Bad, Lazy Mayors
The Municipal Incompetence and Corruption of the BLM Politicians
In which I summarize the cornucopia of grand civic accomplishments and meaningful reforms associated with the BLM movement’s foray into American municipal politics. It’s an impressive list!
Just kidding. The people featured here are idiots and liars and thieves. Perhaps this should prompt some reflection on our part.
If you want to experience a profound loss of faith in the feasibility of democracy, look into Paul Vallas’ philosophy and credentials. Keep in mind: he was defeated by Brandon Johnson.
You can tell the quality of a movement by the character of its leaders.
It turns out that giving people automatic credibility and status based on their identity category doesn’t facilitate acuity or integrity. Only some people enthusiastically take advantage of unearned privilege (for that is what it is) and those people are disproportionately mediocre, dishonest, and narcissistic. People who are doing their best don’t bristle at the concept of personal responsibility. They welcome it.
I get a distinct sense that the left doesn’t much want to talk about the wave of hostility and racial resentment and violence which swept over our country in 2020 these days. Perhaps that’s because they profoundly misdiagnosed the problem? Perhaps it’s the almost complete lack of associated beneficial policy changes? Perhaps it’s the wave of urban crime and disorder, which still hasn’t relented since ‘bail reform’ and equity-centered hiring were implemented? (It could definitely be that). Perhaps it’s the reality of the Marxist founders of BLM proving (as Marxists often do) to be corrupt, cynical operators? Perhaps it was the believers’ (embarrassing, in retrospect) zeal for radical change and ideological conformity? I’m sure many of them wrote posts about carceral institutions and community policing and systemic racism with which they’re rather uncomfortable now. They’re certainly not posting those things these days. It’s an additional fact that many of the believers were angry at and cruel toward people who disagreed with them (those few dissenters willing to speak up). Have you ever heard of someone receiving an apology for being cancelled for expressing opinions that, it turned out, were true? I haven’t.
Well, it’s always uncomfortable to admit when you’re wrong, but when you’ve decided that you (and people like you) will be the sense-maker and policy leader and the truth-teller of a society (which is undoubtedly how the professional managerial class-PMC-sees itself) then awkwardly and quietly pivoting away from your catastrophic errors isn’t an option. At least it shouldn’t be. This isn’t personal. You told us that the BLM movement should be wholeheartedly supported and that doubts and criticisms were essentially racist, and you were wrong.
How do I know? Let’s leave the rest aside for now and focus on the crop of mayors who rode into office on the crest of the BLM wave. Have any proven to be capable? Honest? Popular? Honestly, not that I know of. There’s certainly a much higher incidence of corruption, negligence, and truly shocking mismanagement evidenced by this group. Black lives still matter (even the thousands cut down on the verge of legal adulthood by other black men and boys-those lives matter too) but ‘Black Lives Matter!’ is no longer the rallying cry it once was. People like these mayors have something to do with that, as did the blind arrogance of progressives over the past few years.
Let this be a lesson: when you create a radical, self-righteous movement which silences all dissent and empowers people on the basis of factors which indicate nothing about their character or intelligence, you create an avenue for manipulation by grifters and sociopaths. Less than 4 decades after the triumphant victory of the African National Congress party in South Africa, and the promise of the dismantling of apartheid, and truth & reconciliation, the country is a DEI-fueled disaster. It’s full of murder and corruption. It experiences thousands of regional electrical brownouts each year. The party leaders used their political capital and veneer of righteousness to steal money and to empower unworthy leaders. They shoveled transfer payments to their supporters and completely neglected their duties. There is no such thing as ‘duty’ for a narcissist. Remember that.
If you want to avoid this fate you must tie your program to real problems (not narratives or emotional hysteria) and you should carefully pick leaders based on their courage and leadership acumen. You must select virtuous people (as best you can) and that demands some general degree of virtue among the voters. If you bias the selection towards women, you’ll end up with a crop of unusually lazy and manipulative and unethical women. If you bias the selection towards black people, you’ll end up with narcissistic and self-serving black folks who are happy to absorb every unearned piece of social capital they can, because they feel that they deserve it (they’re black, aren’t they?!). You would think the left would’ve learned this lesson by now.
