In Brief: The City That Democrats Debased
If Democrat delegates want to learn why they are losing support among working-class voters, they should get out of the convention center and look around Chicago.
Democrats have been losing working-class voters. National Review’s John Fund notes that the city of Chicago perfectly depicts why this trend has been occurring.
The poet Carl Sandburg called Chicago the “city of big shoulders.” He celebrated how its working-class self-reliance and drive had made it a leader in every industry from meatpacking to railroad construction. In the 1950s, it was known as “the city that works,” with public services that were the envy of the nation. A new slogan for Chicago today, however, might be “the city that people leave.” The four horsemen of urban apocalypse — poverty, high crime rates, oppressive taxation, and horrible public schools — are driving an exodus from the city.
Surprisingly, Chicago’s population was larger 100 years ago than it is today. Only Detroit and San Francisco have lost more population. Combined with the shrinking population is the exiting of businesses.
Things have gotten only worse since then, accelerated by last year’s narrow election of Brandon Johnson, a former lobbyist for the Chicago Teachers Union, as mayor. He heads a coalition that now basically runs the city: teachers’-union members, public employees, DEI activists, corporate-welfare guzzlers, and community organizers. The Chicago Teachers Union is now really feeling its oats with one of their own installed as mayor. In contract negotiations, it is now demanding 9 percent annual raises, housing assistance for teachers and families, and divestment from funds that contribute to climate change. CTU president Stacy Davis Gates says the union wants “$50 billion and three cents.” At the City Club of Chicago in March, when pressed on where the money would come from, she said, “Stop asking that question. Ask another question.” One reason for her reticence to discuss the issue may be that she knows the city is sitting on a public-pension time bomb. An article by University of Chicago’s Center for Effective government notes that the city spent one-fifth of its 2023 budget propping up its four public pension funds.
But Chicago’s Democrat leadership solution is to continue to push failed leftist policies.
In June, Johnson issued an executive order creating a task force to report on slavery reparations. “We are going to invest half a million dollars into the study of restoration and reparations for the City of Chicago so that we can begin to move in the direction of complete liberation,” he announced. “It’s important to remember that reparations will not only benefit black people but also the entire neighborhoods in which black people exist. We will create inclusive opportunities so that we all can win. Reparations will ultimately help us build a better, stronger, safer Chicago.” He concluded by saying, “God bless you, and God bless the blackest city in the world, the City of Chicago.”
What about the city’s crime problem?
Progressives love to talk about the “root causes” of urban decay. The “root causes” of store closures are violent crime, shoplifting, soaring taxes, and increased regulation. These are creating the very “food deserts” that progressives say government must spend oceans of money to provide for. If he really cared about Chicagoans, Mayor Johnson would prosecute criminals, put more police on the street, stop making excuses for looters, and end his lawsuits against carmakers for “making their vehicles too easy to steal.”
As Ronald Reagan said, “Contrary to what we’re told, there are simple solutions to some of our problems. Just not easy ones.”
