WEBVTT - Mild Progress Defeats Pure Evil: The Chicago-Michigan Election Special 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.960 Welcome to it could happen here a podcast coming live, 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:10.360 not live, really not I need to come up with 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:12.600 a better bit than coming to you live, but coming 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.000 coming to you from from from now fallen apparently on 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:22.120 fire destroyed Chicago, so so so say the many oracles, 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.080 soothsayers and cops who live in this city who are 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.160 now absolutely convinced that the city is going to descend 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.080 into crime and chaos, etcetera, etcetera, after the cop candidate 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.479 got absolutely blown the fuck out in the last elections. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.000 And yeah, with me to talk about this election and 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.520 a couple of other elections that happened on the same 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.880 day that we're very funny and where the worst people 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.920 in the world got absolutely destroyed. Is Ali who is 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.960 one of my friends and is an election analyst. Yeah, 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.639 welcome to the show. How are you doing. I'm doing well. 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.880 Thank you for having Mimia. Nice to be nice to 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.560 be here. Yeah, I'm very excited. Yeah, because this is 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:04.720 just very funny. It's extremely funny. I personally was really 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.440 enjoying getting to read the Twitter tea leaves. You could 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:14.040 tell kind of which Alderman were having meltdowns on election night. Yeah, 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.040 so I guess I guess we could start with the 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.520 stuff that happened in Chicago, which is that Paul Vallis 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:26.520 the butcher of the public education system, running dog of 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:32.120 the cops, the hero of J six people. I was 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.320 just kind of thwacked in an election by Brandon Johnson, 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.520 the sort of progressive candidate who I'm very excited I 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.800 no longer have to pretend that I like particularly much. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:49.480 Yes now, as as Mia says, Paul Vallis, resident Dino 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.520 from Palos Heights, a southwest suburb of Chicago, who conveniently 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.560 bought an apartment in Chicago exactly a year before the election, 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:00.680 which is how long you have to live in Chicago 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:05.800 to be the mayor, lost the runoff to Brandon Johnson, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.320 a black progressive who was on the Cook County Board. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.320 About when all the results are done coming in in 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.399 a couple of weeks, it will be about fifty two 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.639 percent for Johnson and forty eight percent for Vallis. As 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:20.880 Mia says, this lets a lot of people on the 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:25.240 left no longer have to keep up the charade of oh, 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.120 Johnson's the best thing that has happened to us, and 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:35.600 sliced bread if you are like more of a like 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.600 Democratic Party loyal progressive voter. This is a very very 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:45.280 good thing in your eyes. Yeah, and I think, you know, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.680 I think it's something very interesting and kind of fitting 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:50.800 about this, which is that Yeah. And one of these 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.640 you've talked about is that. Yeah, like Brandon Johnson is 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.280 the first like progressive TM mayor Trevor's had since like 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.600 I mean blue to release its held Washington, who is 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.800 first black mayor in the eighties. And it's very interesting 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.239 also because a bunch of the reforms that Harold Washington 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:13.120 did were specifically overturned by Paul Vallis. Yeah, Like he's 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.000 the guy you did a bunch of educational reforms that 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:21.200 fucking sucked, that destroyed I have Washington stuff. It's no, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:27.680 it's it's really wild. How like Chicago politics is analogous 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.840 to to go really out there for a second is 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.560 analogous the state of Hawaii in the sense that people 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.760 never die. The same people are going to be on 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.440 your ballot for fifty years and you just kind of 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.320 have to suck it up and deal with it. But 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:45.640 every so often someone good comes along, or at least 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.960 someone better, and if you get them into office the 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.080 first time, and if you get them to survive their 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.720 first reelection campaign, then they get to be one of 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.440 the people who's on the ballot forever and who never dies. 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:01.320 And slowly but surely you can make Chicago politics less shitty. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.720 But yeah, as Mia said, this is going to be 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:09.440 the first progressive Chicago mayoral administration since Harold Washington. And 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:16.320 Johnson won the same way as Harold Washington did. On Yeah, 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.960 the backbone of Johnson's coalition, just as with Harold Washington's, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.120 was black voters. Johnson got about eighty percent of the 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.520 black vote, because in Chicago elections are usually more about 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:33.919 race than anything else. But in addition to the black vote, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:39.799 Johnson one with progressives in white and non black communities 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:46.240 of color, as well as LGBTQ voters and finally fulfilling 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.960 the dreams of the here's how Bernie can still win 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:56.520 people from twenty fifteen a actual turnout surge of millennial 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.120 and Gen Z voters the Chicago Board of Election is 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.360 I don't think that anyone would call them great, but 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:11.240 they do produce some nice live statistics on election day 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:17.720 as the votes are tallied, and voters under forty five 