OPINION:
Chicago’s newest mayor, Brandon Johnson, slammed “raggedy” and “right-wing” extremists in the Republican Party for what ails his cesspool of a crime-ridden city that regularly makes national headlines for its weekend murder-by-gun counts — always curious, given the strict policies that don’t allow anyone to walk about with guns.
He’s a Democrat. That’s what Democrats do.
Besides, he’s running a race against the city’s immediate past mayor, Lori Lightfoot, for recognition as “Most Delusional Democrat in America.” It’s a race for second place. President Joe Biden holds the top slot with a comfortable margin, due in large part to his penchant for inviting dead people to the stage during public speeches. Gotta admit, that’s tough to beat. But the competition for second place has been stiff, and Johnson and Lightfoot are neck-in-neck — considerable accomplishments both, given California’s Gavin Newsom; given Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer; given New Jersey’s Phil Murphy; given Biden sidekick Karine Jean-Pierre. On this, on the race of the delusional, Democrats have a large pool of candidates.
But Lightfoot and Johnson really take the cake when it comes to so astonishingly openly blaming Republicans for what’s so astonishingly clearly their own fault.
A mayor has a direct influence on a city’s ability to combat crime.
The Washington Post, on Lightfoot, in a no-holds-barred headline, “In Chicago, High Crime Leads to a Mayor’s Downfall,” published this past March: “Although she opposed ‘defunding’ the police, her 2021 budget shrank the force by eliminating hundreds of vacancies. Total officers declined from 13,302 when she took office to 11,731 in January. Even as crime has soared, the city’s arrest rate has plummeted to just 12.3%. Police investigative stops fell from some 155,000 in 2019 to 69,000 in 2021.”
You know you’re a disgraced Democrat when even the leftist Washington Post stops singing your praises.
But Lightfoot, when asked if she was treated unfairly on her campaign trail, said this: “I’m a black woman in America. Of course.”
Zing! Fling! That’s the sound of a tossed-down race card.
Johnson’s got that going on, too.
The question: Whatsup with the city’s crime, Mr. Mayor?
The answer: “What we’ve seen is a very raggedy form of right-wing extremism. Everyone knows that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted democratically run cities, and quite frankly, they have been quite intentional about going after democratically ran cities that are led by people of color,” Johnson said, as reported by Breitbart.
Quite.
And it’s these “right-wing extremists,” Johnson went on, who seek to ratchet up “division and chaos.” Why? Why, because “that is what that particular political party has been about,” he said.
But here’s where he may have just inched out the race-card throwing Lightfoot for the contest of delusion, second place. He said, of the GOP, that it’s “the same party that wouldn’t accept that President Obama was actually an American. It’s the same Republican right-wing extremism that stormed the capital. It’s the same right-wing extremism that refuses to accept the results of the Civil War. It’s raggedy. It’s disrespectful. It’s mean-spirited. It is abysmal and it is an affront to everything that is good about this country for the extremists in this country to use people as political tools to settle political scores for something that happened over 400 years ago. They’re still mad that a black man is free in this country.”
Goll-ee, that’s some good stuff.
“With a crime rate of 33 per one thousand residents, Chicago has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes,” the data analysis Neighborhood Scout site reported.
“One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 31,” Neighborhood Scout went on.
“For Chicago, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation. … According to [our] analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these [violent] crimes in Chicago is one in 115,” the site continued.
And Johnson says: “They’re still mad that a black man is free in this country.”
Sorry, Lori. The race for second just surged a bit in Johnson’s favor. Of course, there’s still a long way to go to beat Biden.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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