After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? (pt. 2)

Welcome to part two of my After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? post, which examines the Democrats who have controlled Illinois politics for the majority of my life.

Michael Madigan was born on April 19, 1942 and again when he assumed the speakership of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1983.

One of the most cunning politicians to ever draw breath, Madigan parlayed the representation of a small, non-descript district on the southwest side of Chicago into what is effectively the governorship of Illinois.

I can count the things I agreed with former governor Bruce Rauner about on one finger, and that was his observation that Michael J. Madigan controlled the state of Illinois. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, refers to Illinois as Madiganistan.

I can't disagree.

Imagine a man with the unquenchable thirst for power and control as our current president. Then sand away the need for attention and adulation. Then add a couple dozen layers of epidermis.

Next, fold in a big ol' dose of self-control. Cunning. And bump up that IQ a little bit. Okay—a lot.

Now you're looking at Michael Madigan.

Madigan is Francis Urquhart, the slithering, deadly predator around whom the brilliant BBC production House of Cards revolved. Like Urquhart, Madigan never gets too greedy. Or impatient. Keeps his profile on the down low. And is as unyielding as a diamond.

Madigan lapsing into Twitterrea is unimaginable.

Sadly, this political genius never sought to use his talents to enable Illinois and its citizens. He used it to enable Michael Madigan.

First and foremost of Madigan's greatest hits is his relationship with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, or AFSCME. For decades, he has successfully lobbied the state legislature to relentlessly fatten their pensions without ever troubling himself over the means to pay for it.

Which is why Illinois teeters on the cusp between solvency and ruin today. Our 137.3 billion-dollar unfunded pension liability leads the nation. Madigan has single-handedly placed Illinois' financial future into an industrial-strength meat grinder in a manner Donald Trump only dreams of.

And thanks to a re-written state constitution, it is forbidden to alter those benefits in any way, precluding the obvious common sense solution of downsizing them to a point that doesn't suck the state and its citizen into a deep, dark hole beyond the reach of light and time.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what Michael Madigan can do for you, ask what you can do for Michael Madigan. 

But at least Mike still has a job, right?

Sadly, tossing a state's economic viability into the garbage for political gain isn't a crime. But consorting with a public utility and a telecommunications giant for political gain is. And thanks to the same federal probe that has Ed Burke morphing into Sweaty Eddie, Mike Madigan might be rethinking some career choices.

Friends claim they have repeatedly advised the seventy-eight year-old to step down. What have you got left to prove? Or gain? Why don't you relax and enjoy your money for whatever time is left to you?

Like all power-mad obsessives, Madigan can't see a life beyond the state capitol. “What would I even do?” he is reported to answer. Hopefully the federal government will help supply an answer.

Ever make license plates, Mike?

This is just a rudimentary outline of Madigan's career. Truth to tell, there exist enough skeletons to fill every closet in the Palace of Versailles.

Again, I wonder at his ability to convert a few thousand votes in his home district into the governorship of the State of Illinois. It's akin to electing a president based on the returns of a single county. Or even state.

It's ludicrous. And insidious.

But change is afoot. With the bright lights of that investigation upon him, Madigan's cronies are distancing themselves ASAP. Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, obviously relieved to have the weight of the bully's foot off their necks, are speaking out and calling for accountability.

Despite being a Democrat, I would be happy to see Madigan take his meals on a tray for the remainder of his natural life. It's the least he could do.

So. With so many bad examples of politicos so close to home, how the hell did I ever come to declare as a Democrat?

It took awhile. My father was a Republican, and in my first presidential election I voted like him. Gerald Ford was an affable guy who seemed capable of reuniting the county after the duress of the Nixon years.

Plus Jimmy Carter struck me as an overly cautious born-again religious zealot, which wasn't something I embraced in the sex, drugs and rock and roll-filled years of early-adulthood.

Carter was equally uninspiring in the next election, leading me to commit this crime against humanity: I voted for Ronald Reagan.

Within a year I was confessing to friends that I ought be in a maximum-security federal prison. It couldn't have been more obvious what a callow and ignorant human being I was not to have known the difference between Reagan and Carter.

It haunts me still.

But just like hangovers, frostbite and hemorrhoids, voting Republican has a lesson to teach us. And it was taught to me in indelible, bold-faced type: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN.

And with rare exceptions (all on a state or local level), I haven't.

While scores of Illinois and Chicago politicians qualify as shiftless, beady-eyed charlatans, their primary offenses were usually confined to accumulating power and any remuneration that happened to accompany it.

