As Democrats across deep-blue Illinois on Monday responded to President Donald Trump’s inaugural address with a call “to fight back” against the incoming GOP administration, jubilant Republicans advised the state’s supermajority party to follow the returning president’s lead to “eliminate these woke politics and restore America back to traditional values.”Gov. JB Pritzker called it “a challenging day for Americans” and slammed Trump for arranging prime seats in Capitol rotunda for tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.“He's got the oligarchs sitting in the front row at his inauguration, and I think it just shows who he cares about,” Pritzker told reporters after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day volunteer event at Lindblom Math and Science Academy in West Englewood. “It's the wealthiest people in the country that are kowtowing to him and not to ordinary Americans.“He does not care about ordinary Americans. You haven't seen any issuance of any executive orders that would lower prices, or deal with what people have to fight every day,” Pritzker said, berating Trump for orders the governor claims “attack people's rights.” Gov. J.B. Pritzker Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times “Here in Illinois, we're going to stand up, we're going to fight back, we're going to follow the law, and we're going to make sure they're following the law,” Pritzker said. Related President Donald Trump’s 2025 Inaugural Address transcript Mayor Brandon Johnson echoed that refrain in anticipating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that could begin taking place this week in Chicago’s Latino neighborhoods as promised by Trump’s campaign.“The level of anxiety and fear that is being stoked by this administration is one that we vehemently reject, and it's not just the stoking of division around this particular issue,” Johnson said in an interview with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times. “Here's someone who said that he doesn't believe in public education, and privatizing our schools we know in Chicago has been detrimental and harmful. He doesn't believe in climate change… So again, it's making sure that law and codification is strengthened.”Far from alleged attacks on the nation’s immigrant and LGBTQ communities, Illinois Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, argued Trump set the tone for his second term with “two pillars of a mandate that he received from the voters” — namely, tamping down inflation and tightening up the southern U.S. border.“He really focused on trying to bring back prosperity to Americans, and he also focused on security,” said Curran, who watched the speech from his suburban office. “He seemed to stay very on-script and stick to the message he prepared for the American people.”Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, called Trump’s address “a down-to-business speech, filled with hope, prosperity and freedom.”“It's a fresh start, and we have to give an opportunity to work together and see what the administration is going to do,” McCombie said. “Rather than continue to fight and continue with the political rhetoric, let's work together and let's build a better Illinois.” Related What to take away from President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day speeches Rahm Emanuel’s takeFormer Mayor Rahm Emanuel observed that Trump “let out very early how he’s going to lead and where he’s going to lead from,” Emanuel said. “This was more part of the cultural backlash that people felt went way over. And this was his response.”He advised fellow Democrats to pick their battles with Trump.“In certain places, you just don’t take the bait. In other places, you stand strong and you fight. But, you’ve got to be very selective,” Emanuel said. “You can’t just organize on opposing everything and anything just because Donald Trump says it.”During his stint as U.S. ambassador to Japan under now former President Joe Biden, Emanuel educated and almost reinvented himself as somewhat of a foreign policy expert. That makes Emanuel’s take on Trump’s vow to take back the Panama Canal an interesting one. Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP) via Getty Images “It’s a treaty that the United States signed and a treaty that the United States Senate passed. It’s not just a law. It’s not a regulation. This is different than things like the Paris Accords and stuff they pulled the United States out [of]. It’s a treaty,” Emanuel said.Progressive pushbackFor State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), Monday’s peaceful transfer of power in the Capitol Rotunda desecrated by insurrectionists on Jan. 6, 2021, was “fraught with contradiction.”It underscored the “gravity of where we are, where we’ve been and how vigilant we’ve got to be moving forward,” Buckner said.“When he talks about making America great again, they’re talking about a bygone era. It seems like they’re going to attempt with all of their might to go back that place that we should fight,” Buckner said.“But here in Illinois, we’re ready. We’re going to continue to play offense, defense and special teams. We’re going to protect our people, ensure our values are upheld and we’re going to push back against the things we know are going to take us backwards. But it’s hard to hear — especially on a day like today when we’re celebrating the life of Dr. King.” Related Former Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger ‘didn’t want’ Biden’s pardon, but ‘appreciates’ it Channyn Lynne Parker, executive director of Brave Space Alliance — an LGBTQ+-serving organization that centers black trans leadership — said Trump blew a dog whistle “for mistreatment and discrimination of trans-identified and nonbinary people” when he declared the government would only recognize two genders.“We’re going to see a lot of rolling back of legal protections that centered gender and identity in various spaces, including the workspace. We’re going to also see the rollback of life-changing, life-affirming treatments that gender-expansive folks access,” Parker said.“We’re gonna see emboldening of people feeling empowered to just bully — whether it’s physically, emotionally or psychologically — gender-expansive people. We’re also gonna see it in more concrete ways as well.”Ald. Maria Hadden (49th), a member of the City Council’s Gay and Lesbian Caucus, said Trump doesn’t get to “dictate, declare or define limitations on our natural selves, bodies or biology.”“He might be the President of the United States. But, those aren’t things he actually can control,” Hadden said.Open arms from conservativesAld. Ray Lopez (15th), one of the City Council’s most conservative members, said such “bluster” against Trump from City Hall could have “dire consequences for what we try to do for the people of Chicago.”Not following the new administration’s rollback of diversity measures could cost tens of millions in federal dollars, Lopez said. Related Trump to issue 10 executive orders today to use military at border, end future birthright citizenship “We’d better start planning for what that might look like or at least having those discussions internally and not just this brazen political brashness that’s nothing but bluster because that’s going to have dire consequences for what we try to do for the people of Chicago.”Trump’s flurry of executive orders on immigration policy didn’t go far enough for Lopez.“What we need to focus on is quicker adjudication of asylum claims so they’re within 60 days not six-to-eight years,” he said. “Because you need to be able to determine if someone has a claim or not for asylum and, if not, deport them back to their country of origin.”Illinois state Sen. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, who’s among Trump’s most ardent supporters in Springfield as part of the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus, said the freshly sworn-in president brings “a renewed sense of hope in the state of Illinois”“It was a very blunt speech. It was very direct, and it was very forceful as it needs to be in a time that is so sensitive,” Chesney said. “He just underscored that we have to eliminate these woke politics and restore America back to traditional values and a traditional vision that has worked for a very long time.”Contributing: Kristen Schorsch, WBEZ