After Mayor Brandon Johnson announced he was going to the southern border — America’s, not Hegewisch — I was licking my lips. This is what we journalists — OK, just me — call “a duck in a bucket.”
Imagine: the large galvanized pail, filled with water. The placid mallard, gazing up innocently as I raise the metaphorical double-barreled shotgun of scorn, squint one eye, smile, then squeeze both triggers. A simultaneous blast and quack of alarm, cut short, and gone in a cloud of feathers.
Too easy. First, the border inspection tour is a cherished cliche of the right wing. Put on your Carhartt coat, slap a look of Ted Cruz concentration on your mug as you stare fiercely at a group of miserable refugees huddled a safe distance away. Use ing their misery to buff your image among those not savvy enough to be disgusted.
For the mayor of Chicago to volunteer to perform that charade — it’s like his attending a Trump rally to see what they’re like.
Besides, Eric Adams, mayor of New York, just went to Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia to tell them “New York City is full,” an empty gesture immediately denounced as a “paid vacation.” So Johnson’s trip, had it happened, would have been parroting a bad New York idea. Next he’ll suggest that Chicagoans pile garbage on the sidewalk.
I was rubbing my hands. Christmas is coming early this year ...
And then Johnson has to go and ruin it by canceling his trip, in reaction to the chorus of ridicule along the lines of, “Why don’t you investigate the city that you are theoretically mayor of instead, and acquaint yourself with the myriad problems right the flip here?”
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I'd call Johnson a fool, but I really don't want to tar the average fools around by comparing this utter incompetent to them! He has already shown he has no idea of what he's doing as mayor, except maybe having his car run red lights & go over the speed limit & get caught by the city's speed cameras & then not pay the fines.
ReplyDeleteHe's a dwarf stuck in a 50 foot deep pool & has no idea how to get out of it. Pritzker has already said he would veto any transaction tax on the various commodity exchanges here, because they could move their massive values out of state in a weekend, without a problem, if they were taxed!
I'd never thought I'd say this, but he makes Lightfoot look good as mayor & she was an abject failure in office!
I don’t even know this city anymore. True, I have been removed for six years, but I still can’t believe how mightily it has crumbled. Blaming doesn’t help, but it sure feels good. If bad leadership is considered a result of what we currently have, then social media must be included in the blame mix. If social media is included, then the last three years of chaos for anyone who is school aged and home schooling must be included in the blame mix. This is a depressing and incomplete recipe.
ReplyDeleteTony Preckwinkle, Johnson's puppet master, decided Johnson's proposed trip wasn't a good idea.
ReplyDeleteMore disappointment to come .. you don't worry. Plenty of failed policies and utter nonsense.... for years and years. No one with a clue is gonna want to run this city.
ReplyDeleteWhat a depressing array of comments. I am, like our esteemed blogger, a suburbanite, but on my many trips into the city I just don't find it to be a hellscape.
ReplyDeleteI'm even further removed...31 years in Cleveland. Last visit to Chicago was in August. Hellscape my asterisk...we had a wonderful time. Celebrated my birthday in the Wrigley bleachers, and even took the "L" there and back. Some of my old stomping grounds were more spiffed-up and gentrified than ever.
DeleteIt's not just a Chicago thing...other cities have "boy mayors" too, earnest young guys who make a lot of noise and mouth music while the same old shit goes on, year after year. Here in Cleveland, we recently elected a mid-thirties talking head named Justin Bibb, who was the best of a bad lot of candidates...including...wait for it...Dennis Kucinich. I wish I could have voted for "none of the above."
Mister Bibb replaced an aging mayor who was asleep at the wheel for sixteen years, waking up only when he needed to...like when he tried to save his gangbanger grandson from a murder rap.
Meanwhile, we are getting migrants from eastern Europe and South America, and they are opening businesses and starting up new eateries. But it's a trickle of humanity, not a flood...so hardly anyone is whining about it. Only the wingnuts complain. The City of Cleveland has lost over 60% of its population since 1950, so we need all the newcomers we can get.
DeleteIsn't Dennis the Menace also the campaign manager for newly anti-Semitic crackpot worthless pile of shit Bobby Kennedy Jr.?
No. He left the RFK Jr. campaign about a week ago, shortly after the candidate switched from Democrat to Independent.
DeleteA Chicago mayor making cringeworthy announcements is, I suppose, part of our grand tradition. And those are just the mayors that you can decipher when they speak. Surprise, Mayor Johnson, all those people who supported in your run for the ‘grand prize’ are still demanding everything you promised them, and they want it now.
ReplyDeleteIn the meanwhile, everybody talks about where we CAN’T settle the migrants, but it’s like a game of ‘pass the parcel’. The mayor’s office doesn’t return our calls. The Chicago Archdiocese doesn’t return calls from city hall. (Who would you believe? Time’s up! I’m still not sure how ‘pass the parcel’ works, but it sounded fitting).
Yesterday, I was walking along the River, through the southern half of Lathrop Homes, to the passage under the Damien Ave. bridge. I came across a van from Night Ministry visiting the homeless encampment under the bridge, and we chatted about something that has bothered me every time I take the shortcut to Aldi and Jewel on Clybourn Ave.
The south half of Lathrop is 80% abandoned, or at least it appears to be. Lots of broken windows, I’m guessing much of the plumbing has been removed, maybe the boilers, but…there it sits, empty, and as the two gentlemen from Night Ministry pointed out, we have empty buildings in Chicago up the old wazoo (my words). They’ve been trying to get the city to admit it for years, and they’re ignored. This landmark housing project, sitting empty for 5 or 6 years now, could probably house hundreds, if not thousands. What could be more fitting than it be housing homeless and immigrants. Not to mention the lost convents, rectories, factories, and, yes, public schools. There are plenty of ‘low level’ jobs in the area as well.
Every time somebody here complains about the influx of migrants, two guys in Texas chuckle, smirk, and decide to teach us a lesson and double down.
Brilliant Neil. Great read.
ReplyDelete