The late, great H. L. Mencken once observed, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard". This week's city elections in Chicago appear to have proved him right, yet again. Fox News reports:
Progressive candidate Brandon Johnson defeated former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in the Chicago mayoral election Tuesday, but some critics say his policies are worse than those of outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Fox News’ Gianno Caldwell, whose teenage brother Christian was murdered in the Windy City last year, spoke out about Johnson’s win, saying it was "horrific" for Chicago residents.
"[This] to me was the signing of thousands of death certificates of people who don't have to die because of the policies of which he's advocated for," he said Wednesday on "Your World." "This is a guy who's defunded the police, who's advocated for that, who's defended rioters and looters, who's not thought about public safety, who the police department, the police union, rather, has said that multiple police officers would resign with his election at stake."
Caldwell argued Democrats and Republicans agreed Lightfoot’s leadership and policies were "horrific," but said Johnson "stands to be worse than her."
There's more at the link.
Many of us seem to forget that the current control of most of America's large cities by the progressive left is because their own residents voted that way. There are far too many Americans who've been fooled by decades of progressive propaganda, schooled by a left-wing news media, and controlled by so-called "community organizers", so that they're no longer capable of independent, objective analysis of their cities and voting accordingly. Instead, they vote for the people, the party, that offers them the most in terms of bribes, corruption and special-interest-group rewards. They're the voters who elected DA Bragg in New York. They're the voters who just elected a progressive majority to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. They're the voters who supported President Biden in 2020.
The rest of us have to live with that reality, whether we like it or not. Such low-information, high-emotion voters have as much right to express themselves democratically as we do, and we can't ride roughshod over their choices - even though many of them will try to do that to us...
H. L. Mencken again:
"No one in this world, so far as I know - and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me - has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principle device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."
That man was wise beyond his years, and his wisdom - biting and cynical though it was - still resonates with us today. It also describes perfectly why recent elections in Chicago and Wisconsin turned out as they did...
Peter
EDITED TO ADD: This just in: "Chicago’s newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson has declared that black people are now immune from prosecution and should be removed from 'state-sponsored policing' as a way to fight 'white supremacy'." I haven't seen that quote in any of the mainstream media yet, but if it's accurate . . .
10 comments:
I absolutely refuse to give one more ounce of compassion to the citizens of Chicago, a city I use to love to visit. They had the chance to embrace a different future and move forward but choose equal to or worse than Lightfoot. To Bad, So Sad.
Chicago is a the retarded cousin of American cities.
Here is how you fix this:
Restrict the voting franchise to those who own property and/or businesses. Those who don't own property or businesses have no dog in the fight and thus no say.
Simple.
In ALL elections now the real question one MUST ask is "Did the electorate actually vote for this?". With mail in voting, ballot harvesting and Dominion Voting Systems the results of ALL elections are questionable...at best.
Chiraq will live up to its name real soon now... sigh
It needs to get much worse in Chicago and other urban areas. Until people truly suffer, they won't override their programming and make meaningful change.
This.
Its an overarching problem. The blue hive cities will never not be blue hive cities. Look at Chicago, look at San Fran... by hook or crook, these plots of dirt on the earth are what they are.
You won't defeat them. Look at them now, they claim victory...
Surround them, blockade them. Choke them off... and shoot anything that tries to get out 2 legs or 4.
Snake Plisken need not apply.
Dan is correct.
I wonder for how many decades has Chicago been effectively ruled by those who count votes rather than by the People.
The various right wing pundits who give credence to the vote seem to be suffering from a lack of memory. It was not all that long ago that Biden stole the election in plain sight. Chicago has had a rep of being corrupt about votes going back to the suspicion that Nixon actually beat JFK, but for Chicago cheating.
Sometimes one wonders about supposed right wing pundits. Are they there to say things, or are they just cooling the mark?
It is possible that Chicagoans (not illegals, but actual Chicagoans voted for the guy who 'won'.), but there is no way to know, and has not for decades. Get real.
Since the police are not protecting the regular citizens now, maybe defunding is a good idea. It will allow the normal people the chance to go 'Western' on the thugs with no worry of legal entanglements.
And one comment about restricting the vote to property owners (SnottyBoy)...So you want the Chinese voting in our elections? Why not just eliminate the vote for people on the dole to prevent them from voting for bigger handouts!
From Anon @ April 7, 2023 at 4:55 AM (above): "The blue hive cities will never not be blue hive cities"
I think they will, at some point, change and enter a very slow transition back to "normal" or, at least, something related, however distantly, to it. That will not occur for decades, unfortunately, because life in the blue hives will have to get not just worse, but much, much, very much, worse before whomever is still living there become sufficiently cognitive, and sufficiently negatively affected, to, first, truly recognize it and, second, elect to not suffer under it any longer.
The real challenge will be to contain it to within the blue hives and not let the cancer metastisize to other locales. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has for years recommended a "Welcome Wagon" approach: welcome newcomers - many of whom are Blue Hive refugees - to the community and explain "how things work here, and if you try to re-create what you had 'in you rold place' you will not be happy here; we value our community and will neither accept nor tolerate attempts at corrupting it; very pointedly, you will find things here very difficult for you if you insist on not accepting 'the way life is here.' Again, welcome, and have a nice day."
Blue Hives will continue to deteriorate and we must let them fall, but never, ever, allow that cancer to infect and prosper anywhere else.
"But the federal government" you say; so what? The fed dot gov has visibly become more corrupt, incompetent and increasingly impotent as individual states learn to develop independence. Slowly, very slowly, it will become less and less important; encourage that by working to strengthen the structure and operation inyour state and your communities.
It is quite true that Trump was not, and is not, a Savior, nor can DeSantis, Nikki Haley, or Elmer Fudd become one; Trump is a symptom of the much larger issue of citizens discovering, and disliking, the governmental departure from Constitutional government and government's disrespect and abuse of the citizens.
If there is a Savior to be found, it will be at your dinner table and the dinner tables of your neighbors and friends. You have power, strength and leverage as a Large Mass.
Use it.
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