December 20, 2023
STEWART'S 2024 CRYSTAL BALL: "THE WOKE/LEFTISTS ARE COMING!"
When I was a child I remember reading about Paul Revere’s legendary midnight ride through Boston shouting “the British are coming.”
Revere was portrayed as a freedom fighter who was part of the gun-toting American militia. He was a “revolutionary” determined to shatter the yoke of British colonial oppression.
I’m surprised history books of today don’t portray Revere as a white-supremacist, domestic terrorist, extremist and collaborator with the evil British who while oppressing the American colonists were also oppressing and exterminating the continent’s Native Americans.
It’s almost as if to contemporary Wokesters the American Revolution was not a good thing and Revere was not a good guy.
If it happened before the year 2000 then it’s just racist historical capitalistic propaganda to be trashed and eradicated. Forget that the lessons of history will be repeated if ignored. History in its entirety is being ignored.
Nevertheless, history does not vegetate. Here’s my “Crystal Ball” predictions for 2024. Like Revere, I’ll be riding through the streets of Chicago shouting “The Leftists are coming!” And without question the comrades are winning, my side is losing, and 2024 will be a very good year for the Woke/Left in Chicago and Cook County.
Democratic primary turnout fluctuates depending on presidential and/or countywide contests. It was a massive 1,106,573 in 2016, with the Clinton-Sanders and Alvarez-Foxx races. It dropped to 422,485 in 2020, with only Foxx-Conway. And in 2012 it was 478,896, with no races. 2024 has Harris-Burke (state’s attorney), with Kim Foxx gone, and Martinez-Spyropoulos (Circuit Court clerk).
Neither evokes much interest. So it will be 2012 all over, with turnout (D) under 450,000, maybe as low as 400,000. A low-turnout historically aids the Democratic slate, with party organizations still able to crank out a controlled vote in minority areas. But it is also an aid to Woke/Leftists, who are now able to crank out their vote in certain areas, as demonstrated in the 3rd congressional district in 2022 and Brandon Johnson’s win in 2023.
The basic tenet of Marxist theology is a bottom-up revolution. First, like-minded anti-capitalist Marxists form a cell. Then that cell unites with other cells to form a cadre. Then those cadres form an army of proletariat comrades who take to the streets and man the barricades to crush the exploitative, oppressive, profit-mongering capitalist bourgeoisie. Molotov cocktails are thrown around. It’s not a good look or a good option.
What is an option is “democratic socialism,” which can and is being achieved. Socialism has been repackaged as the Fountain of the Free – as in government benefits paid for by somebody else. Equity has replaced meritocracy. Hard work is deemed stupid. One’s race, gender, and/or sexual orientation has replaced competence in the workplace. The great Marxist fraud – “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability” – has been corrupted.
Everybody has needs – like housing, cheap food, a “well-paying, low-stress, minimal-work” job. The solution seems to be to just tax the rich. As George Carlin used to say “My needs aren’t being met.” “How about, drop some of your needs?”
Socialists don’t need guns and bullets to prevail. They just need voters who will eventually vote socialists into power. And that will happen soon nationally, as it did in 2023 in Chicago.
The population of Chicago is 2,608,425, and the number of registered voters was 1,587,153 in 2023. That means Brandon Johnson is mayor because he got 122,093 votes in the Feb. 2023 election, or 21.5 percent of the turnout and 7.7 percent of the RVs. That got him into a Johnson-Vallas runoff, which he won 319,487-293,033. It should be noted that the registered voters in the county increased by 447,515 from 2012 to 2022. Those are younger, more liberal voters.
Harkening back to 1917’s Russian Revolution, Marxists proved that majorities don’t matter. All it takes is a dedicated 10 percent to defeat the status quo rulers’ 20 percent. The ignorant and self-absorbed 70 percent are oblivious. That’s why the Woke will triumph, not now but in the 2030s after a second Trump presidency (2024-28). Demographics dictate that.
