Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

By John Ruberry

Last year’s mayoral election in Chicago presents a media deja vu moment with national implications.

Yes, I’m talking about Kamala Harris.

Brandon Johnson, an organizer for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union while serving as member of the Cook County commissioner–a rubber stamp body controlled by board president, Toni Preckwinkle, a leftist like Johnson.

Paul Vallas, a centrist Democrat, ran a wonky white-paper dominated campaign that was centered on hiring more police officers and prosecuting more misdemeanors. He lost. 

Johnson campaigned largely on platitudes. His political career is a creation of the Chicago Teachers Union, and aggressive campaigning by the CTU, including door to door work, identifying Johnson’s supporters, and getting them to the polls, pushed “Branjo” over the top. 

Republicans? Are we doing that? 

Back to my point.

As a commissioner, Johnson could only point one accomplishment in office, the non-binding “Justice for Black Lives” resolution that passed in 2020, which called for diverting funds from law enforcement to social services.

The extreme left loves symbolism. It also hates the police.

Also in 2020, Johnson said of the Defund the Police movement that it was “not a slogan, it’s an actual real political goal.”

Chicago’s mainstream media, Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times is a notable exception, are compliant lapdogs for the left. If at all, they barely challenged Branjo on his thin resume and his far-left beliefs.

Before the first round of voting for mayor, Johnson was asked about his support of Defund the Police and cutting law enforcement, Johnson flippantly replied, “Ask better questions.”

Finally, at a law enforcement forum before the second round of balloting, Johnson was asked about his backing of the Defund movement. “I said it was a political goal,” Johnson replied, “I never said it was mine.”

So the media, even though crime was the biggest issue of the 2023 Chicago mayoral campaign, dropped the Defund issue. 

The Chicago media barely vetted Johnson. Just as the national media didn’t do so on Joe Biden’s senility in 2020–and it all but ignored Hunter Biden laptop story. A year later, the national media elite is ignoring or minimizing the far-left political position of Kamala Harris, and her politically convenient flip-flops on them.

Last week, in her weekly podcast, the aforementioned Spielman interviewed centrist Chicago alderman Brendan Reilly, who supported Vallas in last year’s election.

Reilly, who may be candidate for mayor in 2027, said that Johnson was en route to becoming a “one-termer” who was “woefully unprepared” to lead America’s third-largest city, and a mayor who is a beholden to the “radical left.”

Johnson, who has blamed Richard M. Nixon for Chicago’s violence epidemic, is rumored to have suffered from panic attacks. The mayor regularly points his finger at white supremacy when his discussing city’s many ills.

The warning signs were there on Johnson for anyone who did some digging. But the Chicago media barely reported on them. Last week, a Fox Chicago reporter revealed that his City Hall staffer in charge of working with City Council and state legislators to advance the mayor’s agenda, Kennedy Bartley, made vile anti-police comments in a 2021 podcast, including calling law enforcement officers “f*cking pigs.”

This is Johnson’s inner circle. The mayor has resisted calls to fire Bartley.

As for crime, while Johnson has not defunded the police, his choice as police superintendant, Larry Snelling, says the CPD is short nearly 2,000 officers. 

Chicago faces a $220 million budget deficit for this year and a nearly $1 billion for 2025. In response, Branjo announced a hiring freeze, but two days later, he exempted the fire and police departments from that freeze. 

Crime is still sky high since Johnson took over. Murders are down, but only a little bit.

Johnson has driven the Chicago train off the rails. Ironically–and the Chicago media ignores this other story–the mayor has a massive polite detail, said to number anywhere from 125-150 cops. Johnson clearly doesn’t want to defund his police protection.

Back to Harris. 

Will the mainstream media drop its biases and finally vet the vice president?

Or will they wait, until a year or so after she’s sworn in, when another “woefully unprepared” office holder, one who is beholden to “the radical left,” fails again, for so-called journalists to finally sound the alarm about Harris? Maybe not. The media was all-in on Biden until his cognitive decline couldn’t be explained away after his June debate with Donald Trump.

Biden, whose mind was clearly slipping in 2020, is arguably a tool of the far-left. 

Will Harris, arguably an intellectual lightweight, end up in the same position if she wins the presidency?

John Ruberry regularly blogs from just north of Chicago at Marathon Pundit.