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Chicago has been run by Democrats since 1931. In that time, the city has earned a reputation for violence and mismanagement. After 94 years, why should anyone believe Democrats have any solutions?
This is the question at the heart of the latest brewing political battle in Chicago. President Donald Trump, fresh off the success of his temporary crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., wants to send the National Guard into Chicago next. Chicago had 573 homicides last year. Most recently, a smash-and-grab robbery at a Louis Vuitton store led to burglars crashing into another car as they fled, killing the driver of that vehicle. This came after another smash-and-grab robbery saw $170 thousand worth of watches stolen from a Rolex store. It has got to the point that Chicago police are recommending businesses install Riot Glass to keep their businesses safe.
DEMOCRATS DOWNPLAY CRIME AS THEY DECLINE HELP FROM TRUMP
There have been plenty of defenses and redirections from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on this topic, but the most interesting one came from an opinion piece Johnson wrote. In response to Trump threatening to send the National Guard into Chicago, Johnson called it the “wrong solution to a real problem.” But what ground does Johnson have to stand on when it comes to determining whether something is the “wrong solution.”
A look at Chicago’s crime data shows that he doesn’t have much of one. Yes, homicides are down in Chicago, but the share of homicides resulting in arrests has also dropped from over 40% to just over 25%. Also of note: Johnson terminated the city’s use of ShotSpotter technology, which helped police more easily identify the origin of gunshots. Johnson thought such technology was racist.
In 2024, Chicago was named the nation’s homicide capital for the 13th straight year, with a higher homicide rate than any comparably large city. In 2024, homicides in Chicago declined 8% as part of the broader national decline from pandemic numbers, while other cities saw declines of 30% or higher. Chicago is also experiencing a police shortage, spending $273 million on police overtime after only budgeting for $100 million.
Budgeting has also been an issue in Chicago recently. The city council just this year voted in favor of borrowing $830 million to try to cover its budget woes, but Chicago is still facing a budget deficit of $175 million. Johnson wanted to borrow even more, which would go to his teacher union buddies (Johnson is still a member of the Chicago Teachers Union, currently on leave while he serves as mayor). That loan would have been a short-term, high-interest loan that would have put Chicago in an even bigger hole.
Johnson steamrolled the Chicago Public Schools system to force out its CEO and remake its school board, all while CPS negotiates with the CTU for a contract that Johnson himself could benefit from when he leaves office.
Meanwhile, Chicago’s schools are failing. Just about 30% of Chicago elementary students can read at grade level, while math proficiency sits below 19%. Math proficiency is also under 19% for high school juniors, while less than 23% can read at grade level. Over 40% of students are chronically absent in the Chicago Public Schools system, almost double the pre-pandemic rate of 24%. These abysmal results and terrible trends are occurring while both CPS and the state of Illinois are spending more taxpayer dollars per student on education.
It hasn’t been much better for Chicago on the state level, either. Pritzker is trying to position himself to run for governor, meaning that he is leaning into the most obnoxious lines of debate to try to endear himself to the embittered voters that make up the Democratic Party’s enthusiastic voting base. That has led Pritzker to dismiss murders in Chicago as just something people should get over and stop talking so much about.
The budgeting has been just as bad. Pritzker’s newest budget of $55.1 billion is the most spending in state history, relying on $700 million in new taxes.
This is all contributing to the decline of both Chicago and Illinois. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimates, Chicago’s population has dropped for the last nine years, leaving the city with a lower population than it had in the 1920 census. The current population trends mean that Chicago will be passed by Houston within the decade as the third most populous city in the country. Illinois also underwent a nine-year population decline until the last two years, where a net gain of around 89,000 people can be partially attributed to Texas busing illegal immigrants to the “sanctuary state” of Illinois.
Because Democrats in Illinois and Chicago don’t have any Republicans to fight in the political realm, they instead focus on fighting each other. Pritzker and Johnson are no different, subjugating the collapse of Chicago as a functioning city to their own pathetic feuds. Pritzker said that Johnson does not reach out to Illinois legislators about Chicago’s budget woes, and that Johnson’s team blew off budget meetings with Pritzker’s office. Johnson, meanwhile, blames Pritzker and the state for Chicago Public Schools not being fully funded.
What they both agree on, though, is that crime in Chicago is not a subject people should be talking about, and they definitely don’t want any help from the federal government. After Trump announced that he would be next sending the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, instead of Chicago, Johnson boasted that it was “Because of the unified opposition from community leaders and elected officials in Chicago and throughout the state” that Trump “backed down.” Pritzker, meanwhile, warned that “It’s disturbing that the President is hellbent on sending troops onto America’s Streets” and that “None of this is normal.”
Trump has only been pitching this proposal in Chicago because Johnson and Pritzker don’t have an answer. They don’t even acknowledge the question. Crime is an afterthought to both of them, a political inconvenience that reflects poorly on them to the point that Johnson insists that crime in Chicago isn’t that bad, while Pritzker refuses to even treat it like a real problem.
BONDI SAYS FEDERAL TROOPS WILL GO TO ‘A CITY WHO WANTS US THERE’ RATHER THAN CHICAGO
Neither Pritzker nor Johnson is alone in this, though. No Democrat in Chicago or Illinois has had an answer to crime in Chicago. Again, this is a city that has been run by Democrats since 1931 and has earned the reputation as a city known for crime and homicide. Brandon Johnson called Trump sending in the National Guard the “wrong solution to a real problem,” but Chicago and Illinois Democrats don’t even want to acknowledge the “real problem,” much less have any good solutions. After all, if they did, we would have seen those solutions in the last 94 years that Democrats have run the Windy City.
Democrats have no leg to stand on about what is or isn’t a “solution” to crime in Chicago. They have vacated that ground through decades of inaction and incompetent governance that have left the Windy City in a state of continuous decay.
