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Plus Rob, Charlie and Peter discuss Lori Lightfoot’s ousting, the canceling student loan malfeasance that’s being argued over at the Supreme Court Building, and they have some fun with self-promoting political blurbs.
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Song of the Week: Encrypted by Vast Asteroid.
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Ricochet sponsored by Youth Switch
The Ricochet Podcast is sponsored by Ricochet sponsored by Youth Switch.
Lori Lightfoot may not be the mayor any more, but she didn’t do all the badness herself, and the next mayor is going to be another Democrat, perhaps even a worse Democrat.
Chicago may be a textbook example/dictionary definition of the Curley Effect.
What’s that?
The ultimate question? Of life, the universe, and everything?
I know this one!
Forty-two!
Peter Robinson’s Mayor Daley story is priceless!
Great to hear James Poulos…Ricochet listeners should read or reread C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man.
No, that’s the answer. The question is “what do you get when you multiply six by nine?”
Former Chicagoan, now Chicago-burb-dweller here. The Chicago discussion was great, but I fear the hosts are all wrong. Yes, Vallas got the highest percentage of votes in the runoff, but the progressive/more liberal ticket was split between Lightfoot, Johnson and Garcia. That’s a lot of votes. I don’t think there are enough people who liked Lightfoot/Johnson/Garcia who will now say “Oh, but Vallas was my second choice!”
The way I see it, Vallas will lose to Johnson in the general election because, between now and then, every effort will be made to tie Vallas to the GOP and Trump if they can. (Vallas makes it easy to do that with some of his past statements.)
I hope I’m wrong, but my experience in Chicago tells me most people would rather watch the city die than elect a person like Vallas.
Hmm, but if that’s the case, why not just re-elect Lightfoot?
The Dems consist of affluent progressives, who vote to feel good about themselves and are mostly rich enough to buy themselves out of the consequences of progressive policies; and poor, gullible, often criminal, low-information voters, easily manipulated by corrupt “community organizers” and the media.
Lightfoot’s successor will at least make an effort to make the crime statistics look better. It may be pure fraud, of course, as happened with education statistics in Atlanta a few years ago.
Great question, and to me it comes down to all the enemies Lightfoot made, chief among them the teacher’s union. Johnson had all of their support and I think that was enough in itself to shove her down to third place, especially when turnout was very low.
Was she really only 3rd place? I thought I read somewhere that she was dead last, or close to it.
Yeah, the national media reporting wasn’t awesome on that point. She was third, with 17 percent of the vote. She did edge out another person, “Chuy” Garcia, who had been more highly touted going into the election than his fourth place, with 13.7 percent of the vote, would have been expected.
So that’s why I am not optimistic for a Vallas mayorship: Positions 2, 3 and 4 represent about 63 percent of the vote. And that 63 percent is all very progressive. There’s not a middle-of-the-road candidate there, so I just can’t see so many people jumping to Vallas.
So basically they weren’t reporting consistently, color me surprised! About 83% of the total vote was Not-Lightfoot, and 63% was Not-Vallas.
There seems to be some sense of relief that Lightfoot’s loss indicates that the system is working. I don’t really think the system is working.
Well, it seems the Chicago Machine is working, for whatever that might be worth.
Machines of Loving Grace is the name of a band. I know nothing about them other than they made a song called Butterfly Wings that’s been stuck in my head for 30 years.
Never heard of them, but I’ve heard some Florence And The Machine.