Mayor Brandon Johnson says it’s the people who want him out
It’s official: Brandon Johnson is facing organized opposition — and not a moment too soon.
A newly formed political action committee, the Common Ground Collective, has raised more than $10 million to take on Johnson and the Democratic Socialist machine he rode into office. That’s not chump change. It’s a declaration of war. The group’s mission? Elect “common-sense Democrats” and independents who believe in public safety, balanced budgets, and something Chicago used to be known for: competence.
Naturally, the far left is outraged. “Sucker politics!” thundered 35th Ward Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Johnson’s top enforcer on the City Council. “A desperate attempt by right-wing billionaires to buy City Hall!” That’s rich coming from a man who belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America and has spent the better part of the last decade trying to turn Chicago into Caracas on the Lake. Let’s be clear: Ramirez-Rosa’s problem isn’t that rich people are trying to influence politics. It’s that these particular rich people aren’t donating to his cause.
The same critics now pearl-clutching about the Common Ground Collective had no problem when the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) spent millions bankrolling Johnson’s mayoral campaign — and then wrote themselves into the city budget. They weren’t worried about dark money when union cash-backed slates of rubber-stamp aldermen who can’t tell you the difference between a capital budget and a cafeteria menu. No, this isn’t about “sucker politics.” It’s about power. And for the first time in a long time, the progressive monopoly on that power is under threat.
The group’s founders — which include business leaders, public safety advocates, and some fed-up moderate Democrats — say they’re trying to reclaim the city from “extremists.” That sounds about right. In the first year of Brandon Johnson’s term, we’ve seen rising crime, collapsing finances, a migrant crisis the administration can’t control, and a mayor who seems more focused on historical grievance than present-tense leadership.
Here’s a man who denounces “the rich white men who used to run this city,” seemingly unaware — or unbothered — that his own chief political patron, Governor J.B. Pritzker, is one of the richest white men in America. When Johnson goes on the attack, it’s never Pritzker’s wealth that bothers him. It’s his independence. Pritzker may fund Johnson’s pet projects, but he isn’t a CTU pawn. That makes him dangerous.
The same goes for Rahm Emanuel. Johnson regularly invokes Emanuel’s name as a byword for cruelty, capitalism, and corruption — a little ironic, given that Rahm at least managed to balance a budget, pave a few roads, and didn’t spend every press conference attacking his constituents. But more to the point, both Emanuel and Pritzker have something else in common that Johnson doesn’t like to talk about: They’re Jewish.
There’s an ugly pattern here. Johnson has long surrounded himself with activists who downplay or dismiss anti-Semitism as a Zionist distraction. When protests erupted in Chicago with chants of “Death to Israel,” the mayor was conspicuously silent. When Jewish groups asked for assurances that hate speech wouldn’t be tolerated at city-sanctioned events, Johnson offered platitudes — but no policy. Now he’s publicly feuding with Jewish political figures, all while leaning on a base that sees Israel, capitalism, and whiteness as interchangeable evils. Coincidence? Maybe. But it’s a pattern worth noticing.
When you connect the dots, it’s hard not to conclude that this man who so loves to play the race card is himself a racist against white people, especially Jews.
So, when progressives clutch their pearls over a PAC trying to support normal candidates, let’s ask: Who are the real suckers?
Are they the donors trying to restore some semblance of sanity to city government? Or are they the Chicagoans who keep voting for the same Democratic Socialists and CTU pawns, hoping that this time will be different? The same politicians who promised fewer police and delivered more crime. Who slashed mental health services and blamed capitalism when things got worse. Who thinks it’s “compassionate” to house unvetted migrants in police stations while cutting resources for the seniors and working families who’ve paid into the system for decades?
Look at what’s happened since Johnson took office. The city has flirted with fiscal disaster. Police morale has collapsed. The mayor’s new budget proposal is built on fantasy math and federal wishful thinking. He canceled ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system that police officers actually wanted, only to replace it with a “community listening tour.” And when residents demanded answers, he called critics racists.
And what’s his plan for economic growth? Hosting open mic nights in City Hall to hear from “the community.” Unless the community is composed of job creators, it’s not going to solve any of Chicago's nagging problems.
The Common Ground Collective is betting that voters have had enough. They’re tired of the racialized rhetoric, the ideological crusades, and the petty vendettas disguised as policy. The PAC isn’t trying to flip Chicago red. It’s trying to return it to a functional shade of blue — the kind of blue that built libraries, not bureaucracies. The kind that filled potholes and funded cops, not chalked slogans on the sidewalk and called it equity.
That’s why this effort matters. For too long, city elections have been decided by a handful of precinct captains, union bosses, and community activists who don’t represent the working- and middle-class families who actually make Chicago run. If Common Ground succeeds in giving those voters a voice — even just a viable alternative — it could upend the whole progressive political ecosystem.
Of course, Johnson and his allies will do everything they can to stop it. Already, we’re seeing scare tactics: Attacks on donors, hit pieces on candidates, and coordinated outrage campaigns on social media. That’s their playbook. When they can’t defend the record, they try to delegitimize the opposition.
But the problem is that record is indefensible. A mayor with collapsing poll numbers. A City Council that votes in lockstep with the teachers’ union. A public safety strategy that seems to begin and end with blaming Indiana. A budget held together with IOUs and prayers.
The vultures are circling. And they should be. Because the Brandon Johnson experiment has failed, and everyone knows it — even if they’re too afraid to say it out loud.
The emergence of the Common Ground Collective is more than just a shot across the bow. It’s a signal that the grown-ups are coming back to the table. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the start of a long-overdue reckoning for a political class that has treated Chicago like its own ideological playground.
The only question now is whether the voters are ready to stop being suckers.
