I was hopeful last week after Lightfoot ate shit but I'm getting major Bernie-after-Nevada 2020 vibes from where things are now with Johnson. All the big money is behind Vallas and so are all the city's white neighborhoods, and so are a lot of conservative Black voters, frankly.
It's not just that people can't imagine a better future, it's that they're actively distrustful of people who offer one. The Jesse White endorsement sealed it, I think. Better the same shit we've been fed for 50 years, as endorsed by a Chicago political elder, than even the idea that we try something different.
It takes collective, society-wide deprivation and suffering to break people out of their conditioning, and things aren't there yet. Until the US goes through its own century of humiliation we're just going to keep getting Vallases again and again and again, even in a "progressive" bastion like Chicago.
yeah 100% vallas is gonna win , just looking at the numbers that lori + garcia did and where those voters are located on the map. I think both of these constituencies are gonna go to vallas over brandon.
Speaking of constituencies, I saw that the majority of people 30 and under voted for Johnson, but the biggest voter turnout was from people on AARP mailing lists.
Everyone here says that generational politics is stupid, but I don't know. It keeps seeming like any hope for a better future keeps getting fucking destroyed by people who are going to be dead inside a decade.
The voting systems are designed to be this way and we will pretty much never gain ground by using it.
I'm a moderate, which means I think that Brandon will win and on the eve of the election eldritch forces will twist him into one of Chicago's interchangeable centrist mayors. You're right on the money about us not believing in a better future.
Vallas is still a piece of shit though. Anyone who went to a CPS school should instinctively hate CPS leadership. I firmly believe that Chicagoans just need to understand that Vallas is a conservative, opposes abortion, etc etc., and they'll vote for the other guy. Chuy's attack ads were good IIRC. Maybe I'll go up to the white neighborhoods to help out the campaign
I've seen a shit ton of Vallas ads up in Lakeview and Lincoln Park, which definitely tracks.
I have a Lakeview friend who sees the signs up there, and her rich parents are also voting for Vallas. But I feel(/hope) like he shouldn't have much more support than the conservatives who already voted for him in the primary.
