Tom Morello stirred waves after firing off a blistering response to the escalating state of affairs in Chicago. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist took direct purpose at gun rights supporters with a sarcastic problem in a latest X put up.

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President Trump’s Chicago risk

Recently, President Donald Trump posted on his social media web site Truth Social, “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” He shared an AI-generated picture of himself dressed as Robert Duvall’s infamous character Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, full with a Confederate cavalry hat, sitting in entrance of a burning Chicago.

Text accompanying the picture reads, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning …” which is a reference to the well-known movie quote, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

The put up was rapidly met with blowback, notably from Democratic lawmakers.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” wrote Illinois Governor JB Pritzker on X. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson agreed, tweeting, “The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution.”

The president has already deployed the National Guard to Washington and Los Angeles, and it seems he’s now threatening to deploy it to Chicago as properly. His administration has confronted authorized pushback to those actions within the final couple of weeks.

Morello fires again at Trump’s risk with sarcasm

With tensions mounting, public figures past elected officers started weighing in. Among them was Tom Morello, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist identified for fusing music with activism. Morello seized on the second to show the rhetoric again on self-proclaimed defenders of liberty, utilizing sarcasm to underscore what he noticed as apparent hypocrisy.

On Sep. 7, 2025, Morello tweeted, “I’d like to thank all the 2nd Amendment loving patriots who are caravanning towards Chicago right now to defend the people against a Tyrannical Federal Government that has declared war on a U.S. city!! Thank you for putting aside the racism & white supremacy that has kept you from stepping up until now! Big Government Thugs wanna ‘tread on’ the people! Now’s your time to stop them. Like you talk about.”

Although Morello’s feedback dripped with irony, many noticed them as a pointy critique of selective outrage.

Tom Morello has lengthy blended music with politics and is greatest identified for his work in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Moreover, Morello has by no means hidden his political beliefs. 

In September 2024, he mocked Elon Musk’s try and joke about his band. Musk requested on X, “Why are so many people raging FOR the machine?” Morello fired again, writing, “Funny cuz Elon was the kid on the cover of Evil Empire.” He shared the paintings from the 1996 album together with his put up.

Morello’s put up rapidly jumped from X to the r/Illinois subreddit. There, reactions poured in from followers and critics alike.

Reddit customers latched onto Morello’s message, providing each reward and parody. One commenter, u/ProgrammerOk8493, insisted, “Tom’s message is way more strategic and long-term than you guys are understanding. He’s trying to flip the script of these 2nd amendment guys into becoming anti-republican. It’s pretty brilliant.”

Others leaned into humor. Many wrote feedback from the attitude of an omnipresent Narrator, resembling one Redditor who wrote, “Narrators voice: Now was in fact not their time to step up, because they never really wanted to step up, just wanted to be able to shoot sh*t.”

Another person quipped, “Stay strong patriots. We prepped and trained for this moment. Just keep hiding in our basements. After all of the illegals and protesters and libs are locked up the military will be called off and eggs will be cheaper. Stay strong and keep hiding in our basements! Alpha men hell yeah /s”

u/IdkINeedAnAlt added a dose of actuality, writing, “I get his point but assault weapons are also banned in the state of Illinois so…”

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