Perhaps the left has a shortage of honest and formidable leaders? If that’s the case then they should probably disband their movement-and start over (I know that’s not going to happen). When circumstances become serious, a real leader will always be distinguishable from a pretender. Just look at L. A. mayor Karen Bass. I don’t even think the people mentioned in this essay were pretending, to be honest. They didn’t have to. They just used the right words and parroted the right narratives, and were perceived by foolish black and naive white folks as reformers, even visionaries. At least until the paperwork started coming in.
This poll is 18 months out of date. Currently Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s approval rating is BELOW SEVEN PERCENT. He’s the most unpopular American mayor in many decades. Perhaps the voters who elected him should re-examine their assumptions?
Brandon Johnson
Chicago, IL
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is the most powerful politician on this list, and the least popular. He essentially leveraged massive support from the teachers’ unions-during a progressive mood in a progressive city-to get elected. He has done almost nothing as mayor, other than re-negotiate a new and generous contract with those same teachers’ unions (coincidence!). There’s probably a quid pro quo element to his spending on political nonprofits and favored contractors to ‘care for’ the migrants (essentially providing goods and services not available to American citizens) as well. When both parties to an agreement want it to remain secret it becomes difficult to validate. This new teachers’ contract creates some ethical issues, since Johnson is currently a member of the teachers’ union. He claimed that he got approval from the city’s board of ethics, but he completely made that up and he did not. He still hasn’t asked, probably because he doesn’t want to hear the answer.
He’s also accepted tens of thousands of gifts “on behalf of the city” which are supposed to be logged and kept in a certain room in city hall for inspection. Both of those strictures have been completely ignored.
He has spent hundreds of millions of city dollars to aid illegal migrants (enraging some of his most loyal supporters, who lambast him monthly with hilarious barbs at mandatory ‘town hall’ events). This surge of spending led him to try to get a significant increase in property taxes passed last year, after repeatedly pledging to not raise property taxes. Earlier this year he barely passed a measure to take out a ~$900 million loan for Chicago (ostensibly for infrastructure, but the fine print makes it clear that it can be spent on the teachers’ unions, or on migrants), which will ultimately cost the city $2 billion. Chicago will be paying only the interest on that loan for 20 years. Insanity. Just an aside: the teachers’ unions are now the most corrupt entity in Chicago politics, by far-certainly more than the Folk Nation or the Gangster Disciples. True, those latter organizations are murderous prison gangs, but they give young men some guidance and purpose (of dubious value, admittedly) and they’re honest about their aims. The teachers’ unions are a vast make-work scheme to siphon billions of dollars from productive businesses and homeowners, to be given to political parasites, and to female educators with lumpy physical forms and mediocre intellects. Worst of all, the union leaders use the rhetoric of opportunity and education in order to cloak their schemes. Education wasn’t a priority during COVID 19, apparently… and it’s not now either.
Chicago public schoolteachers are some of the worst in the country, judging by test scores, and Chicago p. s. students are among the most expensive. The p. s. teachers’ salaries are more than DOUBLE what Chicago Catholic school teachers make (whose results are much more impressive). I’m sure this new contract will fix everything: more money, more benefits, more bureaucracy and failure…
You can’t even find statistics on CPS (Chicago Public Schools) aggregate test scores for recent years. Publicizing such figures is one of the primary functions of an educational bureaucracy. The government simply doesn’t want you to apprehend the figures for the public, post-COVID. Go try to find some data for 2020 or later. See if you’re able to.
Tiffany Henyard
Dolton, IL
Tiffany Henyard quickly dubbed herself the ‘super-mayor’, and while that doesn’t reflect any aspect of her administrative accomplishments it certainly sheds some light on her towering narcissism.