But on a national scale, Democrats can't hold a candle to the affrontery presented by a succession of Republican representatives, senators and presidents.

Gerrymandering? The endless manipulation and/or outright gutting of the voting rights act? Citizens United? Their class-leading corporate welfare? Their scared-shitless support of the NRA? Their sanctimonious embrace of the pro-life movement?

The artful button-pushing? The never-mind-the-democracy—what's good for us best practices? The willingness to sacrifice our air, our water and our land for the benefit of the business class? The willingness to exploit sexism and racial hatred in exchange for elected office? 

The belief that the pursuit and seizure of power justifies, well, anything?

At their worst, Democrats may be the ones fudging the estimated monthly payments on your new car sales contract. But Republicans are the ones tampering with your brakes.

 

After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? (pt. 1)

When you look back on it, it's quite remarkable, really. That I could come of age in a place dominated by a single political party and despite the decades of corruption emanating from that party, grow-up to embrace them on a national level.

How the hell did that happen?

Some backstory:

First there was Richard J. Daley: The Boss. His iron-clad tenure was earmarked by the slogan “Chicago: The city that works”—at long as you followed the dictates of your precinct captain and voted the right way.

You see, Daley developed a system of patronage that would have been the envy of medieval kings and queens. You either voted for Daley or discovered your garbage wasn't being picked-up in a timely fashion. Or that the burned-out streetlight in front of your house stayed that way for months. Or even years.

Maybe the police paid unusual attention to your car and the state of its registration. Or meticulously observed local parking ordinances as they pertained to your conveyance.

It went on and on and on.

Like all good crime bosses, Daley inserted layers and layers of bureaucracy between him and his functionaries, ensuring it would be difficult to draw a line between him and these civic punishments for non-compliance.

Only death could stop him. And in December of 1976, it did.

Then there was Paul Powell, the Illinois Secretary of State who died in office in 1970. In the time-honored tradition of Illinois Democrats, shoeboxes (shoeboxes!) stuffed with cash were found in his office and the hotel where he lived.

The haul amounted to $750,000 (nearly five-million in 2020 dollars), which was an entirely natural consequence for a civil servant bringing home 30k per.

But Daley and Powell are just the tip of the iceberg. I would be remiss if I didn't name-check George W. Dunne, who as a politically-oriented friend of mine noted bitterly, was the first man to become a millionaire after being elected to public office.

I can't substantiate this claim, but you get the idea. Crooked as a pubic hair.

Then there's Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, who, as his nickname implies, could talk his way out of a sunburn. As an alderman, Fast Eddie had a profound ability for making slimy deals and vanishing before the slime even had a chance to dry.

To insert a particularly-relevant feather in Fast Eddie's cap, he unashamedly led the anti-Washington contingent against Chicago's first black mayor, repeatedly stymieing him as he sought to enact municipal policy.

When being an alderman wasn't enough, he ran for mayor as a Republican—twice. But being a Republican candidate for mayor in the city of Chicago is like being the drummer for the fictional heavy-metal band Spinal Tap. The future is not so bright one requires shades.

While death or political miscalculation ended all of the notable careers above, Edward M. Burke has persisted for over half a century.

He was initially elected to the Chicago City Council in 1969 and has served (for lack of a better word) ever since. He has amassed considerable power, and like the businessmen-slash-pols above, it's difficult to tell where his business ends and his position as an alderman begins.

And vice versa.

Until recently, Burke considered himself a very important person, hence the chauffeur-driven limousine and bodyguards. But a federal probe has put the kabosh on his high falutin' ways, and presently Ed and his legal team are sweating out the details on how to beat the charges stacking up against him.

Fifty-years on, you could argue that ship sailed a long time ago. But I'm fine with the idea of Burke enjoying an uncomfortable retirement.

Manners prohibit me from neglecting the fine quartet of Illinois governors who selflessly blazed a trail from the cushy Governor's mansion in Springfield to federal prison. Yep. Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich all did time.

So there you have it. The Elite Eight of Illinois Infamy. A handy and compact guide to the Illinois politicians who have distinguished themselves while answering the call of public service.

Thing is, the were unusually adept at reversing the charges. (For those of you too young to know what that means, Google it.)

Join us here at The Square Peg next time as we take a look the career of the Babe Ruth of Illinois politics.

Ta ta for now.

The Sad, Giant Foam Finger of American Exceptionalism

I have forgotten who originated the expression be careful what you wish for—you just might get it. But its relevance to 2020 America is unmistakable.