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.839 had a turnout surge of I think it was about 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:27.000 twenty percent, whereas voters older than sixty, the raw number 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.960 of their votes actually went down. And this likely does 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.720 almost entirely account for Johnson's margin of victory, that he 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.599 was able to turn out young voters and that old 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.279 people just like stayed home. Yeah, I think it's also 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.400 you know, we talked about this in the episode we 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.280 did about Paul Fallis, But one of the things about 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.640 the initial election was that like the fact that Johnson 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.120 made it out of the primaries at all with a 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:57.560 genuinely night mirrorish like age like bracket of turnout in 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.160 the first round is sort of a miracle, but you know, 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.560 it got it got a lot better for him in 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.400 this one, and that genuinely seems to have like I 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.720 don't know, like I know a lot of people who 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.960 spent a lot of time like canvassing their asses off, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.080 and it actually seems to have worked. And I don't know, 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:19.919 I mean, you know, it means to be seen the 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.520 extent to which this was about, like the fact that 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.960 Vallis is like probably would have been the worst mayor 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.880 of Chicago in like we don't have to go, we 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.440 don't have to go back that far Daily was mayor 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.480 of Chicago as recently as twenty eleven. That's true, but 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.640 I I don't know Da Daily. Yeah, I mean it's 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.640 not like Chicago has good mayors. But I think he 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.599 would have been Okay, here's I think he would have 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.200 been the most politically far right mayor Chicago has had 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.200 in a long time. Oh yeah, Like he's just a Republican, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.240 like like a pretty like yeah, and you know that 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:03.280 fucking sucks, but he got Clawbard. There's also there's a 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.120 really funny result I want to talk about, which is that. Okay, 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:12.200 so the part of Chicago, the neighborhood of in Chicago 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:16.560 where the Cubs Stadium is is right next to Boystown, 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:19.400 which is the fucking gay district. And if if you 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.880 if you go in and look at like, well I say, 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:23.520 I say, it's the gat like a lot a lot 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.960 of it's it's it's it's it's now the rich gay 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.640 part of Chicago, because I know it's got priced out. 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.120 Well it kind of is. No, it's not. Market Park 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:36.320 is the rich gay part of Chicago. Brew Okay, it's 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:37.880 more of a rich gay part of Chicago than it 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:42.640 was like forty years ago years ago. Yeah, but like 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.160 like literally exactly split. You can, like you can like 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.320 see in the data exactly split down the line. The 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.800 gays voted for Brandy Johnson and all the people on 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.120 all the Cubs fans voted for Vallace. It's so funny, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.560 it is, it is extremely funny. And I will give 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:01.320 a quick shout out here to the Chicago Urbanist Twitter 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.720 account who made what I personally think is the funniest 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.280 meme to have come out of the election um, which 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:14.640 is a bunch of like uh stick figures and just 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.880 like black and white labeled Vallis voters running from a 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:24.040 like steam roller, a pink steamroller with a rainbow like 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:28.200 wheel being driven by a bunch of gay people, and 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:33.320 the steamroller is labeled boys down. It's really good, like 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.280 they I don't know, like like there there there is 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.680 this sort of a like this is sort of like 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.200 this is the coalition that well, I mean again, we 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.200 talked about it like this, this is the hairwashing coalition, Like, 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.760 this is the coalition that if you, if you're an 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.800 elect electoral list, like you need to produce something that 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:54.640 looks like this if you want to have any serious 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.679 chance of winning and yes, yeah, and the fact that 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:03.120 it actually worked sort of, Oh, it's a goddamn miracle, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.840 and shit never works. People have been trying to do 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.880 this for like forty fucking years and it never works. 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:11.839 I mean, you have been trying to do this for 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.080 forty plus years. But it's also like, this is really 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:20.800 the first election that I can think of anywhere since 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.160 Barack Obama's re election in twenty twelve, where like, this 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.880 is the coalition that actually put someone in like an 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.840 office that got a lot of national attention and that mattered. 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.600 That's not to say that it like literally hasn't happened 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.840 anywhere else. I'm just saying I can't think of any 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.040 off the top of my head. But like, in twenty twelve, 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.200 Barack Obama became the first person to be elected president 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.600 of the United States with less than forty percent of 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:53.040 the white vote, a feat that has never since been repeated. 