Editors’ Note:

Dan Conaway’s column this week was left in limbo after Dan quit The Daily Memphian. This disruption led some readers to believe we had bowed to pressure to not run a column critical of President Donald Trump. But this is false.

We had asked Dan to make a number of minor edits before publication — specifically to cite his sources and to remove a reference to Uptown that we thought diminished the column’s strength — but during our discussions, Dan instead finally said, “I’ll just quit.” 

Such a request for edits is standard practice; every reporter, columnist and contributor at The Daily Memphian is edited. However, to negate any notion that we were in any way pressured or that we “censored” Dan, we are publishing the column as is.

This is one of numerous other columns we’ve run that are critical of the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard in Memphis, including four such columns that we published in recent weeks, two of which were written by Dan. Another column — plus many articles written by our staff as well as many comments on the site — have conveyed local support for the president’s decision.

As we have been from the beginning, The Daily Memphian remains committed to publishing all points of view.

Given this is Dan’s last column for The Daily Memphian, we want to express our appreciation for his contributions to the organization, both in the columns he has written and in his work on the branding and marketing of The Daily Memphian during our launch.

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“Family and friends,” he said, “then home — where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city — then your state, then your region, then your country.”

My father was explaining to me when I was 11 or 12 why he went to war when he didn’t have to. He was driving me to Boy Scout camp, and we had some time to talk.

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When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was an engineer, and his company had government contracts that could keep him here.

At almost 33, he was also getting a bit long in the tooth for war. My mother would also have me tell you he also had two small children, my brothers, one eight months, and the other five.

He joined the Navy the week after Pearl Harbor.

“Those are the priorities in the order of priority,” he continued. “But if your country is threatened, really threatened, everything flips. If your country, this country, falls, everything in that lineup falls, everything in that lineup is at mortal risk.”

“So, I’ll know when it’s country first?”

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“You’ll know,” he answered.

Last week, I shared the mayor’s plan for peacefully enduring, if not gaining, from the National Guard presence in our city.

That was last week.

This week, the president called an extraordinary meeting. He and the secretary of defense addressed a room of some 800 generals and admirals called from their command posts around the world to hear the president’s words in Virginia.

He told our country’s top brass that their attention would soon be turned inward. That they would be commanding military operations in our cities against the “enemy within.” Further, he said that they should hold military training exercises in our cities.

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That they would be commanding military operations in our cities.

That they should hold military training exercises in our cities.

Never mind what Secretary Hegseth told them. His message was as empty as his suit. He basically told them they had to shave and lose weight.

The commander-in-chief told told his generals and admirals that their enemies are Americans, and that their field of battle would be Democratic cities. The great power and might of America’s military would be turned toward its own.

Toward here, people. Not here in general terms, here in very specific terms. Memphis is an official battlefield.

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“Family and friends,” he said, “then home — where you live, your neighborhood, your town, your city ...”

As the rest of the world rages, the president told his top military leaders that we will disengage from the protection of our interests and those of our allies and attack the political enemies of our president, root out the “radical left,” crush “the woke,” seal our borders against mighty Venezuela and reduce blue cities and states to whimpering vassals of the federal government.

The president who would be king.

You know this is wrong. No what-about this or that. You know this is wrong. No bemoaning the awful state of something or somewhere. You know this is wrong.

Nothing excuses this. Nothing.

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When the National Guard deploys here, they will be unarmed and have no power to arrest. They are a camo-covered smokescreen, eye candy for the cameras disguising what will really be going on, clickbait for the internet.

From wide reporting including The New York Times and CNN, Trump is sending ICE agents and FBI agents to Memphis, not to mention Justice Department prosecutors and investigators. The likely mission, if Los Angeles and Washington serve as precedents, is to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate/deport as many people as possible.

Republicans should be every bit as alarmed as Democrats — every American should — because every time Trump stomps on the Constitution, he leaves that boot print on every one of us.

Or, as the very first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, famously put it, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Due process and habeas corpus are becoming quaint reminders of a once proud nation of constitutional laws and justice.

What happened in that room in Virginia this week gives us more than a hint of what could follow the National Guard to Memphis.

“So, I’ll know when it’s country first?”

“You’ll know,” he answered.

One man has put 340 million people at risk of losing this democracy. Just as surely as he’s made the Oval Office look like an Uptown whorehouse waiting room, just as surely as he’s made the majority of both house of Congress look like lackeys waiting to empty the king’s chamber pot, just as surely as he’s turning the Constitution into a Mar-a-Lago doormat, just as surely, he’s coming for us.

You’re right, Dad. I know.

I’m a Memphian, soon under siege.