“And who are my neighbors?” (Luke 10:29b)
Mea culpa: This article is a combination of long-form and photo essay. Some sections conclude with a series of photos documenting events during the past month.
A Real Nightmare
It was early October during the federal occupation of Chicago when my wife woke in the middle of the night as she dodged my flailing arms.
I was yelling: “No. No. No! Get out of here!”
She didn’t really know how to respond. She’d never seen me so animated in my sleep. My dreams are usually rather boring. Often, they manifest anxieties, but they’re not usually vivid or memorable.
I dreamt that camouflage, unidentified, armed and masked men had forced their way into our home and were trying to drag me out of bed. The dream felt so vivid that I bodily responded while asleep.
Recent geopolitical events had come to dominate and haunt our lives.
Historians talk about the danger of presentist history. They rarely talk about what happens when presentist history is unavoidable. I cannot avoid what is happening to my neighbors. I cannot abstract my life and retreat into an archive or transcendent reflection when neighbors are being abducted at my doorstep.
Proximity Means Unavoidability (October 7)
My village is in the near West inner-ring suburbs of Chicago and my nearest bank, Target, Home Depot, and Pizza Hut are in an adjacent village, Broadview.
Operation Midway Blitz commenced on September 9, 2025. As a precursor and warning, on September 6, President Trump posted on Truth Social a tasteless AI generated image of himself in the movie Apocalypse Now with the caption “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
On September 12, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez after he attempted to flee from a traffic stop in Franklin Park. A Mexican Independence Day festival scheduled for September 13–14 was canceled in Grant Park, from fear of aggressive ICE operations in the area.
On September 16, while a helicopter circled above a suburban Elgin neighborhood, ICE agents employed explosives to enter a home. They took six people. Kristi Noem shared a recording of the operation on social media.
On September 30, ICE agents rapelled from a Blackhawk helicopter into a large multi-family residential building. Dozens of sleepy, half-dressed and naked men, women and children were zip-tied and held for hours.
DHS began populating media of ICE and CBP operations in Chicago, as well as recruitment propaganda. Throughout and following these events, protests had begun at the Broadview ICE facility, a ten-minute drive from my home.
During September, I looked on with both curiosity and concern as the President and Department of Homeland Security declared my city a war zone. I have lived in Chicagoland since 2013. Never once had I ever felt endangered, as I have since the federal occupation of Chicago began.
By October, proximity to events made it all very real. On October 7, neighbors were abducted from Cermak Plaza—the first major intersection east of my neighborhood. The same day a neighbor was abducted in front of Komarek Middle School in a neighborhood on the West side of my village. Komarek is the other middle school in Riverside school district, where my children attend.
It was that evening that my wife and children had our first conversation reviewing protocol of what to do if we witnessed federal agents attempting to man-steal our neighbors. That night my nightmare shook me to the core. It was as if my subconscious was warning me with the message of Pastor Martin Neimoller’s poem, “First They Came”:
When the Nazis came for the communists, I kept quiet;
I wasn’t a communist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I kept quiet;
I wasn’t a trade unionist.
When they locked up the social-democrats, I kept quiet;
I wasn’t a social-democrat.
When they locked up the Jews, I kept quiet;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to Protest.
During the past month we had been told by the federal government that our homes and neighborhoods were no longer safe. They had come to occupy it and make it their war zone. Their messages and actions thus far had seized us with terror, exhibited foremost by my nightmare.
Not Being Terrorized by Propaganda, Mumford and Sons (October 8, 2025)
Our first steps of resistance involved not letting federal psyops alter what we knew to be true about our city. We shouldn’t give into the unfounded terror the President and DHS conjured about our homes and neighborhoods. We needed to keep a normal schedule and carry on our lives despite intimidation and fear.
On Wednesday, October 8, my wife and I went ahead and attended the Mumford and Sons concert at the United Center. As we walked to the arena, the irony of thousands of privileged, suburban thirty somethings and plus aged folks invading a predominantly Black neighborhood neither felt like we were in a war zone nor in danger. It also didn’t really feel like an act of resistance until we experienced Mumford’s set list and stage message.
