Brandon Johnson’s city of chaos and disorder
When a mayor sides with the mob over his own police superintendent and even his progressive allies on the City Council, you know something has gone very wrong at City Hall. Welcome once again to Brandon Johnson’s Chicago, where chaos is coddled, disorder is dignified, and responsible governance is sacrificed at the altar of radical ideology.
Last Friday, Johnson vetoed a modest teen curfew measure that had passed the City Council by a 27-22 vote. The ordinance would have simply given Chicago Police the authority to disperse large, late-night gatherings of unsupervised minors —“teen takeovers” that have become increasingly violent and disruptive over the past several summers. The measure wasn’t punitive. It didn’t impose criminal penalties. It wasn’t a crackdown. It was a curfew — basic civic maintenance that any sane leader would support.
But Johnson, ever eager to play the activist rather than the executive, framed the proposal as a return to the supposed sins of the past. “Why on God’s green earth,” he asked, “would I repeat the sins of those who came before us?”
It should be pointed out the only sin here is Johnson’s willful refusal to protect the safety of his citizens. A curfew doesn’t lead to mass incarceration. It leads to parents getting a phone call instead of a funeral. It’s the difference between a dispersal order and a 911 call. If Johnson sees a curfew as criminalizing youth, then he’s admitting what everyone already knows — these teen mobs are dangerous, unruly, and prone to violence. He just refuses to do anything about it.
This isn’t new. Since taking office, Brandon Johnson has consistently prioritized ideological posturing over basic public order. Whether it’s shutting down ShotSpotter, dragging his feet on filling police vacancies, or treating gang members as misunderstood “violence interrupters,” the mayor has shown a persistent bias toward the perpetrators of disorder, not the victims. And now, when even his own left-wing City Council recognizes the need for action, Johnson thumbs his nose at them too.
It’s a pattern — one that fits the definition of mob rule. The people who obey the law are punished by neglect, and the people who break it are shielded from consequences. Property owners, business leaders, and working families — especially in economically vital areas like Streeterville, the Loop, and River North — are expected to accept a level of disorder that no functional city should tolerate.
In March, a 15-year-old was shot in Streeterville during one such teen takeover. Last year, two people were shot and 15 arrested when a teen mob swarmed downtown. Ask anyone who works in the hospitality industry, or who owns a retail storefront in the central business district: These takeovers are not benign expressions of youthful energy. They’re lawless, frightening spectacles that drive tourism away, disrupt commerce, and strain our already overstretched police force. That’s not to mention the enormous cost of overtime and the vulnerability. The rest of the city is exposed to when CPD has to call a 10-1 on these ridiculous, unnecessary burdens on public safety. Everything possible should be done to create a hostile environment for this madness.
So what’s Johnson’s response? Not to back his police. Not to work with his Council. Not to listen to the voters who are increasingly fed up. Instead, he spouts platitudes about systemic injustice, as if enforcing a curfew is a moral crime on par with Jim Crow.
This is insanity even from a political standpoint — after all, most of these kids can’t vote. But it’s also exactly what you get when the Democratic Socialists of America infiltrate the machinery of city government.
If you want a glimpse of where Chicago is headed under Johnson, look to New York City, where on Tuesday, Democratic voters nominated Zohran Mamdani — a member of the DSA and an avowed democratic socialist — as their candidate for mayor. Let’s be honest: Mamdani isn’t a Democrat in any meaningful sense. He’s a Marxist with a podcast. And yet, the Democratic establishment in New York either couldn’t stop him or wouldn’t try. That tells you everything you need to know about the rot inside the Democratic Party.
Chicago has one of the largest and most aggressive DSA contingents in the country. They control seats on the City Council. They shape the mayor’s agenda. And increasingly, they dictate the terms of public debate — where any effort to impose order, accountability, or fiscal responsibility is branded as racist, fascist, or worse.
This movement doesn’t want to fix America’s cities. It wants to tear them down and rebuild them as playgrounds for revolutionary politics. For the DSA, teen takeovers are not a problem to solve. They’re a social phenomenon to “contextualize.” Curfews are carceral. Police are oppressors. And crime? That’s just a construct of capitalist white supremacy.
This is the worldview Johnson is either too weak or too committed to resist. And unless the Democratic Party acts — truly acts — to purge these radicals from their ranks, the future of every major American city is in peril.
Speaking bluntly: It’s not just the Republicans or independents who are fed up. Increasingly, moderate Democrats — yes, even in New York and Chicago — are beginning to rebel. That’s how Eric Adams won in 2021. It’s how the Common Ground Collective in Chicago is raising millions to oppose Johnson’s allies. And it’s why even members of Johnson’s own caucus supported the curfew ordinance last week.
They’re beginning to realize what the rest of us already know: That a party which lets the DSA run wild is a party that will lose not only cities — but also suburbs, swing states, and ultimately the country.
The teen curfew veto is just the latest symptom of the deeper disease. It’s not about one policy. It’s about a governing philosophy that sees disorder as virtue and authority as vice. It’s about a mayor who sees himself as an activist first, a politician second, and a steward of the city dead last.
And it’s about a Democratic Party that, unless it changes course, will be remembered not for managing America’s urban revival, but for presiding over its decline.
If you want to know what the future looks like under Brandon Johnson and Zohran Mamdani, picture a shattered storefront window with a DSA bumper sticker in the frame. Picture tourists avoiding downtown like the plague. Picture police officers quitting in droves. Picture neighborhoods ruled not by law but by mob consensus — where your safety is determined not by your rights, but by the politics of the crowd.
Chicagoans deserve better. So do New Yorkers. And so do Democrats — real Democrats, not socialists in donkey costumes. The party has a choice to make. It can reclaim its tradition of pragmatic, pro-worker, pro-safety governance. Or it can continue to indulge the fantasy politics of people like Johnson and Mamdani, and watch city after city fall into chaos.
It’s time for the adults in the room to stand up. If they don’t, the voters will — and it won’t be pretty.
