For years the hard left has been frustrated by Chicago politics because their goals and policy objectives often butt heads with the business community. After any election of mayor, the real estate folks and the CEO's usually reach out and build the relationship with the new mayor quietly, often forging a large, regular block of political funding. This usually forces the mayor to make a decision that, say, CTU might not like about any given issue, because the mayor has moderated after building a coalition with the business people. For the most part, that has kept Chicago somewhat sane. But, you have to be on the inside of that conversation to see real benefits of that arrangement.
If you remember, Lori was a progressive, and she was campaigning on many hard left issues as well, including defund the police. But she didn't have a fundraising bloc, so the business community and city elite filled the void once she was elected. She moderated (by Chicago standards) and that's why the city's progressives abandoned her. She didn't get done what they wanted done at the pace they wanted. Yes, crime was an issue, but progressives feeling betrayed was a bigger one for that bloc.
So they decided to run one of their own. A teacher, union organizer. They spent just about everything they had and went for it all and won.
What will be interesting is if the business community can again build that relationship with Johnson in such a way that forces him to moderate his policy stances against the militant wishes of CTU and the other public unions. We'll see. The difference is that this time CTU has established that they can fund him and get out the votes on their own, so he is wholly owned and operated by them. That was never the case with ANY former mayor. You can bet that Johnson's administration will be full of CTU leadership, and they will also keep him in check.
This is all why I think this time will be different, and that they will enact a blizzard of anti-business legislation, and why they will forge ahead, business be damned. Business needs Johnson, but Johnson (at least at first) will believe he doesn't need business. These CTU types are true believers of their Marxist dogma, and you can bet they are going to give that socialism that "has never been tried properly" a full shot in creating their utopia of "black labor against white wealth."
So, things are going to percolate while the CEOs reach out and see what he's made of. How warmly does he receive the olive branches and relationships? What will he do for his first test when CTU wants something that business does not? THAT is when business will either decide that things are normal, or it's time to really get the hell out of town.
Apr 10, 2023·edited Apr 10, 2023Liked by Jeffrey Carter
If I ran the exchanges, the day after the mayoral inauguration, I would announce a move to Texas in one year. I would claim an administration openly hostile to our industry and the innovation and wealth it generates created to much uncertainty to sustain operations over the long-term. Don’t make it personal, just cold hard facts.
Make the state scramble. Force JB to draft and promote legislation or a constitutional amendment abolishing any kind of taxation on financial transactions. And when they don’t or can’t get all the progs onboard, Brandon will bear the brand of scaring off one of the largest and most profitable industries in the world.
It’s time for the Chicago exchanges to flex their muscle.
I agree with everything you say with one quibble. I would not call them Marxists or communists. The Marxist's I knew believed in Marxism as a political movement that would be beneficial for the population. Rightly or wrongly, they had sincere belief in the end goal. History has shown that belief was misplaced. The historian Stephen Kotkin made an interesting point when he had a chance to go through all the USSR archives in the 1990's. He said that everyone thought that they would learn that the leaders were cynical men who just used Communism as a way to gain power. Instead, he learned, surprisingly, that the leaders of the USSR did indeed believe, at a personal level, in the eventual goodness of Communism.
In Chicago, and the US progressive movement now, there are very few true believers. They are not Marxists. They just see this as a way to gain power, prestige and, from that, wealth. To call them Marxists is to insult Marxists. They are the Mafia dressed up in fancy academic language. Nothing more. The veneer of a political philosophy gives them acceptability among the mid and leftish Dems. Until of course they realize they don't need those mid and leftish Dems anymore and those fools will be tossed away like a dirty Covid mask.
There are no Democrats anymore. There are people who jumped on the gravy train and then there are fools. That's it.
I do not think your well articulated thoughts are all that different than the WSJ's. Exodus is Exodus, and there is little doubt those departing Illinois (whether city dwellers or otherwise) left a void that has made it easier for the Dems. and their problem-children, the so-called "progressives" (read Marxists) to win elections. Illinois is in free-fall; Chicago is lost.
As a touch point to many of the comments here, I just read a Bloomberg article about the unionizing efforts at Starbucks and the leftist "salts" who helped to push unions on a few of Starbucks stores. Many of them were openly Marxist, with one sporting a hammer and sickle tattoo and another having a picture of Karl Marx on their apartment wall.
It struck me as the very sympathetic story was told, given all the work and subterfuge to hide their union activities, why didn't any of these people just start their own business? Maybe another coffeeshop or any other kind of business. That way they could throw off the whole yoke of "oppression?" But then, perhaps, that isn't the point for the unionizers? Nowhere in the article did it mention any benefits the union would bring that they did not have already. Maybe these 20-something workers just want to break things. They have no interest in building anything, just tearing things down and seemingly for no actual reason other than something can be broken.
