Rhetorical Flourishes in JB Pritzker's Speech against Militarizing Chicago

JB Pritzker

“I am ringing an alarm,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, speaking on August 25, 2025, to oppose President Donald Trump’s threat to federalize the National Guard to suppress crime in Chicago, Illinois.

Responding to that prospect, Pritzker held his August 25 press conference to speak against Trump's plan. He combined factual analysis with rhetorical language. Each of his rhetorical figures aimed to show that Trump’s actions conflicted with traditional American values. Not only did Pritzker’s rhetorical figures and tropes elevate the speech, but they also highlighted liberty. Liberty is, after all, what Patrick Henry once called America’s “precious jewel.” After all, language is not decoration: we think with words! Language defines how we think. 

Did Patrick Henry Warn Us About Donald Trump?

So, let us look at how Pritzker used rhetorical figures, not to decorate his speech, but to persuade his listeners. 

Parallel Language

Parallel language (like Caeser’s “I came, I saw, I conquered”) connects ideas to show a pattern. Early in the speech, Pritzker’s parallel language helped him link several accusations into a chain:

“What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.”

Note the parallel language: “is unprecedented… It is illegal… It is unconstitutional… It is un-American.” The linguistic repetition showed the audience a common theme of wrongness. “Unprecedented,” Pritzker’s first criticism, separated Trump from the conservative philosophy that he supposedly represents. The conservative core is to avoid new things, and something that is unprecedented doesn’t sound conservative. “Unwarranted” stated that Chicago does not need Trump’s intervention. Escalating the rhetoric, “Illegal” and “unconstitutional” placed Pritzker on the side of the law and Trump against it. Finally, “un-American” summarized Pritzker’s argument: after all, things that are unwarranted, illegal, or unconstitutional do not sound very American, do they? 

Hidden in Pritzker’s brief statement was the rhetorical trope of “climax:” the final, culminating point, that Trump’s policy is un-American, put Pritzker’s protest on the altar of patriotism. “Un-American” became the culminating point, the principle that united Pritzker’s criticisms. Quite potent.

Donald Trump's 2017 Inaugural Address: Parallel Phrases

 
Jim Thompson, the Anti-Corruption Governor of Illinois: A Rhetorical Obituary

Rhetorical Question

Pritzker’s very next sentence asked a rhetorical question (like Shakespeare, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”): 

“If this was really about fighting crime and making the streets safe, what possible justification could the White House have for planning such an exceptional action without any conversations or consultations with the governor, the mayor, or the police?"

Pritzker then answered his own question: 

“Let me answer that question: This is not about fighting crime.”

Pritzker’s rhetorical question implied a paradox. He accused Trump of concealing his true motive, for, if Trump wanted to fight crime, he would have worked with the police.


More Parallel Language!

Continuing, Pritzker contrasted Trump’s purported goal against what Pritzker said was the true goal:

“This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.

“This is about the president of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities and end elections.” [italics added]

Pritzker’s phrase, “This is about,” sought to uncover Trump’s real motives. Pritzker had already stated that Trump was not really interested in law and order. Instead, the military intervention is about Trump’s real motive: to undermine our system of government. By this point, Pritzker had pictured Trump as the enemy of that precious jewel, Liberty. Pritzker’s figure of speech distinguished Trump’s overt motive against the covert purpose.

Pritzker said “This is about” twice. Since Pritzker had already argued that the occupation was not about law enforcement, it was instead about (1) intimidating “his political rivals” and (2) circumventing “our democracy.” The repeated phrase showed the audience that Trump’s two hidden motives were as closely related as two cousins.

Let us not overlook Pritzker’s invective (like the classic, “my opponent is lower than a snake in the grass”) against Stephen Miller, the “complicit lackey.” Rarely do personal attacks elevate a speech, but is this an exception?