Mayor (ex-mayor, now) Henyard is a particularly colorful and egregious example of municipal catastrophe. She was accused of unauthorized spending on village credit cards, including $48,000 for an ice rink project that lacked board approval. She spent unbelievable amounts of money on clothes and hair appointments. It’s a bit of an understatement to say that ‘she faced criticism for her handling of village finances.’ There are reports of excessive spending on Amazon and travel expenses (tens of thousands of dollars). She took international vacations and a week-long trip to Las Vegas, on the taxpayers’ dime, surrounded by a ‘VIP protection detail’ of police officers being paid overtime. She bought billboards and spent government money on self-promoting social media campaigns. She even recorded music videos, like ‘Good Burger.’
Keep in mind: Dolton is a poor, exurban rust-belt town with a population of about 20,000.
There are intensely amusing clips galore of Henyard online, lambasting the city council (who are themselves black) for their criticism of a ‘black woman,’ and making other grandiose and pathetic statements.
Finally, at the last town hall business meeting Henyard and her male companion started a brawl involving a crowd of townspeople. Wait-one more thing: she recorded a hip-hop music video, which includes the words “I’m feeding the people… they put me in office and treat me like it’s illegal.”
There’s a lesson here, I think. When politicians see themselves as generous and powerful public benefactors, they’re particularly prone to corruption. The mindset seems to be: I’m giving all these people grants and payouts and assistance… who would object if I took a little for myself? The thing that we should remember is that politicians aren’t handing out their money. They’re handing out yours. In many countries a mayor like Henyard would be completely unremarkable, but I don’t want to live in those countries.
In a clever bid to spotlight-and thereby address, and transcend-unfortunate racial stereotypes, Ms. Henyard and her male friend ignited a public brawl during one of her last public appearances as a municipal employee
Kamala Harris was criticized for a lack of apparent authenticity. No one is making that criticism of Tiffany Henyard. Unfortunately for her, florid sociopathy isn’t the kind of authentic trait that necessarily wins the adoration of voters. She was elected though.
Mayor Kobi (Khalid Kamau)
South Fulton, GA
Mayor Kobi (a name he basically invented out of whole cloth, probably to make him sound cool and urban, just as Ibram X Kendi = Henry Rogers) served as a vacuous but undistinguished mayor for about 18 months in a small, suburban, mostly black, town in Georgia. Less than two years into his tenure, he suddenly distinguished himself in a major way. He was arrested for burglary and criminal trespass after skulking around a lakeside home (which he claimed he thought was for sale) and being caught and held by the homeowner at gunpoint. He was booked into the Fulton County Jail.
Mayor Kobi is probably my favorite on this list, due to his pronounced case of vulnerable narcissism and his long and lyrical public fantasies about utopian political reform. If he’d spent less money on toys and televisions, he might’ve been able to accomplish some of that. I also love his post-arrest expressions of gratitude towards the police, and his restrained apology to his constituents. He really is a very good communicator. If he wasn’t probably a psychopath, he might have had a hell of a career.
Mayor Kobi, formerly known as Khalid Kamau, of South Fulton, Georgia, wasn’t kicked out of office for the burglary charge. He wasn’t kicked out for bringing his large and aggressive dog into city hall (and subsequently being barred from the building-and his office-for the rest of his term) or for his conspicuous interpersonal dramas with a number of city employees. He wasn’t kicked out for lying during interviews and adopting a simpering, self-righteous tone at events and press conferences. He wasn’t kicked out for inflammatory media posts.
He might get kicked out for his spending. There are multiple investigations and two audits right now (they ain’t looking good, for city finances, or for Kobi) but what we know is that Mayor Kobi bought expensive drones, a pool table, televisions, etc. using his municipal expense account. He spent thousands outfitting and renovating his city hall offices (which he was then barred from entering). He also paid for at least 6 international trips, including to Ghana (a favorite destination of American leftists, it seems) and France.
South Fulton has fewer than 5,000 residents.
And Mayor Kobi (K/KK) is a candidate from the Democratic Socialists of America. Socialists really enjoy buying stuff on Amazon, apparently.
