the problem of urban violence.

I’m skeptical such an effort would accomplish anything of significance. It might turn out to be a complete failure! It probably would do little of anything, except allowing Quinn to claim he tried to act to resolve a problem that is ongoing and is beyond any simple solution.

It seems that Quinn, while making an appearance on Saturday in the Little Village neighborhood, talked about ways in which the state police could offer assistance to the Chicago Police Department.

“It has to be done in a coordinated fashion with the local law enforcement, with their full cooperation,” Quinn told reporter-type people.

WHICH IS TRUTHFUL enough. Sending in the state police with Chicago P.D. opposition would likely do little more than create a whole lot of stupid jokes about “Mount-me” hats.

If anything, it might just put more uniformed officers in the crossfire that all-too-often occurs.

I honestly believe it would do nothing but exacerbate the problem by putting more of a uniformed presence in the city. You might very well anger up those idiots with their high-powered weapons even more, and make them want to shoot at even more targets – as though they’d get a trophy if they could claim they “bagged” a cop!

Now I don’t mean to demean the significance of the violent outbursts we have experienced in Chicago in recent times (although it should be noted that we’re not close to setting any kind of records for this, and it really does go in cycles).

FOR ALL THE outcry about the late Thursday shooting incident in the Back of the Yards neighborhood that left 13 wounded, it should be noted that another eight individuals suffered assorted gunshot wounds Saturday night and early Sunday.

Those incidents were actually more typical of the violent weekends we occasionally experience in Chicago – they were seven different shootings scattered all about the South and West sides of Chicago.

A whole lot of senseless incidents that will soon be forgotten.

Which may be the real tragedy of the violence that is afflicting us. Too much of it occurs in select parts of Chicago that many of us would just as soon forget; if we even pay attention to those parts of the city to begin with.

IF WE WERE serious about wanting to resolve the problem, we’d be trying to figure out ways to break the culture that allows for life to be so cheap in those neighborhoods.

Instead, we get talk about sending in the National Guard – as though we could declare those parts of Chicago to be “the enemy!” As though we ought to be isolating those parts of Chicago even more. The real problem is that they have become too isolated from the mainstream of the city.

QUINN: Will his better half prevail?

But ideas like these may be the harm of letting Quinn run unopposed in the primary election cycle. He’s going to have time to play “governor” and come up with ideas and schemes that will make it look as though he is effectively governing on behalf of the people of Illinois.

So while four Republicans fight it out amongst themselves for the right to take on Quinn come November 2014, we’re going to have a governor with the potential for too much free time to come up with schemes. Let’s just hope his better half keeps himself from carrying them out.

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Losing one's ethnicity is a tragedy

Illinois’ Army National Guard has a new operations director and she’s a double-first – a woman and a Latina. Yet Alicia Tate-Nadeau has little sense of her own Mexican ethnic background; the sea of assimilation has washed much of it away.

For a more thorough commentary about this issue, you should read The South Chicagoan, a newly created weblog that is a sister publication to The Chicago Argus.

Named for the neighborhood that contains the oldest Spanish-speaking enclave in Chicago (and one of the oldest in the Midwestern United States), the weblog will serve as a forum for a national perspective of issues related to this country’s growing Latino population.

The weblog can be found at http://southchicagoan.blogspot.com.

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