Comparison and Contrast

Comparison and contrast (Chaucer, “His horses were good, but he was not gaily dressed”) gives issues their context. Comparing and contrasting puts language to work analyzing problems. So, continuing, Pritzker contrasted crime in Chicago, which is a real problem, against the even worse crime problem that, he asserted, afflicts conservative regions:

“Like every major American city in both blue and red states, we deal with crime in Chicago. Indeed, the violent crime rate is worse in red states and red cities.”

Pritzker did not prove that point—it would have been wonderful if he had—but merely assumed that his listeners had followed the media’s crime reports. As Arianna Johnson points out in Forbes magazine, states that voted for Trump have murder rates 12% higher than Democratic areas. In 2020, of the 10 states that have the highest murder rates, eight consistently vote for Republican presidential candidates. For example, conservative Mississippi and Louisiana are at this writing ranked #1 and #2 in firearms mortality. Overall, conservative states have been more dangerous and crime-ridden than blue states. Yet Trump only threatened to occupy cities in states that voted for Biden. Does that make sense? It is that paradox that Pritzker addressed by comparing and contrasting. 

That is how Pritzker dispelled Trump’s pretense that he was attacking crime. Instead, the numbers showed that Trump was on an anti-liberal state agenda. Compare and contrast! Once again, these figures of speech were not decoration: the figure of speech carried a persuasive idea. Once again, Pritzker’s figure of speech highlighted Trump’s threat to liberty, that “precious jewel.”


Turning the Tables

The most powerful of all debating tactics is to turn your opponent’s argument around. During the last presidential campaign, Republicans repeatedly (and dubiously) accused President Biden and other Democrats of defunding the police.

Countering this in a bold stroke, Pritzker cited facts to show that it was Trump, not the Democrats, who cut police funding. In a lengthy section, Pritzker cited several ways that Republicans have downgraded law enforcement:

“If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets. Cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect.”  [Italics added]

Pritzker’s opening phrase “If Donald Trump” attacks Trump’s honesty. If is a powerful word; it makes us think. I hope that, by this point, the reader noticed the linguistic power of saying “cutting” over and over. Repetition has a power of its own, like the repeated blows that nail two boards together. Indeed, nailing down his argument, Pritzker then mocked the Republican Party’s talking point:

“Trump is defunding the police.”

Wielding Trump’s own phrase against him! So, now, who is on the side of law and order? By Pritzker’s argument, it certainly is not Trump. Turning the Tables regularly works, simply because the speaker uses the other side’s argument against them. Other than blustering, how could Trump respond? Could Trump suddenly say that it is good to defund the police? Not likely. 

Thesis and Antithesis

If we want to contrast two opposing philosophies, if we want to establish a moral opposition, we state a point and then its opposite. Thus, Pritzker specifically rejected Trump’s clarion call:

“Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, ‘Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?’ Instead, I say, ‘Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.’”

Thesis: Trump requested an invitation to Chicago. 

Antithesis: Pritzker said, “do not come to Chicago.” 

The contrast clarified the conflict. 


Conclusion

Throughout this speech, a speech that history should preserve, Pritzker stood for freedom against tyranny. Pritzker’s parallel language piled Trump’s moral failings one on top of the next. His comparison and contrast highlighted the conflict between Trump’s pretend values and true motivations.

Pritzker’s rhetorical figures were neither beautiful nor inspiring. He didn’t talk like Abraham Lincoln or Daniel Webster. He talked like a fighter. Pritzker’s figures of speech linked his arguments the way a prizefighter links one-two punches. Pritzker’s invective invited his audience to condemn politicians who subvert their own values to serve an overlord. He scraped raw the difference between Trump’s actions and the goals that Trump only pretended to uphold. Overall, Pritzker’s rhetorical figures uncovered Trump’s hypocrisy and attacked his policy’s ethical failings. Pritzker’s rhetorical figures did not elevate his speech by lifting the soul or thrilling the heart. Instead, the figures elevated Pritzker’s speech by forcing us to think. By forcing us to face hard truths. It isn’t just what a speaker says: it is also how the speaker says it. 

by William D. Harpine

_________________

Research Note:

Over the centuries, rhetoricians have cataloged literally hundreds of rhetorical figures and tropes. Stanford University Professor Jonah Willihanganz has collected a nice summary of some of them. 

