Editors Note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the MMAPressRoom.com or its affiliates.

“But this isn’t a left-wing version of socialism; this is a right-wing version of socialism. What’s the difference?” asks host Katy Tur in an August 26, 2025 MSNBC YouTube video titled, “Is Trump a socialist? ‘Most intrusive government since FDR’.” Starting from the beginning with staff writer for The Atlantic, David Graham, according to the report, “David, it would not have been predictable in years past to say that the era of expanded big government, getting involved in private business, getting involved in every aspect financially of daily life would have come from somebody with an (R) in front of their name.”

“That’s right. I’m not sure it would have even been predictable last year,” explains Graham. “You know, we have spent the last 15-20 years with prominent Republicans and conservatives warning that Barack Obama was a socialist. Donald Trump said that Kamala Harris was a communist. They’ve argued against state intrusion into things and what we see now is the most intrusive federal government since Franklin Roosevelt probably, really entering into all areas of American life. They are, you know, aggressively trampling on states’ rights. They are getting into business with private companies; they’re telling private institutions how to conduct their business. It’s really a remarkably spiraling state.”

“But this isn’t a left-wing version of socialism; this is a right-wing version of socialism. What’s the difference?” asks Tur in a follow up question with Graham. “Well, what I think we see in common is state control. It’s like a directed economy. What we see in different are the kind of proposals that they’re following,” explains Graham. “We don’t see a Trump administration that wants to build social services for example, or expand the social safety net. It’s the opposite.

“And in fact the payroll of the government is dropping, but we do see them wanting to assert control over private business, assert control over private institutions. And that’s to, you know, to achieve the policy ends of the Trump administration. It’s to combat wokeness; it’s to go after civil rights regulations. It’s to go after punitive crime in democratic run cities and states for example.”

With the invasion of Los Angeles fresh on everyone’s mind as Graham surmises his conclusions, as it turns out the federal government’s takeover of cities across America may just be getting started. "While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past that we’re totally surprised,” explains Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in an August 12, 2025 MSNBC News YouTube video titled, “Democratic governors slam Trump’s D.C. police takeover.” Originally citing a Washington Post report, “My tenor will be appropriate for what I think is important for the district. And what’s important for the district is that we can take care of our citizens.

“And if people are concerned about a president’s ability to … to have the MPD police department be responsive to the Department of Justice, the time to address that is when we’re talking about statehood for D.C.,” explains Bowser. “If people are concerned about the president being able to move the National Guard into our city, the time to do that would have been when Congress had a bill that could have given control of the D.C. National Guard to D.C.”

A crystal ball reflection of a number of topics previously covered here at the MMA Press Room; from state sovereignty to the Department of Justice taking over local law enforcement agencies as a direct pipeline into the United Nations we quite literally called the deployment of troops into U.S. cities from a country mile away.

“Republican governors in 19 states have begun mobilizing the National Guard to assist ICE with immigration enforcement efforts. The Pentagon has confirmed reports up to 1,700 National Guard members will be deployed in the states,” explains an August 27, 2025 ‘Democracy Now!’ article titled, “GOP Governors in 19 States Mobilize National Guard to Assist ICE.” According to the report, “This comes as President Trump is threatening to send the National Guard to police Chicago against the wishes of local officials.

“In other immigration news, The Lever reports ICE is shielding details about its deportation flights by taking advantage of a regulatory loophole that was designed to make it harder to track the private flights of celebrities, including Taylor Swift. In recent months, a number of private charter airlines working with ICE have added their planes to a special list developed by the private jet lobby to keep flight data more secret.”

With the distinct impression the Trump administration has everything to hide, as it turns out flight deportation data isn’t the only secret they're attempting to keep from the general public as the new normal continues to usher in a dystopian nightmare.

“You know, I’m trying to think, Jacob. I thought your word transformation was so important. But it’s, it’s bigger than that. And I don’t know what the right synonym is; it’s a real radical overhaul. For some of the reasons why I mentioned,” explains Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig in an August 20, 2025 MSNBC YouTube video titled, “’Bizarro world’: Trump’s radical transformation of federal law enforcement.” According to the report, “FBI agents who have been reaching out to me know that this is Bizarro World for them to be leaving an investigative job of say counter espionage or counter terrorism.

“Things that Donald Trump does not consider priorities and now joining squads of people that they don’t normally work with to walk the streets and question people who fit a profile of possibly being immigrants, possibly being illegal immigrants,” explains Leonnig. “Going to homes and addresses that they think could be folks that they could deport or send to prisons in other countries. That is a shocker.

“Another huge shocker here, Jacob, is the lack of any documentation of these federal task forces sometimes peopled by FBI agents, HSI agents from DHS, border patrol; these folks coming together to make these arrests. In D.C. we’re seeing this, but it’s happening all over the country,” explains Leonnig. “I was just in Colorado where some friends and colleagues were telling me this same story, there are no documents to show who is getting arrested and where are they going. That is very different than the way federal law enforcement and local law enforcement typically have worked in our country.

