Is Abbott Turning The Texas National Guard Into Trump’s Private Army?

Texans pay the bill while Abbott hands our Guard to a wannabe dictator.

A million and one things are happening in America right now, and that’s the tactic Steve Bannon once coined as “flooding the zone.” The goal is to exhaust the public and media’s ability to keep up, investigate, and effectively respond. This creates a state of confusion and distrust that ultimately serves the authoritarian objectives of the Trump Administration.

Between the recession, which is already here, the rogue Supreme Court, and the fascists in office, it’s easy to miss pieces of information. One piece of information we heard last week, that I held on to (and I promise not to let go of), is that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker gave a speech and said that Trump was preparing to deploy Texas National Guard troops to Illinois.

That same day, Governor Greg Abbott’s office disputed those claims and said there was no plan to deploy Texas troops to Illinois.

However, only days later, a spokesperson for Abbott told NBC Chicago, “Governor Abbott and the State of Texas are ready, willing, and able to deploy all necessary resources to clean up the streets of Chicago should President Trump call upon us to do so.”

As of today, (Monday, September 8th), no National Guard troops have been deployed in Illinois, but the dictator in the White House has promised a war on Chicago, and it seems he intends to use the Texas National Guard to enact the war.

Who controls the Texas National Guard? Who pays for them?

Greg Abbott is the commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard until the President federalizes them. That means, under state control, Abbott can (and has) used them for political stunts, like his billion-dollar boondoggle at the border, Operation Lone Star.

If Trump orders them to be federalized, then he calls the shots. Either way, Abbott has already signaled that he’s “ready, willing, and able” to hand over Texas soldiers for Trump’s war on Chicago. That should terrify anyone who believes the Guard exists to defend Texans, not to act as the shock troops for an authoritarian president’s vendetta.

We pay for it. Texas taxpayers.

Unless the mission is federally reimbursed (and don’t hold your breath), Texans are footing the bill for every Humvee, every round of ammo, every per diem. That’s money siphoned out of our state budget, money that could be fixing our underfunded schools, repairing collapsing bridges, funding flood defenses, or finally unclogging the damn ERCOT grid, wasted instead on a partisan stunt a thousand miles away.

Abbott loves to pose as the fiscal conservative, but nothing is more reckless than using Texans’ tax dollars to underwrite Trump’s domestic war fantasies.

The larger stakes for Texas.

It’s about normalizing authoritarian power. If Abbott can send troops to Illinois for ICE raids, what stops him from sending them into Houston’s Fifth Ward, or marching them into Austin neighborhoods, for a round of political theater? If the precedent is set that the Guard exists not for Texans, but for Trump’s whims, then nowhere is off-limits.

This ties directly into Abbott’s larger pattern when you look at Operation Lone Star. This border militarization project has swallowed billions of Texas taxpayer dollars while producing very little but human misery and viral campaign clips. Abbott has already treated the Guard like a campaign prop in Eagle Pass. Illinois could be the test case, with Texas as the staging ground for Trump’s broader authoritarian ambitions.

Thom Hartmann

laid it out in Common Dreams today. Trump is preparing the ground for a Civil War 2.0 to steal the midterms. Governors JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have both warned that the real plan is to deploy troops into blue cities during the 2026 midterms, suppress turnout, and “lock down” elections Democrats might otherwise win. Hartmann points to the Insurrection Act of 1807, a law so broad it’s essentially a blank check, that Trump could exploit to justify sending troops anywhere he wants, with the Supreme Court stacked in his favor.

And if that happens? The precedent will be that Abbott’s Guard, Texas troops, paid for with Texas taxes, are being used to subvert elections in other states. The very idea of “former Confederate state troops” occupying a major city like Chicago isn’t just explosive rhetoric. It’s the stuff Trump hopes will provoke enough unrest to let him declare a national emergency, seize control, and shut down voting in places that threaten him.

