Who Runs Chicago? Not You Lori!

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inability to share the ball and play well with her teammates is why she lost her reelection bid. Photo By jcoydenreports.

Never in the history of Chicago politics have I seen a politician torpedo their own career in such a short period of time. However, that is exactly what happened in the case of soon to be former Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot. Simply put, Lightfoot is that kid we all hated growing up who just couldn’t get along with others. You know the one I’m talking about. The one who came into the sandbox and kicked the toys all around and when you ask them to stop, they took their own toys and went home.

Chicago is not run by a mayor. Chicago is governed by unions, the media, gang leaders, 50 aldermen, business leaders and citizens, along with an array of county and state elected officials. If you don’t know this then you are doomed. That is why many people never trusted Lightfoot to begin with, but were so sick of career politicians, they decided she might be worth the risk. The reality is, though, that she simply is not from here and never ingratiated herself to learning about Chicago’s diverse culture and tricky political landscape.  

As former 21st Ald. Howard Brookins keenly pointed out on WGN Ch. 9’s post-election coverage on February 28, 2023, during her inauguration speech in 2019 Lightfoot looked over and pointed at aldermen sitting behind her and told them it was in their best interest to stop the back-room deals and shenanigans that city politics have long been known for. Brookins said many alderman took offense to her demonstrative tone and behavior and that she lost the support of many right at that moment. Explaining he thought many of his colleagues felt they were being accused of doing something wrong and were thrown under the bus minutes after she became mayor. While the gist of what Lori said was true, you have to be more tactful. These are the people you will have to work with, like it or not, and putting them on front street like that was a huge mistake.

Less than two hours after her inaugural address gaffe, Lightfoot was in her newly decorated office signing an executive order, which ended the decades-old practice of “aldermanic privilege.” You can’t fully understand the gravity of this move and its effect on the city council. She basically took the one power all alderman had over controlling what type of businesses can come into their ward away from them without even discussing it with them. One can only imagine the shockwaves this sent through the city council and I’m sure behind he scenes there were a lot of expletives flying around.  

Her famous oral dispute that damn near turned into blows being thrown inside of council chambers with 21st Ward Ald. Jeanette Taylor in 2021 again speaks volumes of Lightfoot’s personality and leadership style. Taylor, who was born and raised on the South Side and had her first child as a teenager, is no punk. At 19 and a single mother, she was elected to the Local School Council where she served for 20 years. She likened Lightfoot to a “schoolyard bully,” and wasn’t having any of her antics that June day.

It wasn’t just city council members Lightfoot disputed with publicly. It is the worst kept secret in the county that she and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle don’t like one another. Even at events when they appear together, the two women are always widely separated. At the Chicago Sky championship rally in October of 2021, which should have been a joyous event, Preckwinkle and Lightfoot were seated on opposite ends of the stage with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Lt. Governor Julianna Stratton serving as a buffer between the two women, who had squared off against one another in the mayoral election. It was only months after things came to a head when Lightfoot went after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for not filing charges in a shooting case on the West Side. Foxx is Preckwinkle’s main political ally. Foxx publicly called Lightfoot a liar and accused her of sneaking off to federal prosecutors in an attempt to get charges filed in the case. The gulf between the mayor and county board president only got wider after that.

Then there are the unions. Anyone with sense knows the Chicago Teacher’s Union is not to be played with if you want to be a successful mayor. Apparently, Lightfoot never got that memo. She started off her tenure trying to play hardball with the union months into her administration. It led to a 14-day strike and left parents irate. Add to that, the constant fighting over remote learning during COVID and trying to force teachers back into classrooms, which lead to another work stoppage. In fact, there were three teacher work stoppages within 27 months and you can see why Brandon Johnson easily defeated Lightfoot to get the second spot in the runoff election.

Then we have the Fraternal Order of Police. Now the FOP’s current leader John Catanzara is a full-blown idiot, who resigned from the police force after it was predicted he was about to be fired with cause. That said, he was the duly elected leader of the union, which means you can’t just ignore him on CPD issues. That is what Lightfoot tried to do along with her usual name calling. That is why Paul Vallas immediately picked up their endorsement and blew Lightfoot out of the water in the primary. Her handpicked Superintendent David Brown resigned hours after her defeat on Wednesday afternoon.

The civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis was a major challenge for Lightfoot. As the South Side was being torn to pieces with rioting, Lightfoot was live on TV doing a press conference saying everything was under control. This as even journalists were trying to explain to her they had colleagues in the field reporting live of the mayhem. She dismissed their reports as being inaccurate. Hours later she ordered the raising of bridges and closing off of downtown exits from the expressways to protect her political base of citizens in the downtown area as much of the rest of the city saw violence it hadn’t seen in decades.

It was the first indication for many in Black and Latino communities of who Lightfoot really cared about. All of her talk about helping other communities and not just the big-business interest wards of downtown and the North Side went up in the smoke that came from the rioting. She was never able to repair her relationship with those communities after that.   

Her heavy-handed style during the pandemic also didn’t go over well with many. Closing beaches and parks and expecting residents to sit in the house all day was simply stupid and showed her lack of understanding of basic human behavior that any sociologist could have told her. She got the nicknames of “Auntie Larry” and “Lori Hoover” after incarcerated gang leader Larry Hoover. The hilarious memes that followed will sadly be a huge part of her legacy as mayor and perhaps what she will be best known for.

She also appointed people to positions in her administration that no one had ever heard of. Few, if any, were Black Chicagoans, further distancing herself from the community.

A picture is a thousand words. While everyone else was enjoying themselves at the 2021 WNBA Champions Chicago Sky rally, Lightfoot seemed to be sulking by herself. Photo by jcoydenreports.

Her dismissive attitude towards members of the media was her final nail in the coffin. She got into it with everyone: Black media, Latino media, mainstream media, podcast hosts, radio hosts, you name it. Her famous, “I’m only going to talk with the Black and Brown press on this day” stunt in 2021 backfired tremendously. Even the local chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists released a statement condemning the tactic. It put Black journalists in an awkward position and caused many people to unfairly question the integrity of publications like The Tribe, which participated in the day with the mayor. If Lightfoot was expecting softball questions from Black journalists, she clearly read the room wrong, as The Tribe has held her accountable for every day she has been in office in addition to several other community newspapers throughout the city.

One journalist even sued Lightfoot when she had the police department revoke his media credentials after the two got into a loud argument during a press conference last summer. The journalist from FOX accuses Lightfoot and Supt. Brown of fabricating an incident with Lightfoot’s security detail, which played a role in him losing his credentials.

It is a shame that sometimes people don’t take their own advice. If you go back and listen to what Lightfoot said in 2019 compared to what she did the past four years, you will hear a typical politician who lied every step of the way. In Lori’s case, however, it is something different. My personal opinion is that Chicago elected a mayor who is still dealing with some sort of childhood trauma. People who bully often were bullied themselves at some point. Lightfoot’s physical appearance has often been made fun of. Her short stature and questionable fashion choices along with her “what will it be today hairstyles” have made her to target of some very mean comments. I theorize that is what has fueled her in most of her life. Nobody likes being made fun of and she lashes out at anyone who tries to give her an honest critique.

What now troubles me is Chicagoans will have to deal with a humiliated, defeated and angry Mayor Lori Lightfoot for the next eight weeks until the new mayor takes office. Humility is not one of Lightfoot’s character traits even after only getting 17% of the vote, I don’t expect her to change at all. I only hope she can be kept in check until she leaves office and doesn’t go on an executive order writing spree.

Had Lightfoot kept her word on anything she said in 2019, establishing mental health clinics, improving schools, reducing crime, reducing city fees, putting more businesses and job opportunities in impoverished areas or just being a kind person in general, perhaps she would have had a different term as mayor. Sometimes we all need to be reminded in life what we said.

“The challenges we face today did not arise overnight and they won’t be solved overnight. They won’t be saved by one mayor acting alone,” Lori Lightfoot’s 2019 inauguration speech.