It seems these activities are experiencing a small resurgence, I only hope people see it for what it is, breakers vs. makers/builders.
Chicago would be better compared to Baltimore or St. Louis rather than Detroit. Regardless of the city used for comparison the outcome does not look good.
You are correct. The communists have taken over Chicago and the first thing they do is purge their enemies. But there are so many Democrats that aren’t communists that seem willfully blind t what is happening. Maybe it’s some kind of psychological defense mechanism. They just will not awaken. I was watching Michael Malice interview Jack Posobiec and Jack said he had a neighbor that was complaining about the high cost of everything. Rather than attribute this to inflation due to Democrat money printing and government spending, he attributed it to businesses “price gouging”. We live in a country full if brainwashed ignoramuses. And they vote!
I agree that the city will be hollowed out, but it will probably take a long time. It will be interesting to see what the effects of a hollowed out downtown will be on the rest of the city. Once the downtown loses its vibrancy it’s just going to keep getting worse. Crime will increase, tourism will drop. As the corporations slowly leave and street level vacancies increase, the downtown will become a place that no one wants to visit. I don’t believe there’s enough money to renovate all the old buildings in the downtown either, especially to create apartments. The downtown can’t survive with government offices only.
How depressing. I grew up in NYC during the 1970s/1980s. It was a dismal place then, but it came back and flourished - until DiBlasio and Covid policies took over. Here's to hoping these cities - NY, Chicago, Philly, SF - eventually come back and don't become Detroits. I, for one, don't want any more of their refugees coming out to the exurban areas to ruin those :)
Two points; there is a self-leveling mechanism. As population moves and shifts, congressional seats go with them. Witness California, New York, Illinois and others lost congressional seats after the census of 2020. It happens once every 10 years so it's a slow process, but sure.
My second point is a quibble and it is regarding Detroit. The car manufacturers and suppliers thought they were untouchable in the 60's and 70's. That there was no competition to speak of other than smaller German car makers. The UAW struck a number of times to get a bigger piece of the pie in pay and more importantly, work-rule changes that made manufacturing unbelievably difficult. Consequently, quality suffered dramatically. We all know the story after that. I don't know how UAW and CTU are much different. The quality of the CTU product is as dismal as the quality of the UAW product and the outcome will be the same.
In retrospect Vallas ran a bad campaign. The people who live in the sh*tiest neighborhoods and the worst schools voted for Johnson. Whatever one thinks of the CPD (everyone should want good and accountable police) the FOP endorsement didn't help Vallas. Looking at historical polls a majority of the population supported the CTU even during Covid. So the messaging was always going to be important. And Vallas didn't do it for those groups that he needed. (I think the CTU also learned lessons from its defeat in the 2017 election.)
With 35% turnout and less than 20,000 votes difference the fix was not necessarily in. It wouldn't have taken much to move results the other way. A lot of above average income people on the north side voted for Johnson for whatever reasons. These are regular people who are not involved in ward politics. They are people who more or less blindly follow flyers and TV commercials.
There's a new book called "Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions" by Philip Howard. The Ds (and some Rs) let these unions take over and they're bad for good governance and accountability. This was a good discussion with the author:
A friend of mine worked on Wall Street for 26 years and retired and moved from Ct to Park City Utah. He and his wife built an 8500 square foot home on three acre lot. His home has an estimated value of $5.2 million and his property taxes are only $8200. The property taxes on my modest home in Lake County Illinois is $8800 and my home is only worth $320,000. I read an article a few years ago that 11% of the homes in Lake County, IL that have a mortgage they have more in monthly property taxes and principle and interest on their mortgage. Jeff, as you mentioned about Wirepoints and Illinois Policy, Illinois Policy writes that Illinois taxes are the highest in the country. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-tax-rates-rank-no-1-highest-in-u-s/
For years the hard left has been frustrated by Chicago politics because their goals and policy objectives often butt heads with the business community. After any election of mayor, the real estate folks and the CEO's usually reach out and build the relationship with the new mayor quietly, often forging a large, regular block of political funding. This usually forces the mayor to make a decision that, say, CTU might not like about any given issue, because the mayor has moderated after building a coalition with the business people. For the most part, that has kept Chicago somewhat sane. But, you have to be on the inside of that conversation to see real benefits of that arrangement.
If you remember, Lori was a progressive, and she was campaigning on many hard left issues as well, including defund the police. But she didn't have a fundraising bloc, so the business community and city elite filled the void once she was elected. She moderated (by Chicago standards) and that's why the city's progressives abandoned her. She didn't get done what they wanted done at the pace they wanted. Yes, crime was an issue, but progressives feeling betrayed was a bigger one for that bloc.
So they decided to run one of their own. A teacher, union organizer. They spent just about everything they had and went for it all and won.
