Brandon Johnson’s shocking victory in Chicago’s April 4 mayoral election has sparked intense reactions across the spectrum.
Three months ago, few expected a black organizer from a militant union to defeat an opponent who enjoyed the unified backing of big business and police and a two-to-one funding advantage.
While Johnson campaigned on taxing large corporations, addressing the social roots of crime, and enacting a modicum of police accountability, his opponent Paul Vallas pledged more school privatization, more austerity for workers, and free rein for police.
Johnson’s win not only offers hope for transforming a ruthlessly unequal city, but signals what the Left could accomplish elsewhere.
To the extent that Johnson and his allies on the city council attempt to deliver, they will incur a phalanx of resistance.
Reactionary forces may have lost the election, but they retain enormous power to coerce both policymakers and the general population.
The Reactionary Recipe
The Right has a well-tested playbook in these situations. When its candidates lose, it turns to its other levers of power. It finds judicial and legislative choke points to obstruct reform and wages a propaganda war in the press.
When a popular revolution challenged US domination of Cuba, Washington imposed an economic blockade “to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”.
When Chileans elected a socialist president in 1970, US policymakers and top corporations launched “a laboratory experiment” to redirect investments away from Chile “in an effort to discredit and bring down” Salvador Allende.
Brandon Johnson is the latest target. The Johnson administration’s fate will depend on how Johnson and his base respond to the inevitable reactionary offensive.
Whether or not we live in Chicago, we must be ready to stand with Chicago’s workers during the coming confrontations
Johnson needs protests and strikes to fend off the inevitable capitalist attacks.
https://jacobin.com/2023/04/brandon-johnson-mayor-chicago-capital-strikes-movements