Mumford had broken up years ago due to a bad public relations fiasco related to Brexit. They had only recently released their first album after their reunion and this was one of the first shows of their American tour. By no means were they going to duplicate the Brexit debacle while playing in war torn Chicago. They made no reference to Chicago being under siege, and they made no political signals.
They did promote a spirit of peace and love. A large, round overhead stage piece extended towards the ground, ornamented with doves and hearts that were lit in white and red. The audience lost themselves in sublime rapture as they sang songs with a spirit that eerily resembled encounters with the numinous.
Mumford’s encore concluded with a world release of a new song, “Gangsters and Angels,” which Marcus claimed to be his new favorite. Its lyrics alluded to the present moment:
We’re all tumblers and beggars
Your mother and I will show you
Gangsters and angels
Darling come and see
The best I ever met
Had gave it all away
We’d rather be ruined
Than changed and die
Not dred
But love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart
Reach across again
Here’s where heaven starts
I end where you begin
with my hand over your heart
Reach across again
Here’s where heaven starts
I’m here with you
until the end
with my hand over your heart
As we returned home that night, my wife and I intensely understood how our first act of protest involved resisting the narrative that our neighborhood was a war zone and that our neighbors and ourselves were leftist terrorists and Antifa rioters.
To do so, we needed to lead with peace, love, and non-violence. We needed to unmask the absurdity of the federal propaganda of terror.
Costumed protesters like Portland’s inflatable green frog invert scenes of terror choreographed by Gregory Bovino and Kristi Noem into LARP and ComicCon like resistance, visibly exaggerating the contrast between who are violent and who are victims. What some might call cartoonish self-righteousness I see as the most fit mode of protest. Costumed resistance highlights the stark contrast between two group feelings.
Meanwhile, Proud Boys, newly deputized as federal agents, are being incentivized, conditioned, and desensitized through live training exercises. They kettle protesters, mark citizens with paint, launch bean bags, pepper balls and tear gas, so that when it is time to use lethal force, they will already have built the muscle memory to look upon their neighbors as targets, as the enemy, as Antifa, and think nothing else as they fire live ammunition into crowds.
Witnessing and Documenting Broadview (October 10)
Another act of resistance is witnessing and documenting events.
On Friday, October 10, I visited the Broadview ICE facility. When I arrived around noon, the press was preparing for a press conference on the south side, by the notorious Beach Street gate. I wandered over to 25th Ave and saw the north side protest area. Between fifty and a hundred protesters were chanting, speaking, and singing there.
Minutes after I arrived two large white coach busses filled with detainees approached the north entrance. A woman called out to the busses: “You are not alone. We are here. We will not give up on you.” A well-built older gentlemen passed me with a protest sign that read, “This Is Wrong.” He joined the protesters and started calling out what his sign captioned. A woman accidentally dropped her sign on the wrong side of the barricade. A local Broadview police officer courteously picked it up and handed it back with a smile. The woman was taken aback by this unexpected act of kindness.
I walked back to the south side protest area. The press had been activated with frenetic energy. “They’re here,” I heard someone say. Curiosity caused me to linger. Minutes later Senator Durbin opened the front door of the Ironworks building to allow Senator Duckworth to roll out. She carried a case of water in her lap. Both Senators were followed by a detail of federal security. They made their way to a makeshift tent and staging location for protesters.
The onlooking media panicked, thinking the Senators relocated the press conference. They mobilized their cameras and media personalities to the protest staging area. The Senators donated two cases of water and addressed the leaders managing the staging area, reassuring them that they were doing the right thing and that they should be unceasing in their protests.
The Senators now made their way toward the notorious south gate. They dramatically moved down the middle of the street but then stopped not far from the gate. They had already been denied entrance to the facility when they made a call to it from the Ironworks building. A news anchor expressed exasperation over all their movement, while his accompanying camera man disagreed: “Are you kidding me? This is amazing content!”
