The revolution may have to proceed without one of its friskier comrades
There are moments in public life when the satirist confronts a serious professional problem: Reality has gotten so far out in front of him that there is very little left to exaggerate. How do you satirize a guy who is literally a walking, talking joke? Folks, fasten your seatbelts, because you can’t make this stuff up.
So it reportedly goes with Byron Sigcho-Lopez, Chicago’s 25th Ward alderman, democratic socialist, tireless scourge of capitalism and frequent target of pixel-stained Contrarian wretches, where he has acquired the somewhat pejorative, AOC-esque, demi-socialist, acrimonious acronym of BS-L. The significance of the BS needs no explanation for native Chicagoese speakers, while the uncharitable might say the L, albeit somewhat redundantly, stands for liar.
He has also occasionally been known in these precincts as Squeaky, for reasons apparent to anyone who has heard that remarkably annoying, high-pitched screech of a voice delivering one of his interminable, hectoring, demagogic lectures on capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, racism and the myriad other “-ism” sins DSA bros of whatever pronouns tendentiously sling against the bourgeois establishment in prosecuting their pseudo-revolutionary grift. Among his other distinctions, he gives us cause for gratitude to the Almighty for the mute button.
But the revolution, as it turns out, begins at home, and in BS-L’s case, the home front has suddenly become news again.
Divorce records from Sigcho-Lopez’s marriage to Patricia Sigcho have now been unsealed following a petition by the Coalition Opposing Governmental Secrecy. The records had been sealed in 2012 at Sigcho-Lopez’s request, reportedly because of concerns about damage to his academic career. A DuPage County (why DuPage?) judge subsequently ordered the records opened after the transparency group argued that the public has a legitimate interest in scrutinizing the backgrounds of elected officials.
And what was behind the seal?
Quite a bill of particulars.
In a legal document entitled “Notice of Claim of Dissipation,” Mrs. Sigcho alleged that BS-L dissipated marital assets beginning in or around July 2010. How did he allegedly dissipate them, you ask? Let me count the ways.
The filing alleges that the Notorious BS-L “utilized and spent marital funds for escort services and prostitutes,” removed money from marital accounts in connection with what the filing characterized as his addiction to pornography and his use of Craigslist for escort services, and used funds for prostitutes, hotel rooms, and dinners that were neither with his wife nor for the benefit of his family. It further alleges excessive roaming charges and bills associated with viewing mobile pornography.
Perhaps this is what BS-L meant when he talked about being an advocate for working people, but apparently it was principally the working girls.
The filing further alleges that he spent marital funds after the breakdown of the marriage, removed money from a joint marital account in ways that did not benefit the family, and refused to provide an accounting for those funds. According to the filing, the money was used, “on information and belief,” for purchases of services and programs associated with what the petitioner again characterized as his pornography addiction.
Now for the disclaimer, since some of our leadership cabal seem to be getting a bit “touchy,” shall we say—a little thin-skinned and litigious of late. These are allegations contained in a court filing submitted on behalf of his then-wife in her divorce proceeding. They are her allegations, not ours.
And BS-L emphatically denies them. He has characterized the accusations as “unsubstantiated claims,” “gossip” and “defamation.”
Fair enough. He gets his say.
But Squeaky being Squeaky, he didn’t stop there. He says the controversy is politically motivated and has blamed “monied interests” and the “pro-Israel lobby,” specifically AIPAC, for targeting him because of his outspoken opposition to Israel’s conduct in the Israel-Hamas war.
So, naturally, AIPAC did it.
Only in Chicago could allegations made by an alderman’s former wife in a divorce proceeding somehow wind up as part of the Middle East conflict.
Unbelievably, he wants the documents resealed! Maybe where you come from in Ecuador, they have some kind of fables about genies you can put back in bottles. Not in this town, pal.
The timing is also exquisitely inconvenient. BS-L has officially launched his reelection campaign for the 25th Ward while continuing his longshot federal lawsuit seeking to get onto the ballot for a U.S. House seat. He says he isn’t worried about political opponents using the records against him and frames the controversy as another battle against the billionaire class.
Of course. Ah. I don't think so. Was Elon Musk laser-focused on this case? How about J.B. Pritzker? No, I think maybe Mrs. Sigcho has a lot more to do with it, and of course her husband.
For years, Chicagoans have been treated to Squeaky’s moral instruction about the wickedness of the economic system under which the rest of us labor. Capitalists are greedy. Landlords exploit tenants. Employers exploit workers. The wealthy selfishly consume resources that properly belong to the collective. Again and again, we are instructed that individual appetites must yield to the needs of the community.
