On Thursday, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker gave his budget address. At the end of the speech, he shifted gears and started to talk about Naziism and fascism.
Pritzker shared how, in 1978, a group of Nazis wanted to have a parade through Skokie, IL, which was home to one of the largest groups of Holocaust survivors in the world. He said that the Nazis wanted to do this because they knew how it would terrorize and traumatize these people. He shared how this turned into a legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court, where a Jewish attorney with the ACLU pointed out that no matter how hateful and how vile, it was still protected by the First Amendment.
Pritzker pointed out that instead of striking fear, the people of Skokie, both the survivors and other citizens, bonded together and formed the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which in turn led to the first Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Pritzker went on to say that it took the Nazis less than two months to topple the government and install their own fascist regime. He then compared the events in Nazi Germany to what’s happening today in America. How a puppet president immediately blamed a DEI hire for a plane crash without an investigation, much less proof. How an attorney general is suing Starbucks, claiming that their coffee is so expensive because too many baristas are women and aren’t white.
Pritzker then switched to the two times he took the oath of office and swore to uphold both the state and federal constitutions.
Then he delivered the line of the night:
We don’t have kings in America, and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.
Pritzker went back to the story of the Nazis who wanted a parade. He said that they eventually did have it, but instead of Skokie, they went to Chicago. And after all that fighting over it, only 20 of them showed up and were quickly squashed by the 2,000 counter protesters. The big, bad Nazis only lasted ten minutes before turning tail and running.
For those who might be unaware, there is a long-running rivalry between Illinois and Wisconsin, and I don’t mean just between the Bears and the Packers. And as a lifelong Wisconsin resident, I must give it to Pritzker. That was a damn fine speech. And while it’s still really too early, that sure did seem like a speech that a potential presidential candidate might give.
