South Cook News

State Representative Edgar Gonzalez Jr. said that Governor J.B. Pritzker's comparison of Republicans to Nazis was "within the context of inhumanity through Trump's directives." Gonzalez made this statement to South Cook News on February 27.

"Trump debases the integrity and prestige of his office by using crude and unseemly language to denigrate women, minorities, war heroes, opponents, or any group or community he considers unimportant and dispensable," said Edgar González, Jr., IL State Representative, District 23. "People are worried about the wrong guy using this sort of language. Plus, the terminology used by the Governor is within the context of inhumanity through Trump's directives. People, especially elected Republicans and many publications, who misunderstood and generalized his comments as a statement regarding all Republicans are just projecting, which says a lot when there are Republicans who see the inhumanity of Trump's actions, and Republican business owners who see the consequences of Trump's directives."

In his joint budget and State of the State address on February 19, 2025, Illinois Governor Pritzker compared the Trump administration to Nazi Germany. According to WTTW, he said, "I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly... I'm watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now." Pritzker, a Democrat, suggested that the authoritarian policies of the Nazi regime are similar to those of former President Donald Trump.

According to Fox32Chicago, State Representative John Cabello (R-Machesney Park) described Pritzker’s comments as "disgusting," while State Representative Adam Niemerg (R-Dieterich) remarked that the governor’s comments "will only incite the violence he claims to condemn."

Gonzalez Jr., born on December 25, 1996, in Chicago, Illinois, was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives on January 10, 2020. At age 23, he became the youngest state representative in Illinois at that time. Raised in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, he attended local public schools including John Spry Community School and Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy before graduating from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in 2015. He earned a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University in 2019.