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.000 Clinton got less than that and lost. Trump obviously won, 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:02.320 and Biden won because white voters left in twenty twenty. So, like, 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:08.199 this is a turnout and coalitional puzzle that most people 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.360 fail to put together and that Brandon Johnson miraculously pulled off. Yeah, 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.640 and I think on the one hand, Okay, this is 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.600 legitimately kind of because the result is not the thing 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.920 that normally happens. It is legitimately an interesting question as 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.400 to why this happened, and like a like a sort 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:31.160 of like legitimately kind of difficult like political science question. 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.079 On the other hand, most of the people attempting to 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.240 answer it have just oh my fucking god, Like if 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.240 I if I have to read another New York Times 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.600 article writing about this that's like like just clearly cobbled 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:46.680 together from three Wikipedia articles, like I'm gonna literally go insane. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.960 I think you, me and every other person in Chicago. Um, 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.680 you know, no matter if you are a Johnson voter 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.400 or a Vallis voter or someone who stayed home, we 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.480 can all come together in our hatred of that thirty 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.920 eight piece that was strong on the morning of election day. Um, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.560 if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're lucky, 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.880 and I'm not going to tell you. If you really well, 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:13.000 I'll give you a very brief summary of it, which 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.840 is a five three. Now they don't know they did. 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:19.200 They did. They did a racism That's what I'll leave 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.319 it at. They they did a racism, and they were 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:26.640 very wrong. They basically did the four races, white, Black, Latino, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:33.960 and leftist. Yeah, which is very funny. Um But hopefully, UM, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.959 I hopefully I'll take a stab at explaining what happened, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.680 and hopefully it's better than most people's explanation. But UM, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.200 I think part of it is that, um, as I 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.640 mentioned earlier, historically Chicago elections have been about race, and 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.240 like this was no um exception. This was much more 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:55.640 of an ideological uh great, Like the ideological lines were 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:00.000 a lot clearer in this election than previous mayoral races. Um. 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.480 But the foundation of Brandon Johnson's electoral victory was the 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.400 eighty percent of the vote that he got in black 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.840 majority neighborhoods. Black voters in Chicago selected the black candidate 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:14.600 because they looked at the white guy and said, oh, 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.080 we think you're going to be a massive dipshit. And 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.240 beyond that, you have a couple of other things working 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.920 in Johnson's favor. So like one, when it comes to 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.720 the youth vote, I cannot really believe I'm saying this 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:35.480 because I when this was announced. It's not that I 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.440 thought it wouldn't help. It's just that I wasn't sure 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.400 that it would help enough, but Johnson got a lot 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.280 of national progressive figures to endorse him, including Bernie Sanders, 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.680 and his campaign literally flew Bernie in for a rally 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.680 on a college campus here in Chicago, And I think 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.240 that genuinely did actually get a lot of young people 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.000 to realize that there was an election that they should 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.560 attention to, which is well, it was like like like 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.760 this happened, Like people fly in Bertie a lot and 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:08.040 it never matters, but it like it mattered here, which 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.680 is really amazing. Absolutely, like just a lot of this 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.600 election was wild. I think the other thing that really 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.600 helped Johnson was that a like, Chicago is a lot 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.200 less white than it used to be, which is not 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.440 something that usually gets said in this day and age, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.520 because Chicago is becoming white er then it was like 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.920 ten fifteen years ago. But Chicago was a lot less 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.480 white than it was in the eighties when Harold Washington 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.280 was elected, and so like there was more of a 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:43.240 ceiling on Paul Vallie's vote than Harold Washington's opponents had, 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.160 which meant that Valis had to be able to appeal 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:53.240 to not just white voters who reflectively were against any 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.480 black candidate, but he also had to make inroads in 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.240 Hispanic Asian as well as Black communities and trying to 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:04.280 get the black conservative vote, and he didn't. Valas didn't 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.400 do a terrible job here, but he just didn't do 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.480 a job that was good enough. He actually probably won 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.719 the Latino vote, it would It wasn't like a huge win, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.720 but it was a win. But the problem is that 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.320 turnout in on the Southwest Side of Chicago, which is 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.720 where in the majority of Chicago's Mexican American residents live, 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:31.720 was just super low, just like really really atrociously in 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.040 the tank, like to the extent like this is the 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.600 kind of turnout that inspires the online jokes about how 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.280 no one ever bothers to vote level bad turnouts on 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:49.280 the Southwest Side. So if Hispanic turnout had been on 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.480 the same level as white and black turnout, the race 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.480 probably would have been a lot closer. Valas also won Chinatown, 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.440 which is something that got a fairer amount of tension 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.200 on social media. But Johnson was able to win the 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.680 two other Asian ethnic enclaves in Chicago, which are the 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.840 Vietnamese neighborhood in Uptown called Asian and Argyle, as well 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:19.080 as the Desi neighborhood on the far North Side. And 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.600 I don't think we can really say how Asian voters 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:30.680 overall voted definitively because Asian voters in Chicago are pretty 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.640 well diffused through the city. But it's very clear that 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.040 like Vallas did not get the runaway win with Asian 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:42.240 voters that Eric Adams, for example did in New York City. Yeah, 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.160 and I specifically want to talk about Argyle for a 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.920 bit because the fact that Johnson won Argyle is fucking insane. