Ten resolutions to change Chicago
Every New Year, people swear they’ll lose weight, cut spending, and finally deal with the problems they’ve been ignoring. Chicago needs the same kind of reckoning — only on a civic scale.
Because what’s wrong here isn’t cyclical, cosmetic, or misunderstood. It’s a systemic collapse of common sense, driven by leaders who confuse ideology with governance and rhetoric with math.
So let’s resolve to stop pretending this is normal.
Either they go — or Chicago does.
Resolution #1: Get the timeline right — or lose by default
The first rule of political reform is understanding when power can actually be taken away. For contrarians, that means accepting a hard truth: This is a two-cycle fight, not a single election.
Mayor Brandon Johnson does not face voters until February 23, 2027, with a runoff on April 6 of that year if no one clears 50 percent. That matters — but it is not where this fight starts.
The real action begins this coming year, in 2026.
Both Governor J. B. Pritzker and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle are on the ballot in November 2026, with primaries on March 17.
That means the roadmap is clear:
- 2026: State first, county second
- 2027: City
The fish stinks from the head. That’s where we need to start.
Resolution #2: Make March 17, 2026, the real battlefield
Let’s be honest about how politics actually works in Cook County. The real election isn’t in November — it’s in the Democratic primary.
That’s the day power changes hands — or doesn’t.
Preckwinkle knows it. Her challengers realize it. Every political professional in this city knows it. If she survives the March primary, November becomes little more than a formality. The same is largely true at the gubernatorial level in a state this blue.
Contrarians who want real change need to focus their time, money, and energy where it actually matters: The primary, not the press releases.
Complaining in November after sitting out March is not dissent. It’s surrender.
Resolution #3: Make 2026 a referendum on Pritzker
Illinois cannot recover as long as J.B. Pritzker remains governor.
Pritzker has normalized lawlessness under the banner of compassion, signed the SAFE-T Act without regard for consequences, and now openly encourages resistance to federal law enforcement. Whether you agree with the Trump administration’s immigration policies is irrelevant. Federal law is federal law.
If you want to change it, change it legislatively. What Pritzker is doing instead is inciting disorder, encouraging obstruction, and signaling that the state of Illinois has lost the will to govern.
The gubernatorial election — decided in reality on March 17, 2026 — is not symbolic. It determines whether Illinois recommits to the rule of law or doubles down on managed chaos.
Contrarians should resolve to make Pritzker the first domino. This may be an aspirational goal but we need to send a loud, clear message to Pritzker with an “anybody but Pritzker” movement in the primary and the general. At the very least we need to pressure him to move to the center.
Resolution #4: End the Preckwinkle era — finally
Toni Preckwinkle is not a caricature or a talking point. She is the most powerful figure in Cook County government, and she is directly elected countywide. Commissioners do not choose her. Voters can remove her.
And they should. She is vulnerable.
Preckwinkle's political machine gave us Kim Foxx and Brandon Johnson. It presided over prosecutorial collapse, judicial dysfunction, and relentless tax increases that are now driving working families out of the county. The fact Foxx is gone does not absolve Preckwinkle. It manifests her weakness.
If Preckwinkle survives the Democratic primary, she will continue to dominate Cook County’s courts, finances, and criminal justice culture for another four years.
Contrarians should resolve to make this the primary focus at the end of the Preckwinkle era.
Resolution #5: Never forget the Johnson budget debacle
While Johnson avoids the ballot until 2027, his credibility is already shot.
The 2025 budget wasn’t a partisan skirmish. It was a humiliation inflicted by his own party. No Republicans. No conservatives. Just a mayor who couldn’t count votes — or dollars.
When a City Council composed entirely of Democrats hands you unanimous or near-unanimous defeats, that’s not ideology. That’s incompetence.
Johnson loves to point to “ancient history” — parking meters, the Skyway, past administrations. But he knew all of that when he ran. He owns the budget now. He owns the tax hikes. He owns the anti-business climate.
Contrarians should resolve to preserve this record, because it will be Exhibit A in 2027.
Resolution #6: Follow the pain, not the rhetoric
Johnson and Preckwinkle claim to govern for the working class. Yet homeowners in Englewood, Austin, and across the South and West Sides are watching their property taxes double. Fixed-income residents are being priced out of the neighborhoods they were promised would be protected.
This isn’t accidental. It’s the predictable result of reckless spending, unaffordable union concessions, and fiscal denialism masquerading as virtue.
When lifelong Democratic voters start flirting with movements like “Turn Chicago Red,” that’s not ideology. That’s desperation. It’s an opportunity to ally with the victims of neo-plantation politics who have seen through the big con of the neo-machine.
Contrarians should resolve to tell that story — relentlessly.
Resolution #7: Demand law enforcement that actually enforces the law
The CTA immolation case — where a man arrested more than 70 times was still free to destroy a young woman’s life — should have ended the debate permanently.
Seventy-plus arrests. No incapacitation. No functioning data system. Judges flying blind. Prosecutors declining cases. Politicians shrugging.
This is not compassion. It is cruelty. Cruelty to victims.
The SAFE-T Act didn’t create this culture, but it turbocharged it. And it was signed by Pritzker, defended by Preckwinkle, and tolerated by Johnson.
Contrarians should resolve to say plainly what polite society avoids: A system that refuses to restrain the dangerous chooses to sacrifice the innocent.
Resolution #8: Protect proof that reform works
Here’s the inconvenient truth for progressives: Competence works.
Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has already shown that seriousness about prosecution changes outcomes. Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling has shown that professional policing still matters.
These are not radicals. They are the adults in the room.
Contrarians should resolve to defend competence wherever it appears — and demand more of it.
Resolution #9: Break the CTU’s political veto
No institution has distorted Chicago governance more than the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Under leaders like Stacey Davis Gates, the CTU has effectively run City Hall by proxy — extracting unaffordable concessions while outcomes stagnate and taxpayers bleed.
Contrarians should resolve to make CTU dominance a central political issue — in the 2026 primaries and the 2027 municipal elections.
Final Resolution: Top down, then bottom up
The path forward is not mysterious.
- March 17, 2026: Defeat Pritzker and Preckwinkle where it actually counts
- November 3, 2026: Lock in those changes
- February–April 2027: Remove Brandon Johnson and the DSA-aligned aldermen
- Enact reforms like a city charter and the ability to recall failed politicians like Mayor 6.6.
Chicago is not doomed — but it is on a doomsday clock.
If we don’t act, ideology will finish what incompetence started. So make this the resolution that matters:
Engage early. Fight in the primaries. Start at the top. Work relentlessly downward.
Either they go.
Or Chicago does.