Sheng Thao
Oakland, CA
Sheng Thao is not, you might be surprised to learn, African-American. She joins a newer, younger crop of female Asian politicians (Kamala Harris, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu) who wholeheartedly embraced BLM and progressive orthodoxy, and have found themselves laid low by their own pathological empathy and by their shared lack of self-assurance. In Ms. Thao’s case a predilection for criminal corruption has also played a role.
She was indicted months ago on multiple charges, including bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud, and wire fraud. She was actually indicted by the outgoing Biden administration. When you, as a Democratic politician, have been indicted by the Biden administration, you know it’s bad. The allegations against her involve a scheme where Thao and her romantic partner, along with two local businessmen, allegedly used bribes (~$100,000, plus subsequent arranged payments) and other illegal practices to manipulate local government decisions.
Sheng Thao will probably be the first of this new crop of American political superstars to end up in prison, but I strongly doubt that she’ll be the last.
In December, I wrote a prediction:
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will be ousted from office and investigated for criminal allegations.
My prediction on that score hasn’t changed.
This is really the mayor of Philadelphia, struggling and failing to spell a basic, 2-syllable word.
People will often choose mediocrities and criminals to lead them, out of ignorance or credulousness or emotional impulse. You shouldn’t base your choice of leader on credulousness or emotion.
There are more contemporary examples of this kind of thing but the existential discouragement I, as a citizen of the United States, accumulated while researching for this essay is beginning to get to me.
Final Reflections
While the civil disorder and moral panic of 2020 eroded some of the safeguards against megalomaniacal and idiotic characters taking the helms of our cities, at the end of the day the voters elected these people.
One wonders how the voters see their choices, in retrospect. Accountability is almost as rare among the minds of voters as it is among politicians, but the fact is that thousands of people voted for Brandon Johnson and many must now be regretting that. In circumstances like this there could be an opportunity to change (some) peoples’ attitudes and propose new leaders and policies. The status quo leadership in municipal black America is frequently pretty disastrous (more Charles Taylor than George Taylor, you might say) and the only fix to this problem will involve education and an embrace of personal and civic responsibility. When even the minimal critical thinking skills of typically educated populations are eroded by lazy and silly schooling, people then become more susceptible to manipulation by demagogues… who then perpetuate lazy and silly schooling, etc.
The bottom line is that self-serving liars can’t or won’t constructively resolve policy challenges, and stupid (or naive) people will be more likely to choose self-serving liars. Only a virtuous society can recognize virtue in its political candidates. When communities in the U. S. are beset by illegitimacy and drug use and crime and poverty, that is partly a lack of virtue. We never discuss it in those terms, but it’s true nonetheless.
Being simple (rustic, direct, unrefined) isn’t a bad thing. But there’s a particularly American species of simplicity, which looks a lot more like ignorance and entitlement. There are millions of voters who have no appetite for education… but that doesn’t bar them from having opinions. There are millions of people who do very little productive work… but that doesn’t stop them from feeling entitled to programs and subsidies and benefits. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m making a public policy claim: when you make things easier, many people don’t respond by using the extra time and energy created by the changes to chase their dreams or parent their children or build their businesses. They simply become fatter, lazier, more easily distracted. We have an entire underclass in this country who are essentially kept alive by the government, who move from fast food drive thru to cell phone outlet to shopping mall, and back to their couch. This country has been moving in this direction long enough for us to see the clear pattern: if we give people more help with rent, more access to medical care, more money for schools, then a great deal of that wealth will be sucked up by the endless appetite Americans seem to have for food and television and sports and cars.
What does this have to do with mayoral elections? Just this: why would we expect people who were never challenged in school or taught critical thinking to be discerning in choosing between economic visions? Why would you expect people who live lives mostly subsidized by government to have some notion of fiscal rectitude or government restraint? Why would you expect people who’ve proven themselves incapable of building businesses or whole families or careers to select worthy leaders?
A republic is only as good as its citizens.
Certainly, BLM introduced an extra measure of elite guilt and some mistaken policy notions and a great deal of fruitless passion and racial resentment into the equation, but BLM didn’t create the problems which put these mayors in office. We, as a society, have been working on creating and feeding those problems for 50 years. More of the same will get us more of the same.
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