Remember when both political parties weren’t all that far from the center?
In the not-so-distant past, during the era of Reagan, the majority of the Democratic Party leaned towards liberalism, but they were not considered extremely irrational. I can recall figures like Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from New York, who, despite being a liberal, did not exhibit extreme behaviors. Although I did not often share his views, I acknowledged his intelligence and earned a level of respect for him.
However, many Democrats holding similar moderate views have been disregarded by the Democratic Party, making way for the emergence of the “Squad” and radical progressives. The term “Woke,” commonly used in recent election cycles, has outside of major Democratic metropolitan areas, become synonymous with “electoral defeat.”
Now turning our attention to Chicago, where the electorate made the questionable decision to replace Mayor Lightfoot, who was deemed a significant failure, with an even more disastrous choice, Mayor Brandon Johnson. This move was deemed too extreme even for Rahm Emanuel, a figure known for his association with the Clinton administration and past role as mayor of Chicago. He expressed this sentiment during an appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” on a Friday evening.
Emanuel said on Friday night that government has allowed the city to become too “permissive” on crime and has fixated on niche liberal issues like transgender bathroom policies rather than dealing with plummeting education standards.
“I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room, I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom,” Emanuel told the “Real Time” panel, featuring host Bill Maher and liberal pundit Fareed Zakaria.
Maher, who often shreds the excesses of the woke left on his program, wondered, “I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6 percent…. What’s going on in Chicago?”
“Round it up. 7,” the ex-mayor and former U.S. ambassador to Japan joked, though he went into some serious criticism of the city’s government. He began by noting his own mantra back when he ran the city, telling Maher, “Safe streets, strong schools, stable finances. Focus on those three things and your city’s going to be fine.”
Watch:
Bill Maher asks Rahm Emanuel why Chicago’s mayor has such a low approval rating, and the panel agrees that Democrat policies have ruined large American cities:
Bill Maher: “I read that the current mayor of Chicago has an approval rating of 6.6%. What’s going on in Chicago?”
Rahm… pic.twitter.com/Wn3rj5kQ9v
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) March 1, 2025
I never thought I’d be writing these words, but… Rahm Emanuel is right.