This is why the larger stakes for Texas couldn’t be higher. If Abbott normalizes handing over our Guard to Trump for political projects, then Texans will have directly financed and enabled the death of American democracy. And it won’t stop in Illinois. The same tactics could be used here at home, in Harris County, in Travis County, in Dallas, wherever Republicans think suppressing urban voters will keep them in power.

This is Abbott paving the way for a Trump dictatorship, using Texas as the battering ram.

Abbott cannot be trusted.

Of course, we all know that. But if Trump tells him to jump, he’ll respond with, “How high?” Trump wants new maps in Texas, and Abbott gives them to him. Now, Trump wants a Civil War with Texas troops, and Abbott will gladly hand them over on our dime, with our family and loved ones.

Abbott has already lied or misled Texans repeatedly about Guard operations at the border, from the drownings of migrants in the Rio Grande to the ballooning costs no one can quite track to mission goals that shift every time he needs a new press conference backdrop.

And there are probably millions of other things Abbott lied about. He lied about COVID, about Uvalde, about Uri… Greg Abbott is a pathological liar who never takes accountability, but lies to the camera to make himself look better and keep his donors happy. We’ll never get an honest answer from him about the National Guard, either.

The only way we’ll “know” the Texas National Guard has been sent to Illinois is if troops or vehicles are literally spotted in Chicago, or if soldiers’ families leak the news.

And that’s by design. Secrecy keeps Texans in the dark while Abbott uses our Guard as pawns in Trump’s power games. No press releases, no legislative oversight, no accountability, just shadowy orders and staged photo ops. Texans are expected to pay the bill, keep our mouths shut, and pray we don’t discover our kids in uniform are being used to occupy another state’s city.

Abbott thrives on that opacity. It’s how he’s turned Operation Lone Star into a bottomless slush fund, feeding contracts to private companies and lining his campaign narrative with “border invasion” talking points. Transplant that same formula to Illinois, and you’ve got a governor willing to use secrecy and fear to prop up and cement Trump’s power.

The truth is, Abbott doesn’t need to be honest with us because he doesn’t see Texans as stakeholders. He sees us as cannon fodder and ATMs for his political career. The more we’re kept in the dark, the easier it is for him to hand over our Guard, our taxes, and our democracy to a man openly promising war on American cities.

What does this all mean for Texans?

Economically, we’re already living through a farm crisis, a housing affordability crisis, and a creeping recession that’s gutting working families. Every time Abbott deploys the Guard for one of his stunts, it further drains our resources. That means less money for schools, less money for hospitals, less money to keep the lights on when ERCOT buckles again. Texans are subsidizing Abbott’s campaign commercials while our own communities are left to rot.

Democratically, if Abbott can ship Texas soldiers across state lines without our consent, Texas becomes the basecamp for authoritarian federal overreach. Our Guard stops being a force to protect Texans and starts being the enforcement arm for Trump’s political machine. That’s occupation, and it starts right here at home.

Morally, Texans didn’t sign up for this. Our sons, daughters, neighbors, and loved ones in the Guard didn’t enlist to become stormtroopers for Trump’s immigration raids or election suppression plans. They signed up to serve and protect their state, not to be pawns in a wannabe dictator’s war games. To let Abbott hand them over is a betrayal of every Texan who wears the uniform and every Texan who pays the taxes that keep them equipped.

If we let this slide, the precedent is set.

Texans will pay the bill, Illinois will pay the price, and the whole country will move one step closer to a government that rules with soldiers instead of consent.

This is the authoritarian blueprint. Chaos, secrecy, militarization, and zero accountability. And it starts here in Texas. Every Guard deployment Abbott greenlights for Trump chips away at our democracy and hands Trump more power to turn his violent fantasies into reality.

We cannot afford to shrug this off as another stunt. We cannot afford to let Abbott gamble away our tax dollars, our troops, and our democracy to prop up a failed president. Texans must see this for what it is. An attack on us, our communities, and our future.

If Abbott wants to serve as Trump’s warlord, he shouldn’t be allowed to do it with Texas resources or Texas lives. We have a duty, as Texans, as Americans, to resist, to organize, and to call this what it is. The rehearsal for dictatorship.

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