It’s time to try the unfit-to-serve criminals who misrule us — first in the court of public opinion, and then the federal courts
Chicago feels like a city suspended between tragedy and farce — an improbable blend of municipal incompetence, ideological obsession, and political cosplay masquerading as governance. We are, in effect, under the authority of two men who have lost the plot: A mayor who behaves as if federal law were an optional suggestion, and a governor who appears eager to affirm that misunderstanding.
These clowns are a joke, a joke on us. But it’s not funny anymore, if it ever was.
A mayor in open revolt against reality
Let us begin with City Hall — where the latest bizarre claim involves an alleged attempt to burn down the building — breathlessly reported by the Chicago Tribune, which subsequently reported the lunatic who is accused of setting a fellow CTA passenger on fire is now a suspect. Even Mayor Brandon Johnson, who famously has called his own police force and the county criminal justice system a disease that needs to be eradicated, has declared the fact that this insane arsonist was allowed to be running loose on our streets a failure of the very institutions he wants to see abolished. This incoherence and paranoia are red flags that he may be as insane as the mad arsonist.
Chicagoans have seen this movie before.
A long line of politically convenient “mystery incidents” has run through our recent history — events that generate headlines but never seem to produce indictments, mugshots, or even a plausible suspect:
- Jussie Smollett, whose fabricated “MAGA assault” became an international scandal before unraveling into self-inflicted humiliation and was shamefully coddled by our late and unlamented “State’s Attorney” (who in fact represented criminals instead of the people), Kim Foxx, a loathsome tool of despicable Boss Toni Preckwinkle's ongoing depredations against the County.
- Andre Vasquez, “representing” Chicago’s 40th Ward, who infamously reported a “pro-Trump death threat” involving someone leaving a dead rat with a threatening note outside his office.
- And now, an alleged arson attempt at City Hall, which Mayor 6% rashly attributed to MAGA, when the real culprit is reportedly a mentally ill homicidal maniac who is on the streets due to Johnson’s own self-admitted incompetence.
Chicagoans are not required to suspend disbelief on command.
The uncomfortable pattern: Dramatic political narratives that collapse upon contact with reality; accusations with no suspects; crises with no perpetrators. Yet each incident is deployed to justify some new escalation, some new condemnation, some new grievance against imagined enemies.
The Reichstag echo
Democrats are eager to falsely accuse their political opponents of Nazism, which may well be a projection, or even a confession. The latest hysteria on the part of Mayor 6.6 is reminiscent of a similar incident in 1933 Germany: the well-documented historical phenomenon in which political actors exploited or exaggerated a similar incident to consolidate power.
Historians have long debated the extent to which the Reichstag fire was used — or engineered — as a tool of political consolidation. Hitler used a similar technique as a pretense for invading Poland, which triggered the Second World War. Such false flag operations are signs of desperation.
The lesson is timeless: When leaders claim the sky is falling, demand extraordinary powers, and insist that invisible enemies lurk around every corner, citizens must be vigilant.
The same lesson applies today.
Municipal leadership by panic attack
Our mayor, to be blunt, appears emotionally and mentally unfit for office. The man is prone to melodrama, allergic to math, and seemingly incapable of basic executive function, reliant on risible race grifting. His own City Council allies torpedoed his “head tax” proposal within minutes. He consistently misreads public mood, fiscal reality, the structural limits of his own authority, and, comically, his own City Council which is 100 percent composed of members of his own party. He is a pathetic political malpractitioner.
The City Hall fire is a metaphor for a mayor who seems intent on burning down his own city, figuratively speaking of course, by destroying the tax base with doomed tax-and-spend and criminal-friendly policies. Johnson is beyond ignorant, arguably as insane as the ancient Roman emperor Nero, who committed arson against his own city.
Case in point: Johnson's attacks on the federal government — a strange choice given that Chicago remains, last we checked, part of the United States of America and subject to the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, not to mention highly dependent on federal largesse.