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.239 Oh yeah, these are like like this is a community 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.440 of Vietnam War refugees, Like these people are hard line 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.880 anti communists. Like you go into these restaurants and they 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.640 all have Fox News on. So like, yeah, Johnson winning 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.320 these voters is incredible. Yeah. I mean like one of 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.000 one of the most famous noodle shops, there was a 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.640 guy who was at January sixth, like this is this 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:17.400 is a like a stereotypically unbelievably dogshit place for Johnson. 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.640 And yeah, and I say this about the China Chinatown 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:22.360 and this is something like I mean you could just 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.520 you can know this something like I've been tracking for 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.880 a while. I mean just by like walking through it 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.280 that Chinatown during the pandemic and kind of after it, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.880 I was having a bit before has gotten just notably 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:39.560 more fascist, Like oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff there. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.640 I mean, the anti homelessness stuff is really really really intense. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.280 They're they've been going really hard in the end. That's 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:47.960 the thing that kind of makes sense, right like this 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.000 this is a thing that you would kind of expect 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.760 out of, Like yeah, of course small business owners are 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.640 going to like go right, like that's like that's what 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.960 that's you know, that that's that you can you can 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.040 you you can find Mark's writing about phenomena in like 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.560 eighteen forty eight, right like this this has been a 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.840 thing since the beginning of time. But I don't know, 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:15.480 it's gotten. It's gotten legitimately kind of scary down there. Yeah, 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.640 and like a lot of it also I think was um, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.119 you know, there's been a divergence between how the North 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.360 Side Asian enclaves like the Dessey neighborhood and the Vietnamese 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:33.000 neighborhood have responded to this kind of stuff u versus Chinatown, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:39.120 especially on the other big social change that happened during 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.600 the pandemic, which was the twenty twenty Black Lives Matter 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.359 of protests. Yeah, I think from what I saw, like 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.880 the reaction on the North Side among these Asian enclaves 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.479 was pretty overall supportive of the protests, whereas down in 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.320 Chinatown as well as in McKinley Park, which is a 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.040 Hispanic majority neighborhood but has a pretty significant Asian population, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.679 those neighborhoods had this really really big like surge of 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.600 anti black racism in response to the protests. Like there 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:14.440 were quote unquote neighborhood watch groups that got formed, and 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:19.120 it was just it was bad. And you know, the 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:23.639 Vietnamese voters on argyle even though they're very like you know, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.600 they have Fox News on, like I said, and they're 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.919 really anti socialist, anti communists. There was a state Rep. 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.240 I am probably going to butcher his name, from which 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.280 I apologize, but I'm pretty sure his name is pronounced Hanwen, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.720 who is Vietnamese himself, and he won the seat last 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:44.480 year in twenty twenty two, and like he's very progressive. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.120 So there has been this very sharp divergence in how 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.879 the like Asian neighborhoods in Chicago have responded to some 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.120 of the social events of the last few years. Once 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.840 again by people, they're the Great nation of China's foot 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:06.800 social imperialism. I think the last thing that really should 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.919 be talked about in the context of Johnson's electoral win, 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:12.720 and when we come back we can talk about the 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:18.280 city council because that's also pretty interesting. Is that something 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.320 that if you want to watch elections, especially if you 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.679 want to watch Chicago election, something you should understand is 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:27.920 that the the Capital M machine in Chicago is pretty 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:32.119 much gone now and Brandon Johnson's win pretty much seals this. 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.400 It's not that the people are gone or that like 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:42.840 the you know, logistical operations of the machine are completely dead, 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.840 but the machine has now lost two elections in a row. 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.280 Because as much as Lorie, as much as Lorie Lightfoot sucked, 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:54.760 and she sucked so much, she also was an anti 0:19:54.800 --> 0:20:00.760 machine candidate, like she was like capital A anti when 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:05.639 she ran. And Brandon Johnson is not anti machine in 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.719 the way that Laurie was, but he definitely was not 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.320 the candidate of like the machine. So like they lost 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.880 to elections in a row. Mike Madigan has now been 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.840 indicted and he's probably going to prison for a very 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.879 long time. You should explain who Mike Madigan is, because Okay, 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.760 if you live in Illinois, like you know who Mike 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:24.920 Madigan is. If you don't live in Illinois, Mike Madigan, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.160 for my entire life, for like the lives of people 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:30.800 who are much older than me, has been like the 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.720 most the single most powerful political figure in all of Illinois. 