Of course, Patrick Henry’s wonderful metaphor of liberty as a “precious jewel” may be the most powerful figure that I mentioned in this essay! 

Ironically, Patrick Henry called liberty a precious jewel precisely because he opposed adopting our Constitution, fearing that the president would one day become a king. Did he have a point, after all? What do you think? “Will the abandonment,” Henry asked, “of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings—give us that precious jewel, and you may take everything else.”

Several philosophers have commented on the ways that language expresses and influences the way we think. One of the most readable works on that theme is Suzanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key.

Are you interested in Illinois politics? You might be interested in my otherwise unpublished paper, “A Cog in the Machine? Mike Howlett's Image in the 1976 Campaign for Governor of Illinois.” 

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of JB Pritzker, Maryland GovPics, Creative Commons License, via Wikimedia Commons

Harry Truman’s Atomic Bomb Speech Revealed “The Power of the Laboratories”

Hiroshima Peace Dome

On August 6, 1945, 80 years ago today, a United States B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, immediately killing about 66,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, with the long-term death toll approximately 140,000.

Sixteen hours after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, United States President Harry Truman spoke to the American people. Truman began his speech by blaming the Japanese for starting the war and ended up by calling for the peaceful use of atomic power, his theme was the power of science. Or, as he described it, “the power of the laboratories.”

By focusing on science’s power, Truman linked the past, the present, and, in his last thought, the future. This approach focused his theme to the bigger picture.  Out of the cataclysm, to draw hope that atomic research could establish international security and help the world look for peaceful uses of atomic energy. Will humanity, however, be wise enough to advance in science to use its new knowledge wisely? That was Truman’s wish, and the answer remains unknown. No doubt, that is why Truman emphasized, not the impending victory, but the accomplishments of the human mind:

“What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.”

In his speech, Truman called the atomic bomb:

“A harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.”

Truman’s comment highlighted that World War II had become a technological war. Death had rained from the air across the continents. New types of explosives, tanks, electronics, torpedoes, and aircraft joined in the struggle for world supremacy. A war that had begun with horse-drawn logistics ended with guided missiles, jet airplanes, radar-controlled gunfire—and splitting the atom. Truman assured the nation, and the world, that:

“What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.”

Thus, Truman highlighted science’s power:

“The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.” [italics added]

Modern science had, in general, become a massive, international enterprise, and, as Truman explained, it was international scientific cooperation that brought atomic warfare to Japan:

“Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun. With American and British scientists working together we entered the race of discovery against the Germans.”

At no point in his life would Harry Truman, a combat veteran of World War I, underestimate the

Harry Truman

sacrifices of fighting men and women. World War II’s cataclysmic end, however, was an accomplishment of the human mind. Truman explained:

“But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan.”

As he neared his conclusion, Truman acknowledged the need to examine “possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of sudden destruction.”

Truman’s speech does, also, teach us an even more general lesson. Hiroshima and its population were destroyed, and World War II ended, because the Allied powers committed themselves to scientific research. Now, the world already has far too many superweapons. The larger lesson, however, is the terrific power of science. The pacifist scientist Albert Einstein began his research, not by looking for a bomb, but by trying to understand the nature of matter. Pure, basic research. As we look to the future that Truman envisioned, lets us recognize the “power of the laboratories.”

Harry Truman's 1948 Labor Day Speech: "You" versus "Them"

J. Robert Oppenheim himself was reported to say, “The physicists have known sin.” Scientists of his era, however, also gave us vaccines, antibiotics, treatments for heart disease, safer automobiles, moon rockets, and transistors. My own life was recently saved by a spectacularly complex medical invention. Government funding financed most of those endeavors. Yet, to my horror, as the Donald Trump administration in 2025 suppresses lifesaving scientific research for short-sighted political reasons, we need to reflect long and hard about what science has done for the world, both for good and ill, and what it can do for us – or against us – in the future. Are we wise enough to make the right choices?