This spring, we witnessed the outrage of those who (like their president), felt the Corona virus was a wildly-exaggerated hoax perpetuated by liberals and their media. They reacted in kind, crying “We don't need no stinking masks!”

They even accused the medical professionals trying to keep us safe and the pols who listened to them of tyranny.

So they opened their bars and their restaurants and their beaches in defiance of the fearful liberals who cautioned against this based on the advice of accredited experts like the Center for Disease Control.

All these months later, those oppressed Republican enclaves like Arizona, Florida and Texas are being subsumed by exploding COVID-19 infection rates.

But at least they didn't listen to liberals, right? That counts for something, right?

In the middle-school lunchroom that is the setting for so much of our political (for lack of a better word) debate, denial has become the flavor du jour of Republicans. Deny science. Deny facts. Deny, deny, deny. If it didn't spring from the mouth of Sir Lies-A-Lot, it is a baldfaced, well, lie.

And since Donald denied the seriousness of the pandemic and has refused to accept any responsibility whatsoever for it, COVID-19 has been handed an extended-stay visa with only the most feeble and occasional federal oversight.

Anybody have one of those giant foam fingers proclaiming we're number-one?

Despite their obnoxious posturing and my outraged reaction to it, I take no pleasure in the grim stories unfolding in Florida and Arizona and Texas.

Rather, I am deeply troubled, wondering how we could be so blinded and corrupted by our political biases not to see a common threat for what it was.

It has placed everything all of us know and love in grave danger.

Samuel Alito Makes a Funny

It always comes from where you least expect it.

At least that was my thought when I read Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's argument against giving New York state prosecutors access to Donald Trump's income tax records.

The avowed conservative addressed the issue thusly: “The subpoena at issue here is unprecedented. Never before has a local prosecutor subpoenaed the records of a sitting president. The court's decision threatens to impair the functioning of the presidency...”

Two things come to mind. One, how timely the old joke about Republicans remains. ("You know what a Republican is? They're people who believe nothing should ever be done for the first time.")

And two, “Impair the functioning of the presidency”? Are you serious, Samuel?  Because when you put that under a microscope, it implies the current presidency is functional.

Where?

It might be that humor comes more naturally to Alito (born April Fool's Day, 1950) than any of us suspect. Maybe he just wants to have us on. I mean, Trump and the morally-stunted ghouls he surrounds himself with have been accused of many things. But functioning?

Yikes.

That is beyond the pale.

I thank Samuel for the laugh. In these dark and anxious days I very much need one. I just didn't think he had it in him.

Sorry, Samuel.

Wondering Aloud

Serving the adrenaline demographic (and the attendant ratings and advertising revenue spike) has led to a profound change in the way nature is presented to TV audiences.

No more illuminating programming typically juxtaposed against the change in seasons. Nope. Instead of a feature with an animal mom raising her young and shepherding them to adulthood, or a fascinating profile of a blue whale, we see conflict. Fights. Carnage.

At the head of the class is Animal Fight Night, trotted out by the one-time educator of all things natural—the National Geographic Society, which seeks to answer not how a specific animal develops the skills with which to survive in its environment, but more pressing scientific queries along the lines of can a hippo beat-up an Australian salt-water crocodile?

Sigh. Looking for a cultural snapshot? There it is.

(Naturally, this follows a re-organization of the National Geographic board which saw a decided rise in “input” from conservative sources.)

In addition to portraying the designated lifeform as a one-dimensional machine devoid of any impulse but the urge to fight, it certainly makes it easier to justify their extinction, doesn't it? They're dangerous!

I recall a middle school field trip to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, one which sought to educate young minds and expand their intellectual horizons.

At one exhibit, there was a question posed next to a wooden door. “What is the world's most-dangerous predator?”

When opened, it revealed a mirror.

Mission accomplished.

Sadly, it was eventually removed. But the lesson endures.

Non-human lifeforms have never been more endangered. Outright extinctions and projected extinctions are off the charts as mankind's relentless spread crowds out thousands upon thousands of species.

The combined effects of habitat destruction and global warming are as lethal as a poacher's gun.

Is it really wise to consume television wherein they're characterized as one-dimensional killers? Couldn't it be argued that if anything should be projected as lethal threats to whatever may be around it is us?

At a time when an unimaginable number of species are perched on the edge of extinction, portraying them this way seems like piling on. Never mind the corrosive effect on preservation efforts.

We like to imagine grand and glorious things about ourselves. Understanding that we share the planet with these species and owe them a measure of consideration before we erect yet-another Sunglasses Hut and carelessly breed might be one way of inching closer to that.