The Senators addressed the few protesters positioned at the south side protest area while the media gathered around them at a pole marked with a large sign, “Media Area.” I stood near the back and to the right, in a navy jogger and Sox hat, next to Fox 32 anchor Paris Schutz, both of us with arms outstretched videoing the Senators. “My hands aren’t in your shot,” Schutz courteously asked.
The Senators made their way to where the press conference had been staged. I stood three feet to Durbin’s right flank, filming the 10-minute press conference. Eric Runge of WGN9 fielded the first question, followed by News Nation’s Alex Caprariello. Sabrina Franza of CBS Chicago, Paris Schutz of Fox32, and Whitney Wild of CNN all asked follow-up questions.
The Senators shared their chagrin of being denied entrance to the federal property for the fourth time; they declared their solidarity with the protesters; they demanded that the gate be removed; they expressed disapproval over the mobilization of the Texas National Guard, which were currently quartered at a base in the South Suburbs.
When Senator Duckworth appealed to the Posse Comitatus Act and expressed grief about the Texas National Guard’s mobilization, a MAGA agitator, Cam Higby, rudely interrupted Duckworth and the press conference, shouting, “10 US Code 12406!” Higby continued to disrupt the press conference eliciting disgust from the media. Afterward, he and cobelligerent, Lance Johnson, provoked and harassed protesters. Protesters ignored their pitiful attempts to instigate trouble. Later I visited both of their social platforms to discover that they were portraying themselves as victims of “Antifa violence.”
I left Broadview encouraged by my Senators, the work of the free press, and the efforts of those who had peaceably assembled to demonstrate dissent for what was happening to their neighbors.
Not Putting Life on Hold (October 11, 13, and 19)
Before Operation Midway Blitz began, I had planned three downtown adventures for October. On Saturday, October 11, I had scheduled to meet a former youth student downtown for brunch at Eggy’s. On Monday, October 13, our family planned to visit shops on the Magnificent Mile. On Sunday, October 19, my wife and I were going to see Walter Masterson perform comedy at the Den Theater in Logan Square.
When Kendall and I had discussed how Operation Midway Blitz might affect our lives, we especially discussed these adventures and whether we should cancel them. No doubt many Chicagoans have had similar discussions, and we will never really know how federal disruption has had an adverse effect on our local economy.
We went ahead and ventured out on those dates. Saturday, October 11 happened to be the day before the Chicago Marathon, so I was surprised to see the city streets swarming with runners scouting their routes and enjoying the city’s amenities. I saw no federal presence. The weather was beautiful; the city was peaceful; everyone continued their lives, ignoring the narrative on social media. I met my friend and his girlfriend for a delightful brunch. We hadn’t seen each other in over a decade, so there was a lot of catching up to do.
Later I described my pleasant downtown experience to my wife, which put her at ease about other forthcoming adventures. On Monday we took our kids to the same brunch spot, Eggy’s. Eggy’s faces Lakeshore East Park, a quiet neighborhood park surrounded by skyscrapers on the Chicago River. After brunch we strolled down Michigan Avenue, enjoying the shops, alongside thousands of others.
On the evening of Sunday, October 19, Kendall and I saw Walter Masterson perform comedy at the Den Theater in Logan Square. Logan Square attracts early career residents, so the scene has an enchanting urban vibe. Walter Masterson absolutely crushed it, and his conversation with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez was illuminating. He complimented the way our city has organized and commented that he thinks Chicagoans are more locked in to the present moment than even his neighbors in New York City.
These three subtle acts of defiance were more about fostering a culture of courage within our family. It was an effort to protest by maintaining everyday normal activities and not allow life to be derailed by federal disruptions. We wouldn’t let ourselves be terrorized, intimidated, or manipulated into thinking our neighborhoods aren’t safe or believe the deception that we live in a war torn city. The only signs of militancy and aggression are the ones the federal government have staged as political theater and provocation.
Witnessing and Documenting No Kings Protest (Saturday, October 18)
I registered for the No Kings protest in Grant Park and on Saturday morning October 18 my wife, youngest daughter, and I sojourned downtown to attend the rally. As we neared Millennium Parking Garage, we saw streams of people making their way to Grant Park.
