Chicago: A city of two tales

As I switched between two cable news networks, I heard two Chicago elected officials tell very different stories.  It was not completely surprising since the two networks were FOX News and MSNBC, but the starkness of the contrast was more extreme than usual.

As is their practice, FOX News provided factual news – new news, if you will.  MSNBC pandered to the Democrat establishment and the shop-worn refrain of old narratives.

By way of background, on May 31^st, Chicago suffered its worst day of gun violence in 60 years.   The city was on fire — literally and figuratively.  More than 80 people had been shot with 18 killed in only 24 hours.  But that was only the tip of the iceberg.  More than 65,000 citizens of the Windy City called 911 to plea for police help.  (Yeah. That’s right.  The same police the radicals would defund.)  That was 50,000 more calls than a normal holiday.

The vast majority of those calls came from black citizens living in Chicago’s infamous segregated ghettoes on the south and west sides of the Windy City.  It would not be much of an exaggeration to call it America’s Kristallnacht – when Nazi rioters (provoked by the government) attacked the Jewish ghettoes in Germany – or China’s cultural revolution – when Chairman Mao empowered young radicals to take to the streets to attack and murder the Middle Kingdom’s intelligentsia.  In this case, it was the radical left in the Democratic Party, in the media and in the streets that were promoting public violence – and Chicago was paying the price.

FOX News featured an interview with Chicago 5^th Ward Democrat Alderman Raymond Lopez in which he chastised Mayor LIghtfoot for deploying the National Guard only to protect the downtown area.  He and Lightfoot had previously engaged in a cussing contest over the issue of neighborhood protection during a multi-party conference call after Lopez begged for more help in the neighborhood.  The leaked recording showed Lopez saying:

“Once they’re done looting and rioting and whatever’s going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down people’s doors, if they think they’ve got something.  We know that people are here to antagonize and incite, and you’ve got them all pumped tonight, today. They’re not going to go to bed at 8 o’clock. They’re going to turn their focus on the neighborhoods. I’ve got gangbangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It’s not going to be enough.”

When Lightfoot refused to respond, Lopez added, “It’s not something you ignore. This is a question that I have.”

That is when the cussing began.  Lightfoot shot back, “I think you’re 100% full of s***, is what I think,”

To which the enraged Lopez responded, “F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I’m full of s***? Maybe you should come out and see what’s going on.”

Switching over to MSNBC, I caught a fawning interview with Mayor Lightfoot.  Though they did note the high murder rate over Memorial Day weekend, they offered up no tough questions.  In fact, they mostly sympathized with Lightfoot for the burden she bears.  There were no mentions of the exchange between the Mayor and Alderman Lopez.  No questions about the failure to deploy the Guard where most of the rioting was taking place.

Instead, they asked Her Honor what lessons she could give other mayors as to how to address the tough issues facing the leaders of these powder keg municipalities.  WHAT?  Arguably, the most failed mayor in one of the most racist cities is asked to lecture other mayors?  Yep!  That is how these left-wing media folks think and operate.

As if avoiding the elephant in the room was not bad enough, Lightfoot proceeded to espouse that same old snake oil panaceas that the left has been pushing for generations.  They failed then and they will fail in the future – because they are not designed to change anything, but only to give the appearance of change.

She called for more public housing – which, if you know anything about that issue, is that backbone of urban segregation.  Public housing was never intended – nor did it – provide quality housing for the poor.  It was intended to prevent the growing black population from consuming more area.  You simply replace a few blocks, in which hundreds of families live, and build high rises, in which thousands of families could reside in rat-infested, gang-run, drug-ridden tenements – high rise slums.

Lightfoot said the segregated communities need more social workers and greater economic opportunities.  Those are the same words that spewed from the mouths of every Chicago Democrat mayor since Richard J. Daley had to respond to Martin Luther King in the 1960s.  President Reagan once proposed “economic development zones” to create those “economic opportunities” in the inner cities.  America’s Democrat mayors did nothing to implement the concept – fearful that successful well-educated blacks may not stay segregated and compliant.

In our one-party authoritarian cities, mayors come and go, but the Democrat political machines remain – with all their racist elements.  FOX News and MSNBC coverage represented the distinction between reporting on real events and promulgating the false Democrat narratives.

So, there ‘tis.