Historians will argue forever as to whether the atomic bombing of Japan was justified. I have my doubts, although I can see both perspectives. There is, however, no turning back the clock. We should never underestimate how science, knowledge, and investigation shape the world.

by William D. Harpine

Copyright © 2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Harry Truman, US government portrait, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of the Hiroshima Dome, by DXR, Creative Commons license, via Wikimedia Commons

Eleanor Roosevelt's Speech about the Struggle for Freedom

Eleanor Roosevelt

“We must not be confused about what freedom is.”

So said Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the United States of America’s 32nd president, one of the 20th century’s most prominent American orators, and a famed advocate of human rights. In her powerful speech of September 28, 1948, at the Sorbonne, Roosevelt pointed out how important it was never to twist important concepts like “freedom.” 

In the great battle between conservatives and liberals – the battle between the powerful haves and the impatient have-nots – between those who want to lag behind and those who wish to advance–Eleanor Roosevelt saw with searing insight–“We must not be confused about what freedom is” – that the great battle lies between competing ideas. And ideas come down to definitions: in this case, what is freedom? Who gets to be free? All of us, or only a few?

Roosevelt realized that freedom is one of our most powerful concepts. Like the visionary she was, Roosevelt saw how that word masters our political thinking. Roosevelt showed that our definitions prescribe our actions. She learned that we must never twist the word “freedom” against itself. In her view, freedom meant freedom for all, including the millions of people who suffered without basic human rights. In 1948, when much of the world still lay in ruins, she offered hope to a world that was losing hope. That is why, in this speech, she explained and defended the simple point that freedom meant freedom for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. She knew that this would mean constant struggle. That is why she worked toward a post-World War II world that would respect everyone’s rights. For example, she said:

“But we would not consider in the United States that we had gained any freedom if we were compelled to follow a dictatorial assignment to work where and when we were told. The right of choice would seem to us an important, fundamental freedom.”

That notion of “fundamental freedom” led Roosevelt to state her key value, that rights are not a gift of the government, but belong to the people:

“Certain rights can never be granted to the government, but must be kept in the hands of the people.”

Although born into fabulous wealth herself, Roosevelt reached out, not to her fellow oligarchs, but to the world’s people who struggled to be free. That is why Roosevelt spoke for universal freedom. She thus gave an expansive explanation of what freedom means:

“Basic human rights are simple and easily understood: freedom of speech and a free press; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of assembly and the right of petition; the right of men to be secure in their homes and free from unreasonable search and seizure and from arbitrary arrest and punishment.”

Roosevelt spoke in a time of crisis. In 1948, Europe and eastern Asia still largely lay in ruins, and only the most far-sighted people could look toward a visionary future. As she spoke to a war-ruined world, tens of millions of families struggled with grief and horror. The Holocaust had shaken the world’s value system.

Yet, sadly, Roosevelt’s warnings resonate to the present day. Even here in the prosperous United States, the false libertarians of 2025, inspired by Ayn Rand, protect the liberty of those who already have much against the imaginary predations of those who have nothing. We should all know that such ideologies underlaid World War II and have, indeed, long plagued humanity. Roosevelt, in contrast, warned that, as the world recovered from disaster, we must move forward to protect everyone: 

“We must not be deluded by the efforts of the forces of reaction to prostitute the great words of our free tradition and thereby to confuse the struggle.”

“Prostitute the great words”–Roosevelt continued to warn the world against false definitions. The linguistic perversions against which she warned were nothing new. In Mein Kampf, Hitler, the recently deceased embodiment of evil, had called himself a “freedom loving man.” The Confederate States of America used words of liberty: indeed, confederate President Jefferson Davis spoke of “liberty”—the liberty of the southern states—oblivious to the irony that he sought the liberty to force other people into slave labor. That’s a question of definition. 

