Brandon Wins: Chicago Sets a New Plateau for US Politics

Chicago set a new plateau for US politics. There was a real chance we would end up like NYC: a major, liberal city with a Thin Blue Line mayor. If NYC and Chicago both had Democratic mayors that were basically reactions against 2020 Uprising, it would set the precedent.

It’s not just the national issue, it’s also the local effects. NYC cops and Proud Boys have been emboldened by their Thin Blue Line mayor. We may see more far-right organizing in Chicago, but our side will be emboldened to fight back through our winning political ecosystem.

But this new plateau is not just about *who* is mayor. It’s also about *how* we got here. This victory started with the formation of the CORE caucus within CTU, CORE winning the leadership, and introducing “bargaining for the common good”.

CTU would go on to help found United Working Families (UWF), further expanding the vision of independent union politics and developing candidates of our own to run in elections. In effect, laying the seeds for a labor party.

UWF would become a hub that would collaborate with independent movement and ward-level organizations on electoral and movement work. It hasn’t always been smooth or without contention. But it has been a hub for Chicago’s political ecosystem.

The successes that Chicago’s political ecosystem garnered while anchored by UWF — slowly with smaller victories, then major ones in 2019 with the election of several socialists and progressives to city council — created a feedback loop inspiring new activists and groups.

Some of the key groups that reshaped the landscape are the ward-level independent political organizations. They’ve created beachheads of organizing around the city that could organize around local issues while mobilizing voters at election time.

While the ward groups, and UWF, have all approached politics in their own way, there have been overarching trends that diverge from standard electoral politics. One core approach has been to incorporate the movements that they have participated in.

This was on display with Brandon Johnson’s early support for Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez’s #TreatmentNotTrauma. The movement to get it on referenda around the city, and its success, were incorporated into the campaign, reshaping the mayoral debates.

Brandon’s campaign provided a chance to elect someone from our movement into office, as a political party would do. It also provided a project that spanned the entire city, with a concrete goal, that the political ecosystem could coalesce around, with UWF as the hub.

In other words, the campaign was a test of whether or not the political ecosystem was ready to win an executive office. In practice, this also laid the concrete outlines of a political party: funded by unions, peopled by movements. This has been 13yrs in the making.

As of last night, our political ecosystem proved we could work together to win an executive office, anchored by UWF. In the process, we laid the outlines of a political party. In the end, we blocked a Thin Blue Line mayor and elected a pro-Black Lives Matter mayor.

We demonstrated that you can launch a massive campaign, and win, without giving in to the pro-cop propaganda. You can win by focusing on investment in programs of care like #TreatmentNotTrauma, investing in public services, and in people. You don’t have to give in to fear.

Chicago has its own particularities, but other cities must study what has been built here, and find ways to incorporate and modify these lessons for their local conditions. If Chicago can stop the backlash against the 2020 uprising, then so can other cities.

But reaching a new plateau doesn’t guarantee anything. We can move up to the next plateau, we can hold still, or we can backslide. The project isn’t over and, while many of us probably need to get off the field to temporarily rest, the overall project still needs you.

Join UWF and/or find a local ward group like 30th United, 33rd Ward Working Families, United Neighbors of the 35th Ward, 39th Ward Neighbors United, United Northwest Side, and many more! If UWF is the hub, the ward groups are some of the most essential spokes. And subscribe to The Triibe, the news comrade!

Every ward group, union, and UWF itself are all contested spaces where we need every voice, and every opinion to democratically and collectively figure out how we move forward, stay true to our project, and defend our gains. Congratulations, everyone. We did this together. ❤️