- He has encouraged protests against federal immigration enforcement.
- He has denounced Federal raids on apartment buildings literally controlled by gangs.
- He has declared that cooperation with federal law enforcement is a form of oppression rather than an obligation of civilized governance.
This is not leadership. It is a tantrum dressed up as ideology. It’s a bill of particulars indicting a “mayor” who is a clear and present danger to our city.
A governor who should know better — and no longer does
The tragedy is that the mayor’s superior, Governor J.B. Pritzker, reinforces these delusions. Once a rational actor — capable, serious, and at least intermittently grounded — he has succumbed to the great mind-rotting forces of our time: The endless quest to posture for national office, the anti-Trump political mania that deranges much of our society, and the gravitational pull of activist ideologies that view federal authority as inherently illegitimate whenever administered by a Republican.
And so the governor now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a Chicago mayor whose policies are driving the city toward fiscal ruin and public safety collapse. This is all the more galling since everybody knows Pritzker loathes Johnson and has zero respect for him. While Pritzker's gluttony precludes him from reigning as "The Biggest Loser," he is clearly in the running for coronation as "The Biggest Hypocrite," and in contention, amidst stiff socialist competition, as "The Biggest Liar."
The two of them resemble a pair of amateur revolutionaries re-enacting a historical drama they do not understand — cosplaying secessionists at a moment when the city desperately needs grown-ups.
Terror town and the illusion of control
Meanwhile, Chicago neighborhoods — South Shore’s infamous “Terror Town” most prominently — have descended into anarchy that reflects mayoral insanity. Federal agents raid buildings taken over by drug crews, only to be condemned by the very officials entrusted with keeping those neighborhoods safe.
In any city with functioning leadership, federal help would be welcomed.
Here, it is treated as an insult.
This inversion of priorities — defending lawbreakers while attacking law enforcement — is the hallmark of leadership that has become hostile to the basic responsibilities of governance.
Can we wait until the next election?
No serious person can survey the current trajectory of Chicago and conclude that simply “waiting until 2027” is a responsible course of action.
Unfortunately, we Chicagoans face an institutional barrier to ridding ourselves of this man. There is no mechanism to recall or remove a sitting mayor.
He can be guilty of nearly any degree of negligence, delusion, or dereliction — and the public has no immediate remedy. Only a felony conviction can dislodge him.
That is why, increasingly, reasonable Chicagoans are calling for:
- A federal review of City Hall — A full investigation into the conduct, communications, and actions of this administration.
- A legislative inquiry into the governor’s conduct — Illinois legislators cannot recall the governor, but they can initiate impeachment if grounds exist.
When local institutions collapse, the federal government must intervene. That is the principle behind the Insurrection Act, the Civil Rights Act, and a century of jurisprudence affirming federal supremacy.
If a mayor refuses to enforce the law — or actively undermines it — federal authority is not only permitted to act but obligated to do so.
A city on the edge
The citizens of Chicago are now governed by a mayor who appears mentally and emotionally unstable, and a governor whose political ambitions have overridden his judgment. Together they have created a government that:
- cannot maintain order;
- cannot balance a budget;
- cannot cooperate with Federal law enforcement; and,
- cannot recognize its own constitutional obligations.
These are, in every sense, the times that try men’s souls.
Chicago cannot endure 18 more months of this long civic nightmare. The city cannot endure a leadership class that treats governance as performance art, public safety as an ideological inconvenience, and the Federal government as an enemy to be resisted rather than a partner to restore order.
Chicago needs rescue
The path forward is narrow but not impossible:
- Federal investigation.
- Legislative courage in Springfield.
- Public pressure that does not relent.
Chicago is still worth saving. Nevertheless, we cannot save it by hoping these leaders suddenly regain their sanity. We must act — not in panic, but in resolve.
The city is in crisis.
The leadership is failing.
And the people must not go down with them.
