THE SLOW MOTION DISASTER UNFOLDING IN CHICAGO.

Just over a year ago, the identity politics crowd were hailing the election of Lori Lightfoot as successor to various Daleys and Rahm Emanuel, if with cautions about the power struggles with the Combine to come.  By then, the identity politics types could tick so many boxes that they could tire of it.

Then came the Wuhan coronavirus, and sometimes it is not possible to benefit by a good crisis.

[The Chicago Board of Trade] and the Merc have been threatening to leave for years, especially if the Machine attempts to tax them by the trade or add some insane fee structure to transactions. There were more than a few rumors that they had built a trading floor just over the border in Indiana. In this digital day and age, with telecommuting and vastly improved virtual meeting software, this could very well be the "new normal" that drives the financial sector out of Chicago.

Conventions are gone for the foreseeable future. Airlines can't turn a profit. Professional sports are committing corporate suicide. The "Mag Mile" is a plywood forest and thousands of restaurants, shops and small businesses are gone, never to return.

The overreaction to a "disease" with a 99% survival rate may have just turned Chicago into Detroit in under a year.

The mayor would rather pick a fight with Our President, and unnamed other critics.

Democracy is “under siege from multiple directions” in America during a summer of violence, civil unrest and pandemic-fueled hardship that has left people disengaged from their government and intolerant of each other, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said [July 29].

Lightfoot unexpectedly turned the latest in a series of news conferences aimed at encouraging Chicagoans to participate in the 2020 U.S. Census into a rousing political address that, aides said, was triggered by the extraordinary moment facing Chicago and the nation.

The death of George Floyd and the civil unrest and racial reckoning it triggered. The coronavirus pandemic that has fallen hardest on Black and Hispanic communities and exacerbated racial inequities that existed long before COVID-19. The death of civil rights icon John Lewis. The spike in murders and shootings in Chicago and other major cities. The hyper-partisan political atmosphere created by, but not limited to President Donald Trump and his re-election bid.

Running her own mouth isn't hyper-partisan, is it?

Her police department have lost confidence in her.

Under more normal conditions, it would be nice if the President and the Mayor of one of our larger cities could be seen cooperating and working to solve problems like this together. Sadly, these are far from normal times. Lori Lightfoot is part of “the Resistance” and knows that she must be seen as opposing the Bad Orange Man no matter what he says or does. But at the same time, she’s allowed her city to crash out of control, with mobs ruling the streets in too many districts.

Neither she nor the [American Criminal Civil Liberties Union] really has any say over whether or not more [homeland security] personnel show up in Chicago. They have offices there at federal buildings that are not under her control. The President can’t tell the Chicago PD what to do, but the Mayor can’t boss around the Department of Homeland Security. This isn’t any sort of standoff taking place. The Mayor doesn’t have a paddle to put in the water here.

What’s really a pity is the fact that Lightfoot can’t see the light, for lack of a better term. Help is on the way and her city is in desperate need of it. And yet, here she is, standing in the doorway and trying to prevent some relief from arriving to secure her streets and dampen down the rising tide of gun violence and gang warfare that has broken out under the cloak of the George Floyd protests. But as with all of the other large cities with liberal leadership, the fault for this lies first and foremost with the citizens of Chicago. They keep electing these people to office and now they are reaping what they have sown. It’s sad, but it’s true.

In addition, a recently promoted deputy police chief almost immediately took his own life.

The mayor sputtered and postured about the Federal interference, and yet made an agreement for some limited Federal help taming the gang warfare that was going on long before anybody heard of George Floyd or decided to tear down Columbus statues.  Mostly, though, she deflected responsibility.

Lightfoot’s problem is with guns obtained illegally in the first place. The weapons from other states that end up in Chicago do so in one of several ways. They’re either stolen, the result of a straw buy, or obtained with the intention of being sold to criminals. None of those are currently legal and additional gun control won’t stop any of them. All but a small handful of those weapons were originally purchased by people who underwent NICS checks and passed. They’d pass a FOID background check too.

