Brandon Wins: Barometers of June 28 and Nov 8
The June 28 and Nov 8 elections ended up being barometers for the mood of the masses. Going into those elections, I was anxious about the right-wing reaction to the Uprising causing a wave of right-wing electoral victories in Chicago. But the opposite was true.
On June 28 primaries, all three of 33rd Ward Working Families’ endorsed candidates were “smeared” as being “pro-Defund”. Instead of losing, they won in landslides against the candidates backed by right-wing Democrats like Iris Martinez and far-right groups like the Fraternal Order of Police.
Over the summer, we collected signatures to get #TreatmentNotTrauma on the Nov ballot as a referendum. We had overwhelming support while canvassing, and 92% approval during the Nov 8 general election. All three of our candidates won again, in spite of the Defund “smears”.
Having a referendum on the ballot that was championed by Alder Rossana Rodriguez was also a major boost to collecting petition signatures for her because we had something exciting to point to. The success of #TreatmentNotTrauma’s (TNT) referendum also reshaped the mayoral debates! Brandon opened his announcement speech by promising to pass TNT.
At the People’s Unity Platform debate, all candidates (even Paul Vallas) were tripping over each other to pose as more pro-TNT. To be clear, this was undoubtedly lip service. But the fact that they felt they had to pay that lip service was an indicator of how far we had shifted the debate around public safety and mental health.
If being smeared as pro-Defund had been a kiss of death, we would have seen it during the June 28 and Nov 8 elections. But our years of organizing, as well as the lingering impact of the 2020 Uprising, proved to have completely changed the political landscape.
Across all these elections, including Feb 28 and April 4, I was canvassing and would have people say to me (completely unprovoked), “We don’t need more cops”. This wasn’t everyone, but it was definitely there, it was part of the mood of the masses.
All this to say that the 2020 Uprising may be over, but it’s effects are still with us. Just as people still talk about the 1% vs the 99%, the Uprising has drawn the latest line in the sand: Black Lives Matter vs Thin Blue Line.
How people relate to that line in the sand, how far they are on either side of it, and how they express their side will vary. But it is the political dividing line. This is why the organizers wouldn’t back Chuy and they did eagerly back Brandon.
The question was, the northwest side has ward organizations that have been tilling the political soil for years. But how would we fair in a citywide election for mayor, where our tilling wasn’t as concentrated and clear? Now we have an answer: Brandon won.
Jasson Perez was recently interviewed for an article titled “Defund is Not a Liability”, which brings up some interesting points to consider in this conversation. As an abolitionist, I would have loved Brandon’s campaign to come out hard for defunding the police. But I didn’t expect that. The way I heard it expressed from one 33WF member was that, “I don’t need him to commit to defund the police, I just need him to commit to not increase the budget and not to hire more cops.”
Now that we have the evidence in from June 28, Nov 8, Feb 28, and now April 4 is that the smear of “defund” is officially useless. Having proven that our people can win, in spite of those smears, maybe now we can shift to being more upfront with our abolitionist demands?
But that is part of the point, our politics have to be scientific, as in: we need to experiment. This is where our experiment has gotten us, so far. Based on the evidence, let’s see what new experiments we need to run with our slogans and messaging on the electoral field of struggle.
This is also a reminder that, in spite of the overarching feeling of right-wing reaction against the uprising, organizing can make a difference. Major crises like the pandemic and the uprising can create permanent shifts in politics. Engaging in electoral work, can be an important part of getting people organized and testing the mood of the masses while also shifting it.