“The law on this was created in 1929, the Uniform Crime Reporting Act, to make sure that every time there are arrests there is a way to track – what were they arrested for? What were they accused of? Who’s the witness? And where is that person now? While you mentioned earlier, Jacob, so smartly, the president and the White House are bragging and boasting of all these arrests; not showing what in the world people are charged with and local police are, at this point anyway, not answering questions about it either.”

Information, which in a parallel universe would ordinarily serve as the proverbial “Canaries in the coalmine” moment in American history; unfortunately the intentional gaslighting of the American public by the mainstream media has all but managed to compartmentalize the bigger picture from the vast majority of the American people.

“Under the Bush administration they took that a step further and developed what they call a plan called Main Core, that’s two different words,” explains Command Sgt. Major Dan Page in a July 10, 2014 TruNews interview with Pastor Rick Wiles. “And in the event of a civil disturbance against the federal government policy they are going to inter, indefinitely, X-number millions of Americans. And that’s why this 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that they got was so, so very important and the Supreme Court just upheld, about two weeks ago, they upheld the president authorizing assassination of American citizens and indefinite detentions. So you can be arrested without ever being charged and when they come and get you – you’re gone forever. So I think that’s what’s about to happen.”

A truly frightening prospect with all signs beginning to trend southward; lines are being drawn and the walls are beginning to close in as politicians across the country contemplate the Point of No Return. “Well, good afternoon. I want to speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one that we are facing in this city, and as a state, and as a country,” explains Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in an August 25, 2025 NBC Chicago YouTube video titled, “Gov. Pritzker responds to Trump’s National Guard threat to Chicago: ‘Do not come’.” According to the report, “If it sounds to you like I am alarmist – that is because I am ringing an alarm. One that I hope every person listening will heed; both here in Illinois and across the country,” explains Pritzker. “Over the weekend we learned from the media that Donald Trump has been planning, for quite awhile now, to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago.

“This is exactly the type of overreach that our countries founders warned against and it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances,” warns Pritzker. “What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional, it is un-American.”

Likely just a coincidence that a number of leaders associated with states under the direct threat of military occupation are beginning to use words that start with UN; the governor later went on to explain, “I know Donald Trump doesn’t care about the well being of the members of our military, but I do. And so do all of the people standing here. So let me speak to all Illinoisans and to all Chicagoans right now, hopefully the president will reconsider this dangerous and misguided encroachment upon our state and our cities sovereignty. Hopefully rational voices, if there are any left inside the White House or the Pentagon will prevail in the coming days,” explains Pritzker. “If not, we are going to face an unprecedented and difficult time ahead.

“But I know you Chicago and I know you are up to it. When you protest, do it peacefully. Be sure to continue Chicago’s long tradition of nonviolent resistance. Remember that the members of the military and the National Guard who we ask to walk these streets are, for the most part, here unwillingly. And remember that they can be court-martailed and their lives ruined if they resist deployment. Look to the members of the faith community standing behind me today for guidance on how to mobilize,” explains Pritzker as he appeals to the pulpit for leadership from above.

“To my fellow governors across the nation who would consider pulling your National Guard from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country,” explains Pritzker. “Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to.

“The state of Illinois is ready to stand against this military deployment with every peaceful tool we have. We will see the Trump administration in court; we will use every lever at our disposal to protect the people of Illinois and their rights. Finally, to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man. To any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous,” warns Pritzker. “We are watching and we are taking names.”

With many on the Left now making the same kinds of arguments against a Big Brother government that conservatives have traditionally stood behind for years one has to question the ultimate intent of the federal overreach we’re currently seeing as the Left continues to move center-Right from their original positions. In previous installments, we explored the idea that the Obama administration had very similar designs for the development of a constabulary force to control the population not unlike the Department of Homeland Security federal task forces we currently see today bringing local law enforcements agencies together collectively under the same umbrella.

Given the highly publicized “homegrown” domestic terrorist warnings of the past centering around conservative Americans, the future direction of federal troop deployment should be greatly concerning as cities like Chicago are already beginning to circle the wagons. The rise of authoritarianism in America masking itself in a cloak of law and order as we’re simultaneously championing the red, white and blue like we're living in some kind of twisted version of reality. Quite literally the ideology of the enemy, the United States went to war to stop the flow of communism in South Vietnam only for its socialist twin to laughably masquerade as making America great again sum 50-years later at home. A “social engineering experiment” described as a way of life by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover; by some estimates socialism is responsible for 100-million deaths worldwide and counting. “But this isn’t a left-wing version of socialism; this is a right-wing version of socialism. What’s the difference?”