You see, she’s trying to blame others so she doesn’t have to try and justify any of her actions that might have contributed to the influx of violence in her city. If she points away from the city, she’s less likely to have to answer for her own failures. It’s also why she’s trying to guilt-trip President Trump into supporting gun control. That isn’t likely to work–the president isn’t well known for responding to shaming tactics–but she’s going to try.

As a result, Chicago won’t get any better. If there’s any improvement, it’ll be because those most likely to engage in violence are already dead and that’s about it.

Tammy Bruce suggests that the deflection is a feature.

Democrats and the left never take responsibility for their policies that continue to destroy cities and lives. One would be inclined to call these “failures,” but it is becoming more urgent to recognize that this downward trajectory of civil order and quality of life is perhaps exactly what the American left really wants.

All these “blue cities” have things in common, including gun control, sanctuary city policies and hostility toward law enforcement. If any of these mayors and governors were serious about wanting to stop the death and destruction, they could do it, but it would require repudiating everything they stand for. Instead, lying and misleading becomes the standard of the day.

The latest deflection appears to be asking casual vistors to self-quarantine if they come there.  This is priceless.  The current base reproduction rate of coronavirus is above unity in Illinois, and below unity in two of the states, Iowa and Wisconsin, subject to this quarantine ukase.  There have been more coronavirus infections noted in Cook County alone than in either Iowa or Wisconsin.  "The order figures to be particularly problematic with Wisconsin, given its proximity and the high number of people from Illinois who spend weekends and vacations there. Many Illinois and Chicago residents, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have homes there."  Ya think?  It's just a matter of time until the mayor and governor are begging their upscale residents to move back to Illinois and pay taxes.  Particularly with the Chicago quarantine request being as foolishly framed as it is.

If someone drives through a state on the list but does not stay more than 24 hours, that person does not need to quarantine. But a city employee clarified that Chicagoans who choose to drive into Wisconsin and go out in public, regardless of whether they return later in the same day, do need to quarantine after such voluntary activities.

For example, Chicagoans who drive through Iowa (a listed state) to spend a week in Minnesota (not listed) but who did not stay in Iowa more than 24 hours do not need to quarantine. There are similar restrictions for air travelers. Those spending an afternoon on Lake Geneva, however, would be subject to the requirement to quarantine.

Travelers visiting Chicago from listed states also are subject to the order if they are staying longer than a day. Everyone older than age 2 who lands at a Chicago airport is required to wear a mask, then quarantine if they’ve come from a listed state.

If someone is staying with a Chicago resident after traveling to an affected state, the traveler must quarantine, but other people in the home who did not travel to a listed state are not required to quarantine. The resident should follow guidance for being around someone who has potentially been exposed.

Hockey's delayed offside rules are a paradigm of clarity compared to all this.

At the same time, the curfews, quarantines, and resumption of house arrests are proving to be too much for Chicago area businesses, many of them already vandalized in the June wildings.

As new data on [Wuhan coronavirus] emerges, Illinois will have to adapt to changing circumstances. Still, research shows the sequential lift of a lockdown is the best way to mitigate both the human cost of the virus and the economic damage.

Illinois voters need to consider the potential for the [coronavirus] economic damage to be magnified by the progressive income tax hike state leaders are seeking Nov. 3. Economists argue against increasing taxes during a recession. A progressive tax will increase taxes up to 47% on more than 100,000 small businesses just as they are trying to recover from the COVID-19 economic damage. Those small businesses are responsible for the vast majority of new jobs in Illinois.

A safe return to work is the first step to tackling growing racial gaps and to reviving the Illinois economy. A tax increase would be a grave error.

There's an opportunity for Libertarian and Republican publicists to motivate voters to Rage Against the Combine, voting no on that tax referendum and voting for anybody but a Democrat on the offices that are open, including all the Members of Congress, and Senator Dick "Eddie Haskell" Durban.