DNC Democrats and their hosts--Chicago and Illinois--deserve one another. They're all perfect failures.

Boarded Michigan Avenue, the once Magnificent Mile

Democrats, staging their convention in Chicago and Illinois, couldn’t have picked a better symbol of the hash they have made of America. The city of Chicago and state of Illinois are at or near the bottom of every measure of fiscal, economic, educational and community health. It’s a perfect match for the wreck that Democrats have made of the country.

Convention delegates did not have to walk far from the United Center to see for themselves the failures that Democrats/liberals/progressives have wrought.

The crime, poverty and hopelessness they would have encountered can’t be pinned on Republicans, as the convention speakers would have it. All the credit belongs to years of Democratic control that has driven the city and state into a pond full of bottom feeders.

The statistical evidence is copious. Illinois Policy, a free market think tank, has documented page after page describing the eggs Democrats have laid.

It’s all so stupefying. There’s so much wrong we can only focus on one element of the disaster: The Chicago Teachers Union and its breathtaking demands for a new contract. Keep in mind Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is a former union employee who’s now the CTU’s handmaid.

For a start, the union wants a nine percent wage increase in each of the contract’s four years. Also, 45 days off each school year (not counting summer vacation). Here are some more demands:

Secrecy from parents on their children’s pronouns and sexuality; cash to asylum seekers; “police-free” schools; 100% electric bus fleet; solar panels at schools; pension funds moved away from investments that are “contributing to climate change”; complete carbon neutrality in the district; creating 10,000 affordable housing units; creating dormitories for “unaccompanied youth”; using schools as sheltering places, and charter school limitations.

In its power grab, the union obviously thinks of itself as the school board, in charge of policies that far exceed traditional labor contract negotiations, such as wages and benefits. Strikes are habitual; there have been eleven since 1969, the most recent lasting 102 days. All the time claiming they are “doing it for the students.”

Progressive control of the city and state has plunged them into virtually unresolvable financial catastrophes. High property and gas taxes and a high state income tax have failed to fix the problems. Yet all you hear from the DNC speakers are that it’s someone else’s fault.

Pensions for Chicago’s employees are $51 billion in the red, more than experienced by 43 states. State pension funds are $140 billion underfunded. Illinois’ 2025 operating budget of $52.7 billion includes a $970 million deficit. Yet it’s 4.5 percent higher than the previous year. Gone are all those pandemic relief dollars that allowed the state to claim that its budget was balanced.

In 2023, only 35 percent of Illinois elementary students read at grade level and 27 percent met math standards. It’s much worse in Chicago, even though it spends a lot more per student.

Statistics are boring, so I’ll cut to the chase:

Chicago is arguably America’s most corrupt city. Four Illinois governors have landed in prison. Election fraud there is high art. Infrastructure is a mess. Lead water pipes still are poisoning children. O’Hare Airport often ranks among the worst. Black families fleeing gang wars have created a residential donut hole in the city. Among the wars’ victims are pre-school kids. Transit ridership has collapsed as riders flee in fear of violence. The once Magnificent Mile—Chicago’s premier shopping boulevard—is marred by boarded-up vacancies because of unbridled shop lifting by organized mobs. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson might be the most incompetent chief executive in America. He was elected by blindly partisan, uninformed voters, teachers union loyalists and political machine stalwarts, defeating a highly qualified, moderate Democrat. The sanctuary city and state are straining under the burden of illegal immigrants that are welcomed with open arms. People of color are rightfully upset that illegal immigrants are punching holes in their safety nets. Homelessness, drug trafficking and mental illness are infecting Chicago. Thousands are fleeing the city and state.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Johnson shut down their economies, bowing to the exaggerated and now debunked “guidelines” issued by supposed experts. Businesses still are feeling the impact and students were burdened academically by “remote” learning.

I could go on.

Suffice to say that thousands of Democratic delegates are wildly cheering, even shedding tears, for what has been an empty pants suit. Hope for what? Change for what?

Results don’t matter. The common good doesn't matter. Only holding on to power matters, regardless of the results. Chicago, Illinois and the Democratic National Convention—a perfect match.