Thus, wary of the past, and concerned for the future, Roosevelt next insisted that “freedom” has a real meaning, and that meaning should, to echo her own word, never be prostituted:

“Democracy, freedom, human rights have come to have a definite meaning to the people of the world which we must not allow any nation to so change that they are made synonymous with suppression and dictatorship.”

In 1948, the world still trembled in the uneasy peace that followed the Second World War. In that calamity, the Western nations defeated the horrors of Nazi anti-Semitism and brutality, not to mention the militaristic oppression of the Japanese Empire. The forces of freedom won. Nevertheless, Roosevelt surely worried about the growing communist hegemony and domestic cruelty in Russia and China. Perhaps that is why she next warned that oppressed people will never rest until they are free:

“People who continue to be denied the respect to which they are entitled as human beings will not acquiesce forever in such denial.”

Today, in 2025, Roosevelt’s warning should still echo through our hearts. American conservatives rejoice that they are gaining freedom from immigrants. Yet the immigrants’ freedom means nothing to them. That is a matter of definition: who gets to be free? Freedom from what? Does freedom mean that the United States is free to shut off opportunities for non-white people? Or does freedom mean that we  should be free from masked secret police who smash into people’s cars? Does freedom mean that powerful oligarchs should be free to defraud working people? Internationally, does freedom mean that Russia should be free to bomb Ukraine? That Israel should be free to blow up international aid sites in Gaza ?

People who falsely shout about freedom continue to stand up against other people’s freedom. Recently, Republican leaders loudly called for lawful protestors to be arrested if they oppose the administration’s policies. Florida’s conservative (and very popular) governor, Ron DeSantis, forbids Florida universities from teaching Critical Race Theory, which is a pro-civil rights inquiry.

Children studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Such abuses call for protection. As Roosevelt spoke, the United Nations had just adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose creation Roosevelt sponsored. That Declaration states:

“Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” [italics added]

Freedom is what rhetorical theorists Kenneth Burke and Richard Weaver called a “god term.” After all, “freedom” stirs our most powerful emotions. Who would dare to challenge freedom? Unless, however, freedom applies to everyone, including the least favored people, it is merely an illusion. Freedom to oppress is no freedom at all–by definition! 

Eleanor Roosevelt’s powerful speech to the United Nations praised freedom, but she warned that we must define it accurately – that we must define it fairly – that we must recognize everyone’s freedom, not just the freedom of those who wield power. That we must not yearn for a past when freedom was only an illusion. That we should not return to the abyss from which the world had just escaped, and to which it could easily return.

Eleanor Roosevelt gave a speech for the ages. I hope that we, who live in the next age, are still listening.

by William D. Harpine

__________________

Research Notes: Richard Weaver explains “god terms” in his indispensable book, The Ethics of Rhetoric. That book serves, not only as an important contribution to rhetorical theory, but also as a defining document of the intellectual conservative movement. Everyone should read it. One of Weaver’s other points was that, when we define terms, we express eternal concepts and principles. Roosevelt’s speech at the Sorbonne embodied that same great principle. In A Grammar of Motives, the essential book of modern-day rhetorical theory, Kenneth Burke describes god terms that embody universal and compelling power.

The late Professor Ruth Lewis of the University of Akron once chided me for not spending more time teaching about Eleanor Roosevelt’s speeches. Sorry, Ruth, I’m a bit late to the game, but I hope you’re reading this from above. Rest in peace, kind mentor and wise colleague. 

This blog’s readers might want to look at The American Ideology: Reflections of the Revolution in American Rhetoric, a prize-winning monograph by my University of Illinois professor Kurt Ritter. He analyzes the themes of liberty and freedom that resonate throughout United States history. It’s out of print but I found an online pdf.

Special thanks, once again, to Stephen Lucas and my classmate, the late Martin Medhurst, for creating the monumental speech bank, AmericanRhetoric.com, which published the speech transcript on which I relied today.

Looking at these notes, many good people helped me along the way. Thanks to these and many others.

Copyright ©2025 by William D. Harpine

Image of Eleanor Roosevelt: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of children studying the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, public domain, UN General Assembly, via Wikimedia Commons