What will be interesting is if the business community can again build that relationship with Johnson in such a way that forces him to moderate his policy stances against the militant wishes of CTU and the other public unions. We'll see. The difference is that this time CTU has established that they can fund him and get out the votes on their own, so he is wholly owned and operated by them. That was never the case with ANY former mayor. You can bet that Johnson's administration will be full of CTU leadership, and they will also keep him in check.
This is all why I think this time will be different, and that they will enact a blizzard of anti-business legislation, and why they will forge ahead, business be damned. Business needs Johnson, but Johnson (at least at first) will believe he doesn't need business. These CTU types are true believers of their Marxist dogma, and you can bet they are going to give that socialism that "has never been tried properly" a full shot in creating their utopia of "black labor against white wealth."
So, things are going to percolate while the CEOs reach out and see what he's made of. How warmly does he receive the olive branches and relationships? What will he do for his first test when CTU wants something that business does not? THAT is when business will either decide that things are normal, or it's time to really get the hell out of town.
If I ran the exchanges, the day after the mayoral inauguration, I would announce a move to Texas in one year. I would claim an administration openly hostile to our industry and the innovation and wealth it generates created to much uncertainty to sustain operations over the long-term. Don’t make it personal, just cold hard facts.
Make the state scramble. Force JB to draft and promote legislation or a constitutional amendment abolishing any kind of taxation on financial transactions. And when they don’t or can’t get all the progs onboard, Brandon will bear the brand of scaring off one of the largest and most profitable industries in the world.
It’s time for the Chicago exchanges to flex their muscle.
I agree with everything you say with one quibble. I would not call them Marxists or communists. The Marxist's I knew believed in Marxism as a political movement that would be beneficial for the population. Rightly or wrongly, they had sincere belief in the end goal. History has shown that belief was misplaced. The historian Stephen Kotkin made an interesting point when he had a chance to go through all the USSR archives in the 1990's. He said that everyone thought that they would learn that the leaders were cynical men who just used Communism as a way to gain power. Instead, he learned, surprisingly, that the leaders of the USSR did indeed believe, at a personal level, in the eventual goodness of Communism.
In Chicago, and the US progressive movement now, there are very few true believers. They are not Marxists. They just see this as a way to gain power, prestige and, from that, wealth. To call them Marxists is to insult Marxists. They are the Mafia dressed up in fancy academic language. Nothing more. The veneer of a political philosophy gives them acceptability among the mid and leftish Dems. Until of course they realize they don't need those mid and leftish Dems anymore and those fools will be tossed away like a dirty Covid mask.
There are no Democrats anymore. There are people who jumped on the gravy train and then there are fools. That's it.
You, of course, know Chicago like only a native can. You know how the city smells.
Today, it smells like a nasty cess pool.
I recall when Detroit was a major city and the heartbeat of automobile making in the entire county.
Whatever the lesser comparative degree of being a cess pool is -- that's Detroit.
It happens and Chicago is on that same glide path. This does not end well.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Terrific and sad overview of the demise of Chicago. Today I also read articles on the demise of Portland, and with it- Oregon (https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2023/04/editorial-oregon-is-dealt-a-blow.html), and the final stake in the heart of my birthplace, Detroit (https://news.yahoo.com/a-majority-of-detroit-wants-reparations-for-black-residents-what-happens-next-193602341.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABIIHqVdCnfCXCkJfLq8aQUDj8ixgAR6UAK5Kh62udjLHOfdmelEc5C1pqjTk9zfkcgxz54RgzVqQ0GaSmJPngMPdpIgB8RW5GhlB1qRfCp9vEH_1k1eBo_ATkRerqIu3Ndnopw0xxmsbuG454JDQt__hfBkxsEK-hE1J3Nb9NDL). Add to that the cities of Seattle (which does feature a statue of Lenin in the Fremont area), San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Newark, Milwaukee, and New York, all of which are run by Democrat machines and are seeing the populace that can- leave. There is no mystery to this. Our education system has been lacking for decades now. Those miseducated and leftist indoctrinated are now running these cities, the media, and the schools. The long plan is being well executed, probably far better than the Russians of the 60s and 70s could have ever imagined. I don't know where it all ends. But it cannot end with all those clamoring for freedom squeezing into Las Vegas, Texas, Florida, and South Carolina. I feel like I'm staring at a runaway train. I can see the collision coming, but not sure what to do to stop it.
I do not think your well articulated thoughts are all that different than the WSJ's. Exodus is Exodus, and there is little doubt those departing Illinois (whether city dwellers or otherwise) left a void that has made it easier for the Dems. and their problem-children, the so-called "progressives" (read Marxists) to win elections. Illinois is in free-fall; Chicago is lost.
