The National Guardsman who won’t take orders from Trump

Dylan Blaha an Illinois National Guard member is waging a campaign focused at bringing an affordability agenda to Washington D C while sounding the alarm on President Donald Trump s politicization of the United States military In May Blaha reported that he was challenging Rep Nikki Budzinski D-Ill in the Democratic primary for Illinois s th Congressional District which stretches up from East Saint Louis in the south of the state north through Springfield Decatur and Champaign In an interview with Salon Blaha reported that he was fighting to represent the district with a different sort of politics one that rejected the influence and money of special interests and put issues of affordability for working-class families first Related Panic in the Hamptons The fight to stop Zohran Mamdani Blaha s campaign has taken a decidedly populist tone with slogans like workers over billionaires and a platform that includes policies such as a billionaire tax and free school lunches He s also taken inspiration from mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani s campaign in New York City advocating for a rent freeze which he says the federal cabinet could deliver through policies similar to what was seen during the COVID- era which were meant to give renters a reprieve during the pandemic s economic downturn He says policies like that could give renters a break while the administration works to facilitate the building of more housing which he sees as a more permanent key Mamdani s policies really resonated with the voters Blaha stated I think that something like a moratorium or a rent freeze is definitely a temporary resolution Ultimately though the housing arena is fully messed up right now especially with private equity investing in a lot of the housing domain and just so plenty of houses being Airbnbs in our district Blaha noted that he was inspired to launch his campaign after being disappointed with Budzinski who was first elected in on a number of issues One moment of disappointment Blaha noted was in a telephone town hall earlier this year when Budzinski gave a muddled answer in response to a question from a constituent asking whether she agreed with President Trump that there were only two genders men and women Budzinski s office later explained that she did not agree with Trump on this matter telling The Lavender Newsletter that The Congresswoman s response on the town hall was that male and female are genders and that for a few people their experience is different Regardless Blaha announced that the matter got him to take a closer look at her affiliations in Congress We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in the current era to aid Salon s progressive journalism He recounted Salon that he was disappointed that she alongside dozens of other House democrats voted for last year s National Defense Authorization Act which was packed with conservative practices war priorities like denying wellness care to the transgender children of servicemembers Then I realized also I am against Israel s genocide in Gaza and she is a recipient of a bunch of pro-Israel PAC money from AIPAC J Street and she refuses to even sign on to the Block the Bombs Act which are definitely all red lines for me Blaha mentioned But it s not just that I m running against Nikki I am running a grassroots campaign not taking corporate and foreign lobbyist donations That s what enables people to indeed run on progressive platforms In terms of policies Blaha supports popular progressive priorities like Medicare for All overturning Citizens United through decree and closing tax loopholes exploited by the wealthy and major corporations Blaha however has also been a vocal critic of Trump s efforts to politicize the military speaking out against Trump s deployment of the National Guard in California and saying that he would refuse to deploy against his own district I ve gotten a lot of messages from people who agree with my position and thank me for speaking up They think I m crazy for speaking up but they still say Thank you Blaha disclosed I ve come out and reported Well nobody s trained for this aside from a couple small units that do it And now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is making the units and he wants to train them for it Blaha went on to say that training for the guard is typically focused on promising overseas deployment or helping in tragedy relief efforts not in helping a historically unpopular president settle political scores National Guard soldiers don t want to be pitted against their population They don t agree with all this stuff but I do feel like there is a society of fear that makes it so that there are very scant people who have spoken out Blaha stated I do think you kind of have those two conflicting ideas that they don t want to do this but they re also afraid to speak out And I just am afraid that we ll see the same thing that we heard in s s Germany where a lot of people say Well I was just following orders Read more about this topic McGrath Booker neck and neck in hypothetical Kentucky Senate primary poll Progressive Democrats target -year-old incumbent with a primary challenge Progressives plan wave of Democratic primary challenges ahead of midterm elections The post The National Guardsman who won t take orders from Trump appeared first on Salon com