Chicago Elects Socialist-Backed, Defund The Police Advocate As New Mayor … maybe they like living in a combat zone … ?

Chicago voters on Tuesday elected far-left activist and teachers’-union lobbyist Brandon Johnson to be the next mayor of the nation’s third-largest city.

Johnson, 47, is a Cook County commissioner, a former social studies teacher, and a paid lobbyist for the radical Chicago Teachers Union. He ran as a decidedly far-left activist, and was backed by Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America.

In 2020, Johnson was an outspoken advocate of the defund-the-police movement, saying in a radio interview, “I don’t look at it as a slogan. It’s an actual, real political goal.”

Johnson has tried to walk that back a bit as the defund movement increasingly became a drag on Democrats. But he still does not want to increase police funding or ramp up hiring. “Spending more on policing per capita . . . has been a failure,” he said at a news conference.

Instead, Johnson  prioritized training and promoting new detectives and hiring more social workers to respond to people suffering from mental-health crises. During the campaign, he accused Vallas of being too conservative, and a Republican in disguise.

“You know, they said this would never happen,” Johnson said during a raucous victory party Tuesday night.

“To the Chicagoans who did not vote for me, here’s what I want you to know … that I care about you, that I value you. I want to hear from you. I want to work with you. And I’ll be the mayor for you, too,” he said. “This campaign has always been about building a better, stronger, safer Chicago for all the people of Chicago.”

“Let’s take this bold progressive movement around these United States of America,” he said. “Chicago, we can show the country, we can show the world what’s possible when we stand on our values.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/far-left-democrat-brandon-johnson-wins-chicago-mayoral-race/