As a touch point to many of the comments here, I just read a Bloomberg article about the unionizing efforts at Starbucks and the leftist "salts" who helped to push unions on a few of Starbucks stores. Many of them were openly Marxist, with one sporting a hammer and sickle tattoo and another having a picture of Karl Marx on their apartment wall.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-03/starbucks-amazon-labor-union-wins-helped-by-undercover-salts#xj4y7vzkg
It struck me as the very sympathetic story was told, given all the work and subterfuge to hide their union activities, why didn't any of these people just start their own business? Maybe another coffeeshop or any other kind of business. That way they could throw off the whole yoke of "oppression?" But then, perhaps, that isn't the point for the unionizers? Nowhere in the article did it mention any benefits the union would bring that they did not have already. Maybe these 20-something workers just want to break things. They have no interest in building anything, just tearing things down and seemingly for no actual reason other than something can be broken.
It seems these activities are experiencing a small resurgence, I only hope people see it for what it is, breakers vs. makers/builders.
Chicago would be better compared to Baltimore or St. Louis rather than Detroit. Regardless of the city used for comparison the outcome does not look good.
Sad, but true...
You are correct. The communists have taken over Chicago and the first thing they do is purge their enemies. But there are so many Democrats that aren’t communists that seem willfully blind t what is happening. Maybe it’s some kind of psychological defense mechanism. They just will not awaken. I was watching Michael Malice interview Jack Posobiec and Jack said he had a neighbor that was complaining about the high cost of everything. Rather than attribute this to inflation due to Democrat money printing and government spending, he attributed it to businesses “price gouging”. We live in a country full if brainwashed ignoramuses. And they vote!
I agree that the city will be hollowed out, but it will probably take a long time. It will be interesting to see what the effects of a hollowed out downtown will be on the rest of the city. Once the downtown loses its vibrancy it’s just going to keep getting worse. Crime will increase, tourism will drop. As the corporations slowly leave and street level vacancies increase, the downtown will become a place that no one wants to visit. I don’t believe there’s enough money to renovate all the old buildings in the downtown either, especially to create apartments. The downtown can’t survive with government offices only.
How depressing. I grew up in NYC during the 1970s/1980s. It was a dismal place then, but it came back and flourished - until DiBlasio and Covid policies took over. Here's to hoping these cities - NY, Chicago, Philly, SF - eventually come back and don't become Detroits. I, for one, don't want any more of their refugees coming out to the exurban areas to ruin those :)
"Well-heeled," not "well-healed."
Two points; there is a self-leveling mechanism. As population moves and shifts, congressional seats go with them. Witness California, New York, Illinois and others lost congressional seats after the census of 2020. It happens once every 10 years so it's a slow process, but sure.
My second point is a quibble and it is regarding Detroit. The car manufacturers and suppliers thought they were untouchable in the 60's and 70's. That there was no competition to speak of other than smaller German car makers. The UAW struck a number of times to get a bigger piece of the pie in pay and more importantly, work-rule changes that made manufacturing unbelievably difficult. Consequently, quality suffered dramatically. We all know the story after that. I don't know how UAW and CTU are much different. The quality of the CTU product is as dismal as the quality of the UAW product and the outcome will be the same.
In retrospect Vallas ran a bad campaign. The people who live in the sh*tiest neighborhoods and the worst schools voted for Johnson. Whatever one thinks of the CPD (everyone should want good and accountable police) the FOP endorsement didn't help Vallas. Looking at historical polls a majority of the population supported the CTU even during Covid. So the messaging was always going to be important. And Vallas didn't do it for those groups that he needed. (I think the CTU also learned lessons from its defeat in the 2017 election.)
With 35% turnout and less than 20,000 votes difference the fix was not necessarily in. It wouldn't have taken much to move results the other way. A lot of above average income people on the north side voted for Johnson for whatever reasons. These are regular people who are not involved in ward politics. They are people who more or less blindly follow flyers and TV commercials.
There's a new book called "Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions" by Philip Howard. The Ds (and some Rs) let these unions take over and they're bad for good governance and accountability. This was a good discussion with the author:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teachers-pest/id1291144720?i=1000605298961
and an excerpt:
https://reason.com/2023/01/26/public-unions-vs-the-public-good/
A friend of mine worked on Wall Street for 26 years and retired and moved from Ct to Park City Utah. He and his wife built an 8500 square foot home on three acre lot. His home has an estimated value of $5.2 million and his property taxes are only $8200. The property taxes on my modest home in Lake County Illinois is $8800 and my home is only worth $320,000. I read an article a few years ago that 11% of the homes in Lake County, IL that have a mortgage they have more in monthly property taxes and principle and interest on their mortgage. Jeff, as you mentioned about Wirepoints and Illinois Policy, Illinois Policy writes that Illinois taxes are the highest in the country. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-tax-rates-rank-no-1-highest-in-u-s/