Tom Morello stirred waves after firing off a blistering response to the escalating situation in Chicago. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist took direct aim at gun rights supporters with a sarcastic challenge in a recent X post.
Featured VideoPresident Trump’s Chicago threat
Recently, President Donald Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social, “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” He shared an AI-generated image of himself dressed as Robert Duvall’s notorious character Colonel Kilgore from Apocalypse Now, complete with a Confederate cavalry hat, sitting in front of a burning Chicago.
Text accompanying the image reads, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning …” which is a reference to the famous film quote, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
AdvertisementThe post was quickly met with blowback, particularly 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 appears he is now threatening to deploy it to Chicago as well. His administration has faced legal pushback to these actions in the last couple of weeks.
AdvertisementMorello fires back at Trump’s threat with sarcasm
With tensions mounting, public figures beyond elected officials began weighing in. Among them was Tom Morello, the Rage Against the Machine guitarist known for fusing music with activism. Morello seized on the moment to turn the rhetoric back on self-proclaimed defenders of liberty, using sarcasm to underscore what he saw as obvious 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.”
AdvertisementAlthough Morello’s comments dripped with irony, many saw them as a sharp critique of selective outrage.
Tom Morello has long blended music with politics and is best known for his work in Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Moreover, Morello has never hidden his political views.
AdvertisementIn September 2024, he mocked Elon Musk’s attempt to joke about his band. Musk asked on X, “Why are so many people raging FOR the machine?” Morello fired back, writing, “Funny cuz Elon was the kid on the cover of Evil Empire.” He shared the artwork from the 1996 album with his post.
Social media reactions to Morello’s tweet
Morello’s post quickly jumped from X to the r/Illinois subreddit. There, reactions poured in from fans and critics alike.
AdvertisementReddit users latched onto Morello’s message, offering both praise 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 comments from the perspective of an omnipresent Narrator, such as 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 user 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 reality, writing, “I get his point but assault weapons are also banned in the state of Illinois so…”
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