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.520 Like he runs everything. Yeah, like he has like an 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.560 iron grip over everything that has happened in this state 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.040 for like forty years. Yes, and he finally got indicted 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.400 on some federal like charges of like I don't even 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.119 remember what the charges war, but it was very like 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.080 al Capona esque of like, yeah, we finally found something 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.560 to nail you on, so we're going to And so 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.960 he got indicted last year, and it is actually pretty impressive, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.359 Like how quickly his machine fell apart? Yeah, like he 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.840 just he didn't have an air ready to take control. Um. 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.440 And so it's not that like machine politics has gone 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.920 from Chicago. It's more that instead of a machine, there 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.640 are now going to be a bunch of smaller machines um, 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.359 which is going to make it easier for like normal 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.960 everyday people to actually have some saying the political process, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.000 which is a good thing. Yeah, and like the Choco 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:28.920 machine fucking sucks as I mean, like we talked about 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.320 sort of val Like I mean Valist was a machine guy, right, yes, absolutely, 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:34.560 and you know, and he is like the thing about 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:39.440 the the machine has two values, and it's corruption and neoliberalism. 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:45.600 And honestly, like not even neoliberalism so much anymore. It's 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.159 mostly just corruption. Yeah, I mean they've kind of I 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.080 would say, I think they've gotten less ideological over the 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.359 last twenty years, like well, like I think the last 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.959 like decade and a half. But they yeah, they really 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.679 they really fuck it. Like Chicago was like the political machine, 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.920 and you know, like I mean like they're in large 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.760 part responsible for the creation of Obama's career, and they've 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:14.359 parleyed that into losing to like the least popular beyor 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:21.760 in like a generation, and then losing again to Brandon 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.880 like to somehow to Brandon Johnson. And it's I don't 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:29.360 know if they've they've they failed spectacularly and I fuck them. 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:35.680 They're awful, and I yeah, yes, absolutely they yeah. Fuck 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:37.800 these guys. They they've they've robbed, they've they've rubbed the 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.359 working class for two fucking long. Yeah, no, fuck these guys, 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:46.919 good riddens. Um, the world will be better when they're dead. Yeah, 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:48.760 do you know what else the world would be better then? 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:52.879 If you know? Okay, that that was that was That 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.040 was not my That was not my best effort. I apologize. 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:02.119 But the world's question mark. Maybe better place if you 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.840 buy these products and services question mark. I don't know 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.520 if I'm legally allowed to say that. We'll see anyways, 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:24.359 here's so bad and we are back. Yeah, we should 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:26.919 talk about what Johnson actually wants to do. You well, 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:27.960 do you want to get into that or do you 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:30.200 want to talk about the city council first? I think 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:33.280 they actually overlap pretty well. Um, so like we can, 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:36.639 let's let's run through what Johnson says he wants to do, 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:40.119 and we can then talk about how much of that 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:44.600 might happen. So Johnson, like we were talking about, is 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.359 definitely going to be the most progressive mayor in Chicago's 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.119 history in terms of what he can't paignt On. At least, 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.760 this was a crime election, Like the dominant issue was crime, 0:23:55.160 --> 0:24:00.359 and Johnson did not say the words defund the police. 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:02.919 In fact, he actually explicitly said that he would not 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:07.960 cut the police budget. But aside from like those literal words, 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:12.240 he very much is in line with the progressive priorities 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:16.119 of de emphasizing like using people with guns who go 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:20.200 through like six weeks of training or whatever. So he 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:25.760 wants to pass a bill called Treatment Not Trauma, which 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:30.720 is replacing cops with mental health responders for nine one 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:33.720 one calls about mental health crises. He wants to pass 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:37.040 another bill called the Piece Book Ordinance, which would expand 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.919 restorative justice and violence intervention like projects and programs in 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:44.240 the city. And he also wants to pass an ordinance 0:24:44.359 --> 0:24:48.480 to put significant restrictions on police department raids and like 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:52.399 the police department's just actual ability to do raids altogether. 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.600 There is a very infamous contract here in Chicago called 0:24:56.680 --> 0:25:00.960 the Shop Spotter Contract, which is this dumb software that 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:03.399 is supposed to be able to like tell police when 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:07.080 a gun goes off, and like, as far as I 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:11.520 can tell, doesn't and it's just like straight up doesn't work. 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:13.840 So Johnson wants to get rid of that. He also 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:16.960