A prototype was 2022’s 3rd congressional district (D) primary, won by Delia Ramirez with over 75 percent. Her base is in Chicago’s North Side Puerto Rican/upscale younger White areas. 2024’s Ground Zero for Leftists is the West Side/Oak Park 7th congressional district where activist Kina Collins is running against incumbent Danny Davis and city treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. Collins can win with 35-38 percent. Socialist Squad aldermen are running for committeeperson (D) in the 1st, 26th, 33rd and 35th wards, and Graciela Guzman for 20th District state senator is a top priority. The Leftists are methodically chipping-away.
45TH WARD/19TH HOUSE DISTRICT: Lindsey LaPointe (9) was a protégé of ex-alderman (2011-19) John Arena and he helped her get appointed to Rob Martwick’s vacant House seat in 2019. LaPointe won election against two opponents in 2020 with 43 percent, against one opponent in 2022 with 74 percent, and is unopposed in 2024.
LaPointe seeks to be the ward’s leader.
She would make a strong candidate for alderperson in 2027 when incumbent Jim Gardiner is next on the ballot if she chooses to run.
Gardiner is not on the ballot in 2024, and is not seeking a second term as ward committeeperson (D). LaPointe has endorsed Michael Rabbitt for the post, and he is running against Joe Cook, the 41st Ward committeeperson (D), who was remapped into the ward. Both live in the Edgebrook/Wildwood area north of Devon, and are totally unknown in the south.
It should be remembered that LaPointe campaigned for Arena in 2019 (who lost to Gardiner), endorsed Ellen Hill for committeeperson in 2020 (who lost to Gardiner), and endorsed Megan Mathias for alderman in 2023 (who lost to Gardiner). On the bright side, at least Rabbitt CANNOT lose to Gardiner – only to Cook.
On the brighter side, LaPointe had $237,798 cash-on-hand as of Oct. 1 and can spend a whole lot of that in joint LaPointe-Rabbitt mailers, and they are going to pile-on tying Cook to Gardiner. AND they are going to direct their mailers to their base, not the conservative base.
Cook has been careful NOT to get Gardiner’s endorsement, endeavoring NOT to anger anti-Gardiner voters. He is getting support from other prominent politicians.
Cook is not going to get the vote of the ward’s LaPointe/Arena/Woke/Leftist/democratic socialists — who are a solid 42-45 percent – because Cook is NOT endorsed by Gardiner.
The alderman got 50.1 percent in 2019, 51.4 percent in 2020 and 53.5 percent in 2023. Despite Gardiner’s texting miscues the other half of the ward loves the guy. Cook cannot win without a motivated pro-Gardiner base, WHICH REQUIRES a Gardiner endorsement.
Turnout for committeeman (D) was 10,826 in 2020, 10,481 in 2016, and 5,165 2012. Absent a LaPointe-Gardiner proxy war, and if turnout sags to 2012’s level, Rabbitt will win if he gets 2/3rds of Mathias’s 8,214 votes.
But there is a bright side for Cook: His annointee, IUOE union political director John Hanley (D), will win his 41st Ward post, and wife Jennifer Callahan (D) is unopposed for a countywide Circuit Court judge vacancy. So March 19 will only be half-bad. And Cook will still have his job as a senior attorney at the MWRD.
Rabbitt, a “progressive,” lives in the ward’s portion in the 15th House District, where incumbent Mike Kelly (D-15) is unopposed in 2024. Rabbitt lost narrowly to Kelly in 2022. If Rabbitt wins he will have a political and financial base, which he can use to take out Kelly in 2026 or challenge Gardiner in 2027. As for LaPointe, she can keep her House seat indefinitely but an aldermanic run REQUIRES a Rabbitt win.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
This column was published in Nadig Newspapers. If you, a friend or a colleague wish to be added to Russ's BUDDY LIST, and be emailed his column every Wednesday morning, email webmaster Joe Czech at Joe@Nadignewspapers.com