Apparently the dictatorship of the proletariat has a rather liberal entertainment allowance.
That’s why this matters so very, very much. The problem isn’t that an alderman got divorced. People get divorced. Marriages fail. Human beings behave badly. Nor does an allegation become fact simply because somebody puts it in a court filing.
The problem—the legitimate political question—is the potential for staggering hypocrisy.
BS-L belongs to a political movement that presents itself as a moral indictment of the existing order. Its adherents claim the moral authority to decide which profits are excessive, which property ought to belong to somebody else, which consumption is selfish, which institutions are corrupt, and which people possess too much. They are forever putting the rest of us in the dock.
Very well.
Welcome to the dock, Comrade.
Here is a politician associated with an ideology obsessed with the allegedly unjust accumulation and expenditure of private wealth, confronted with a court filing in which his own wife alleged that he removed money from marital accounts and spent family resources for purposes that did not benefit the family.
Now he has a reputational and political problem that no deck of race cards, no collection of Little Red Books, no sputtering Squeaky whatabouttisms and no invocation of the billionaire class can cure. How does a democratic socialist explain this to his comrades? How does a movement increasingly preoccupied with questions of sexual exploitation, patriarchy and toxic masculinity respond when one of its prominent elected officials becomes associated with allegations involving prostitutes and pornography? How comfortable will the women in that movement be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him now that these documents are circulating?
There is a larger moral here, too. Political movements built around moral superiority eventually encounter the imperfections of the human beings who populate them. Socialists are no less greedy than capitalists. Conservatives are no less susceptible to temptation than liberals. Priests can sin. Reformers can be corrupt. Moralists can be hypocrites. Human nature stubbornly refuses to reorganize itself according to anybody’s political manifesto.
That’s one reason free societies build institutions around checks, balances, property rights, due process and individual responsibility rather than entrusting everything to a self-appointed class of people convinced of their own virtue—why we are and must remain a nation of laws rather than a nation ruled by activists certain of their own righteousness.
BS-L has spent years telling Chicago what’s wrong with everybody else. Now Chicago has an opportunity to ask some questions about him.
Maybe he has answers. He has already denied the allegations and blamed his political enemies. Fine. He should consider himself invited to answer every question the press and his constituents care to put to him.
Talk about the press conference from hell.
And if the answers aren’t satisfactory?
Well, Chicago has listened to Squeaky long enough. We will not miss the voice. We will not miss the sound of the BS pouring from this loser’s mouth except, perhaps, for one final utterance. Here’s the teleprompter script:
“I, BS-L, aka Squeaky, tender my resignation from the Chicago City Council, effective immediately.”
Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, Squeaky? Let me help you out — which way did you come in? Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Turn out the lights, the party’s over. The fat lady has sung.
The truly astonishing thing is that a man carrying this kind of baggage nevertheless had the temerity, the unmitigated gall, to run for public office and subject himself to the scrutiny that inevitably accompanies it. Whatever else one concludes about these allegations — and again, BS-L denies them — Chicago voters are entitled to ask whether a politician who spends his career demanding accountability from everyone else is prepared to submit to some himself.
Every reporter at every opportunity ought to ask every time for him to explain exactly why he did what he did and get him on the record as denying it. Hopefully, somebody will have the initiative to find his ex-wife and interview her. Let's ask her. She's the one who accused him. He, of course, denies it. Let's hear from her. Are we any real reporters in this city, or do we just have a public relations agency for the Democrat Party, especially for the DSA, that's afraid to ask them the tough questions? Inquiring minds want to know here at The Contrarian. Because we still have minds. Perhaps uniquely among the media in this town.Because unlike the rest of the so-called journalists in this city, we don't just throw softball questions at our rulers. We demand answers. We demand to know why the taxes are so high, the sidewalks are so uneven, the schools are so bad, and the parks are so decrepit. Where's the value? Where's the law enforcement? Where's the 2,000 missing cops? That's what we want to know. What does the press want to know here? They want to know where their next paycheck is coming from, where the next ad is coming from, and that they're going to get to interview the mayor and the DSA squad and the city council. I don't know what they want, but apparently, they don't want the truth. We want the truth because we can handle it, and we know you can too, and you'll know what to do with it.
So let us take this episode as something more useful than another salacious Chicago political scandal. Let it be a reminder to look very carefully at those who claim the authority to rule us because they are supposedly wiser, purer, or more virtuous than the rest of us.
When the Ides of March come ’round, with their gales of change blowing off the lake like a divine, avenging wind, perhaps Chicago can finally begin sweeping the rest of these hypocritical scoundrels from the halls of power.
