By DOUG IBENDAHL • December 18, 2017
“What the hell is going on in Chicago?” – President Donald Trump
A great question, and one Donald Trump has asked many times over the past two years, most recently this past Friday at the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
In that address the President went on to say: “For the second year in a row, a person was shot in Chicago every three hours.”
Well it turns out the President was being too gracious. Someone crunched the numbers and if you take the 3,456 shooting victims in Chicago so far this year (as of last week), that works out to an average of one victim every 2 hours and 25 minutes.
It’s only thanks to the skill of Chicago’s medical professionals – and the considerable practice they get – that most shooting victims survive. So far this year shootings accounted for 608 homicides.
President Trump has to keep asking what’s going on because Chicago politicians won’t. They are too afraid. Honest self-reflection would mean exposing the truth that their irresponsible policies are the root cause of Chicago’s violence and other ills.
While his constituents remained hunkered-down under hostile fire, Mayor Rahm Emanuel flew off to New York early last week to yuck-it-up with fellow Trump hater Stephen Colbert. (Rahm’s brother Ari just happens to be Colbert’s agent.)
Emanuel repeated his tedious shtick about Chicago being a “Trump-free zone” and upped the buffoonery with: “Our motto: A city he’ll never sleep in. We don’t want him.”
The Mayor may not want the President of the United States, but he certainly wants to keep gorging on the enormous federal subsidies Emanuel’s bankrupt city government needs to stay afloat.
Emanuel demonstrates how easy it is to be a clown on the taxpayers’ dime, but providing competent leadership is another matter. Emanuel’s overt jealousy and resentment towards an actual do-er like President Trump is not only embarrassing to watch – it’s a severe detriment to the people the Mayor is paid to serve.
When Emanuel says about the President, “We don’t want him,” he’s really speaking of course for himself and his fellow politicians who have failed the people of Chicago.
Their hostility towards Donald Trump is nothing new.
Chicago remains the only place on the planet where violence prevented Donald Trump from holding a peaceful event. Days before Illinois’ March 2016 Primary, Trump was scheduled to hold a campaign rally on the University of Illinois campus in Chicago. Democrat politicians started ginning-up the hate a week in advance, and it all had the desired effect. Violent left-wingers infiltrated the event and started picking fights and screaming obscenities at veterans and families with young children who simply wanted to hear from the man they supported for President.
I was inside the arena when the thugs unleashed their hate and wrote about what I witnessed. Trump’s team was right to cancel the event. Emanuel’s people simply couldn’t guarantee the safety of the candidate or his supporters. The City’s subsequent empty claims to the contrary are hogwash.
The Trump haters celebrated the cancellation, including domestic terrorist Bill Ayers who was positively giddy before the cameras outside the event.
The Mayor was no doubt celebrating too, although he kept his fingerprints off the mob action by staying away. But of course he never condemned it, and neither has he ever addressed the inconvenient truth that has him nursing his anti-Trump grudge along with a domestic terrorist.
A lot has happened since that disgrace in Chicago. Donald Trump went on to handily win the Illinois Republican Primary a few days later, and then a national landslide win that November. Post-election the President has been working night-and-day successfully restoring jobs and opportunity across America.
Meanwhile back in Chicago, Emanuel and his minions decided to look even smaller by removing the honorary Trump streets signs which had been installed around the Trump International Hotel & Tower years ago.
Something is seriously wrong with these people.
However you do have to love the fact the biggest sign in downtown Chicago remains the 20-foot high “TRUMP” lettering on Trump Tower. No doubt that’s making the Mayor more unhinged with each passing day.
So as much as I would love to see President Trump back in Chicago, he and the Secret Service would probably be wise not to completely dismiss as just more buffoonery the Mayor’s pledge that Chicago is a city this President will “never sleep in.”
Emanuel has already proven he’s incapable of keeping Donald Trump and his supporters safe in Chicago – just as he’s proven he’s incapable of keeping other residents here safe from violence. Add the fact that Emanuel seems more interested in stoking-up division and hate for the President of the United States than in doing his actual job, and it makes for a disturbing situation.
It’s all such a shame. I have to say, I love Chicago. If you have benefited from a good education, if you’re a professional or other white collar worker, or if you’re an empty nester with disposable income who has moved-in from the suburbs after the kids were grown, it’s a great place to live. Unnecessarily expensive, yes, but with a lot to offer.
The problem is a lot of people don’t live in Chicago on purpose. Many are trapped in high crime neighborhoods and with few job opportunities because they didn’t have the benefit of a decent education. So many families remained trapped in horrible public schools, and under the thumb of worthless politicians who see their constituents only in terms of the votes they provide, and not as people they should seriously try to help.
President Trump has dedicated himself and this country to something better. He’s serious about rebuilding our country, including the inner cities, and bringing jobs back for people of all races and creeds. It’s what he’s been doing all his life. And at the same time he recognizes that education is the civil rights issue of our time. Trump wants to liberate kids from horrible public schools. He wants school choice and vouchers, and families in poor neighborhoods do too.
Rahm Emanuel has proven he really doesn’t care about the disadvantaged of Chicago. Like nearly every liberal Democrat, he mostly seems terrified that President Trump will be successful in liberating all Chicagoans from the hopelessness of the Liberal Plantation.
And while the President works to reign-in illegal immigration and make America safe, Emanuel actively advertises Chicago’s “sanctuary city” status and invites illegal immigrants to flock to Chicago (with new ID cards and even free legal aid), where assuming they can steal a Social Security number, they will only further drive down wages and take jobs from legal residents who already lack ample work opportunities.
“What the hell is going on in Chicago?” The President asks the right question. Unfortunately, until Chicagoans decide to elect competent officials, there is never going to be a satisfactory answer.
Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party.
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