The Black Political Class and the García Campaign’s Mistakes Re-Elected Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

By Bruce A. Dixon

The results are in, and the truth hurts. Rahm Emanuel will sit in the mayor’s office on the fifth floor of Chicago’s City Hall four more years. Despite fudging police stats to make murders disappear, despite stonewalling on police torture and atrocities, despite deliberately shortening red light camera intervals to raise revenue for his buddies, despite closing and privatizing more than 50 public schools, almost exclusively in black and brown neighborhoods, than anywhere in the country, and despite his facing a solid progressive Democrat challenger, Rahm Emanuel carried every single ward in black Chicago, not by big margins, but by enough.

Should Chicago Unions Have Backed a Socialist Instead of Chuy García?

The “see, we told you so!” reaction by socialists to Rahm Emmanuel’s victory over Jesús “Chuy” García in the recent mayoral runoff was as predictable as it was hypocritical. Scott Jay’s editorial in New Politics is but one example of this kind of reaction which combines self-vindication and bravado with an utter lack of awareness of Chicago’s political terrain. This know-it-all know-nothingism becomes painfully obvious when Jay writes: