Team Johnson blew it
His campaign should have never tried to own "defund the police" tag
As Chicagoans, we have long had a history of purporting that many important things or events originated here. That is especially true on the political front. I am pretty sure the term “the Chicago Way” is overused in a lot of places-even if the speakers don’t fully understand it.
Recently, we have had watched the mayoral aspirations of Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO revolve around the issue of Johnson’s on-again, off-again call to “defund the police.” While I don’t see either man as qualified to be the city’s 57th mayor; I feel sorry for the political naiveite Camp Johnson has hung onto in trying to refute his stated position on defunding the police.
It made absolutely no sense for Johnson to repeatedly fumble what he meant by the term. He made one of the most common gaffes inexperienced politicians make -trying to convince the voting public they seem smarter than they actually are. Not only did he fail at that, he made his opponent appear smarter than he actually is.
We know “defund the police” is a term that gained tremendous traction almost three years to the date after than murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis cop. That murder, which garnered national and international attention fueled the familiarity with “defund the police” language.
Had Camp Johnson done even a modicum of research, instead of glomming on to the phrase they couldn’t have helped but learn that only was the phrase, but a plan for defunding the police had been in place in Minneapolis years before Mr. Floyd died under a cop’s knee.
The Minneapolis group, along with some city council members, had crafted a strategy on how the police portion of the city’s budget could be reapportioned to be more expansive and redirect some of those monies to mental health services. It proposed establishing the Department of Public Safety. The group was so well organized that its plan and ideas were presented to the citizenry in an election. It proved an unsuccessful ballot measure.
Had Team Johnson delved into the Minneapolis actions and not tried to make it appear the notion was self-generated while at the same time explaining the goal was to change how policing is done here, not dump the department; then Vallas’ law-and-order approach would not have had so much wind in their sails. Camp Johnson’s failure to research and properly present the origins and intent of defund the police has essentially kept him back on his heels even before the primary election. He appears to be trying to restate his defund rhetoric, but it is probably too late given the runoff election is in only two weeks