We arrived at Grant Park as Mayor Johnson began his speech. There was a sea of people there, and everywhere we looked more were arriving. They were of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Many carried handcrafted signs. Some were costumed, but most wore casual attire with comfy shoes. American flags were common accessories. Everyone raised their voices in protest, not angry but earnest voices.
After Governor Pritzker’s speech, the march began. Because of the immense crowd it took nearly half an hour for my little party to cross the intersection of Monroe and Columbus westward toward Michigan Ave. It was almost 3PM by the time we marched to the corner of Michigan and Randolph. We needed to get back home for my daughter’s seventeenth birthday party, so we made our way back to the car.
My youngest was treated kindly by everyone she met. One woman shared a home baked chocolate chip cookie with her. Another gave her a bubble wand. During the march, another person offered her cotton candy. The downtown bustle was accompanied with an extraordinary neighborly spirit. The volunteer staff were well-trained and professional.
Chicago Police maintained security and offered a strong and supportive presence at the march. We felt safe. Besides the peaceable assembly and protest, nothing eventful occurred, except a handful of people who unexpectantly were overcome by exhaustion. Ample medics and first responders were available to help. No federal presence was felt.
We took numerous photos and video documenting everything we witnessed because we anticipated others would spread misinformation on social media. Social media did not disappoint. As I scrolled that afternoon and the next day, I saw the same common prerehearsed talking points:
That’s old footage from years ago. It’s just a bunch of old retired hippies. They’re all George Soros’s paid actors. It’s a bunch of unemployed people who need to go get jobs. The media has greatly exaggerated the projected attendance.
All false claims this media gallery disproves.
Christ Church Oak Brook Brand Evangelicals Class
I had been invited by Christ Church, Oak Brook to be the Adult Class teacher for the month of October. My lesson series tried out material from my forthcoming brand history of evangelicals. Over four weeks I covered the history of evangelicals from the 1960s–90s. Between fifty and a hundred adults met weekly to remember those decades with me.
The series allowed many, who lived through the era, to hold me accountable for my historical claims. It was also an exercise for both teacher and audience to listen, receive, and interact wholesomely on issues that might cause some to crash out. I could not help but situate our conversations across these decades in light of present events taking place in Chicago. This practice was rewarding for all of us in the class.
What Refugee Resettlement Organizations and Churches Are Doing for Those Sheltering in Place
I’ve heard from anonymous sources that refugee resettlement organizations and churches are mobilizing to care for the needs of undocumented workers, who have to shelter in place at this time. Alternate education is being provided for children. Errands are being completed by allies. Food drops are being arranged, with redundancies that protect suppliers and receivers. Collections have been organized for winter clothing, medicines, and personal hygiene. Legal counsel is being donated. Neighborhood watches and whistle brigades are warning neighbors, while many citizens are showing up at confrontations to witness, document, record, and discourage abductions.
All the while, the fresh recruits of the world’s third largest military force are leveraging force, terror, and intimidation to disperse protesters and retaliate against activists. Media crews accompany federal agents in order to craft propaganda that intimidates citizens and instill fear and terror within them.
Some wonder if we’ve had both our Reichstag Fire and Kristallnacht. It’s quite probable that Charlie Kirk’s assassination was our Reichstag Fire and Operation Midway Blitz has been our Kristallnacht; it’s just happening in broad daylight and starting in the Blue States.
Conclusion
This overly detailed eye-witness account of one historian’s experiences in Chicago has been for my neighbors nationwide who are frozen and uncertain about what if anything they can do. It’s also for those who would rather look away, for those who have enough privilege that they occupy isolated ghettoes further afield from “the troubled areas”, though federal operations have proven to infiltrate and unsettle those spaces as well.
This is a reminder that the evangel, “good news”, has everything to do with how I love my neighbors. Many are choosing to withdraw from media and the news, to mute it, in order to ignore their duty to their neighbors. Those who have the liberty to do so are those who have historically had the most privilege and believe that they will be the least affected. They do this to the detriment of their most vulnerable neighbors. While this is a survival instinct born out of the will to power, it does not stop the inevitable. Power is an unquenchable beast that comes for all.
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