State of the Swamp address revealed Brandon Johnson's contempt for working people
The State of the Union (SOTU) is a grand American event. A moment of secular pomp, the tradition of a president delivering a spoken address to a joint session of Congress is considered the commander-in-chief’s largest captivated television audience of the year. Though the SOTU dates back more than two centuries, it wasn’t until 1966 when Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford recorded rebuttals five days after President Lyndon Johnson’s speech for later broadcast.
Since then, every SOTU has featured rebuttals from a rising star in the opposition party. However, due to the fact virtually every political event is televised today, politics itself has become more like performance art. While the rebuttal has always stood in stark contrast to the pomp and ceremony of the president’s address, a rebuttal furnishes the speaker representing the opposition party a fleeting moment of recognition and an opportunity to assail the party in power.
Though the Democrats chose new Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger to deliver the party’s official response, Mayor Brandon Johnson was determined to have his moment in the sun.
While Johnson was on hand at South Shore Cultural Center for an event laureling Community Violence Intervention earlier on February 24th, the mayor flew to Washington, D.C., the same day after accepting an invitation from far-Left DEFIANCE.org to deliver a SOTU rebuttal of his own at the State of the Swamp at the National Press Club.
Although the mayor’s journey to the nation’s capital on February 24th was not for official business — far from it — the entire trip was paid for by Chicago taxpayers.
A clown-like event, the State of the Swamp featured a chorus line of maladjusted cranks, Hollywood actors, far-Left activists, and included both speakers and members of the audience dressed in frog — some of whom chirped “ribbit” — and giraffe costumes. Following Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey completing his remarks, rather than deliver an elegant, drawling, flowing speech, Johnson took the stage to deliver a rambling, vague, shallow, and simplistic jeremiad in which he lamented a nation under Trump slipping into the throes of deprivation, misery and injustice. To listen to Johnson, one would believe the country was very nearly beyond salvation.
A foot-stamping tantrum about Trump, though the address was written in complete sentences, Johnson’s speech consisted only of a series of greatest hits from previous public comments in which he poses as a defender of the common people, fulminates against Republican indifference to the sufferings of the working class, and howls over “underfunded schools.” Unsurprisingly, amid the progressive talking points and stale platitudes such as “solidarity,” the mayor managed to squeeze in his old “soak the rich” routine.
Though Johnson’s speech was designed to portray him as a man of moral courage and part of the winds of change, his remarks were stale and unoriginal, not to mention at points ludicrous, and, quite simply, spectacularly lousy as a piece of rhetoric and argument.
Mayor Johnson’s trip to the nation’s capital was a betrayal of those he claims to champion.
Mayor Johnson’s journey to Capitol Hill on February 24th was wholly unnecessary and farcical waste of time and taxpayer dollars.
When asked by journalist Amy Jacobson if taxpayers paid for Johnson traveling to a protest, the mayor — clearly gobsmacked by the inquiry — simply shrugged off the matter and explained his jaunt to D.C. was “well within the perimeters” of his job as mayor.”
The problem here, of course, is the specific purpose for Johnson’s trip to D.C. was to take part in an anti-Trump protest.
Let’s specify up front the mayor is certainly allowed to travel. Akin to his predecessors — Rahm Emanuel visited Mexico City and Lori Lightfoot flew to London and Paris — mayors of the City of Chicago are required to occasionally journey across the nation or abroad. Johnson, too, recently flew to London for a trip ostensibly to strengthen economic and business ties between the cities. Nevertheless, Johnson’s excursion to Washington was unrelated to the office he holds.
While it is tempting to call for limitations to be imposed to rein in mayoral travel or demand the City Council perform more careful oversight of mayoral expenses, the issue here is Johnson exercising poor judgment and his spectacular hypocrisy. While poor judgment is not a crime, Johnson’s trip to Washington to protest at State of the Swamp demonstrates how he has submitted to a politician’s traditional demons: Using the office to enjoy perks rather than better the fortunes of residents in the city over which he presides as mayor.
Part of a pattern demonstrated by the mayor, Johnson appears to have used his office to enrich political cronies. Since Johnson became mayor, his office has expanded executive positions, many of which have come with handsome six-figure pay packets. In sum, 20 mayoral aides earn over $200,000 annually, many of whom hold ill-defined positions. Moreover, in the past year, Johnson rewarded top assistants at City Hall with overly generous raises, some of which were as high as $58,000.
While the mayor can argue his assistants deserve to be sufficiently compensated due to their portfolio of responsibilities, it is worth mentioning while the mayor is frivolously spending tax dollars on needless travel and exorbitant pay increases for mayoral aides, Johnson — the doughty champion of working people — recently pink slipped nine City Hall custodians.
Mayor Johnson’s excursion to Washington, D.C., was tourism on the public dime, pure and simple. A man who craves to belong, Johnson’s appearance at the State of the Swamp was a small consolation prize after being snubbed by Democratic leaders over the astonishingly dreadful record he has established as mayor of Chicago. Other than giving Johnson a stage for the pleasure of a few hits on MSNBC, CNN, and Democracy Now, the sole purpose for his trip to the State of the Swamp was to chum it up with fellow activists, failed progressive lawmakers, and Hollywood stars.
When Johnson was elected, he posed as a leader of a progressive movement ordained to oust an out-of-touch elite ruling class which had cavalierly governed over Chicago. Johnson, it turns out, has been revealed to be a man with a royal self-regard who tends to see Chicago residents as subjects to be fleeced rather than as citizens to be served.
