They Need And Want Anarchy
Especially In Chicago
I peruse the internet. On LinkedIN, I am connected to a lot of people, and many of them are Chicagoans since I lived there for so long. When I lived in Chicago and started Hyde Park Angels, I was the Johnny Appleseed of capitalism. I didn’t care what your politics were, gender, skin color, or anything like that. I just wanted to know if you were willing to write an early check to an entrepreneur so they could build a company.
One reason I engaged in that process was to make money by investing in companies. I never made a dime from HPA, and it actually cost me money.
A driving reason for me to start HPA was because I saw that Chicago was on the brink of a financial precipice. I knew the politicians were full of themselves when they touted the “diversity of the economy”. Chicago was and is driven by financial services. Chicago has lost insurance, banking, investment banking, and other major verticals in finance. It has accounting, and it has trading.
Of course, the commies in Chicago want to tax trading, and if they did that, it would go away, too.
I was early in this realization. An old friend who has passed away, Dan Rahill, and I went to lunch. Two CEOs laid out the math on city/county/state budgets, pensions, and everything else. A career bureaucrat stood up at that lunch and said any reform was against the Constitution.
Dan and I quickly realized that either we grow the economic opportunity, or we move. I helped Dan start up Irish Angels, which has been a successful organization.
Since then, Chicago and the state of Illinois have only worsened, not improved. My friend Ted Dabrowski is running for governor, and if you live in Illinois, support him not only with signs in your hard and bumper stickers on your car, but any money you can afford to send him. There are a couple of other candidates out there, but Ted is the only one who can win and knows where the bodies are buried.
People ask me if I miss Chicago now that I have moved to Nevada. I tell them, I miss my butcher and some of the places I used to patronize. I don’t miss the people. Why don’t I miss the people?
Because of a lot of the stuff I read on LinkedIn. They aren’t any different than the career bureaucrat.
Trump has sent ICE to Chicago to get rid of illegal aliens. It makes sense because Chicago is a center for drug trafficking in the US. The local machine politicians have made nice with the gangs and let them run wild as long as they get the vote out for them. 6200 murders and over 40k people wounded in Chicago over the last ten years. The violence is spreading to nicer neighborhoods in the city. You can go on social media and see beautiful photos of the river going into the lake, but those same people never set foot in Austin or Englewood. If they are a politician, they might for a photo op, but they will have an extensive security detail. The mayor has 150 cops on his detail.
My old liberal acquaintances are very upset with Trump. They are posting all over LinkedIn about the “rule of law”. Pretty clear they have no understanding of the law. They wonder why ICE agents are wearing masks. Maybe it’s a fear of Covid, but I'm joking. Masks never worked for Covid. They are wearing masks because terrorist organizations like ANTIFA are threatening them and their families with violence.
It’s pretty clear the Democrats have chosen violence as the next level of escalation. Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood. A Virginia Attorney General candidate threatens to put bullets in the heads of the Virginia Speaker of the House and his children. There are no calls from any Virginia Democrat for him to step down, let alone any Democrat.
You can search the internet for more allegories of the violence and threats of violence the left is bringing to the right.
There are some truths about immigration and illegal aliens.
You cannot have open borders with a welfare state. It’s impossible.
It is lawful to deport illegal aliens. They aren’t here legally, and it is the federal government’s role to do it. There is no such thing as a sanctuary state or city. Asserting such is not any different than assertions by the old Confederacy that they were above federal law.
When there is no law, and there is no will to enforce the law, or there is only a selective will to enforce some laws, anarchy will reign. Totalitarians love anarchy. It’s what Lenin brought to Russia to take control. It is the playbook of Saul Alinsky. Anarchy begets totalitarianism.
The other commonality in all this is that it seems consistent that career politicians favor anarchy. Career politicians are a bane on the existence of our country. I had a conversation with a VC in SF about this once. His research backed it up. Term limits and getting people out of government and into the private sector are a great thing for freedom.
One problem with strict term limits is that a person who is term-limited out will just run for another office. Maybe they should have to sit out at least one cycle.
Career politicians are terrible in any form in any party. They hold and concentrate power. Our government is structured to be decentralized. Career politicians are terrible if they are fully developed, like Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell. Terrible if they are young and using various offices as stepping stones to a higher office, like they are climbing some corporate ladder.
Part of the problem is the way legislative bodies dole out power. The longer you serve, the better committee chair and assignments you have.
Seeing people like Trump leave private business to run for office is generally a positive. They will go back to private life when they are done. JB Pritzker might be the exception here. He was pretty despicable prior to running. He’s been proven to be despicable while in office. He lies more than any rug ever did.
In California, hard-leftist Governor Gavin Newsom is asking people to vote on gerrymandering. Of course, there is a problem with the mail-in ballots already. Democrats will push every edge of every envelope they can to rig elections. The sheep will vote for gerrymandering, not realizing they are eliminating competition, centralizing power, and eliminating freedom for themselves. They will do it because they think they are fighting Trump. They are signing their own death warrant. But some are so wealthy, they can spend their way to freedom. We used to say, “I’d like to be wealthy enough to be a Democrat,” when I was trading on the floor.
Every single thing a Democratic politician does today is designed to concentrate power, eliminate competition, and create anarchy so they can grab more power and continue to centralize. Certainly, there are some Republicans who fit this description, but they aren’t the majority like they are in the other party.
If anarchy starts at some flashpoint in Chicago, Portland, or another unexpected place, watch how the different parties respond.
Except for a year away for college and another year on Wall Street, my first 44 years were spent in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. I considered myself the ultimate Chicagoan. My dad and then I were Bear season ticket holders, I went to dozens of Cub games, concerts, street fairs, rode the L, walked the alleys, caught rays on the beaches, played softball, traded on both futures exchanges and then became the 48th Ward GOP Committeeman. I ate and drank from Hegewisch to Hyde Park to Beverly to Edison Park. Indeed, Chicago was the largest part of my identity. But then, suddenly, in the early aughts I noticed a profound difference in the city-and even, in the North Shore suburbs. While the city had long been Democrat, Chicago had always leaned a bit Right. No one ever confused a Daley for a leftist. However, each passing year, old school Chicagoans either made their way to Heaven, Arizona or suburbs in the Daily Herald's coverage area. They were replaced by a million or so La Raza, sex freaks who were forced out of their hometowns in Iowa, and liberal arts majors from Madison who wound up as northside baristas. Gone were the capital risking traders, hard working factory workers and common sense tavern owners. Finally, in 2005, I moved to South Florida to be close to my parents and not only have I never looked back, I'm flat out disdainful toward those who remain.
I’ve offered my Illinois State Representative (a real Democrat kook) a drive tour of my old neighborhood, Austin, for a real look at welfare state policies, but she turned me down. She’s a ‘silver spoon’ loon who has the full support of the Illinois Democratic Super Majority because she’s a ‘useful idiot’ for them! DuPage County has been taken over by AWFLs.