From the Jan. 6 insurrection to misinformation and political tribalism, American democracy is facing significant challenges.
Chicago has not always had the most cordial relationship with democracy over decades of machine-style politics. A new book from a longtime Chicago political observer aims to diagnose what’s wrong and offer prescriptions to fix it.The book, “Democracy's Rebirth: The View from Chicago,” was written by Dick Simpson, a former alderman and longtime political scientist at the University of Illinois Chicago.Mark Twain reputedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.
The complexities of our twenty-first-century world make it difficult for us to create at the national level “a more perfect union.” Today, the ever- widening gap between the rich and the poor, which approaches levels of the Gilded Age before the Great Depression, threatens our democracy. President Lincoln said that we cannot long exist half slave and half free. Today, we cannot long exist with a too-rich 1 percent, a too-poor 99 percent, and a disappearing middle class.
Chicago’s long struggle with machine politics remains emblematic of the nation’s struggle. The ideal of liberty, freedom, prosperity for all, and democratic rule has eluded us even as it continues to provide inspiration. Nationally, we continue to struggle with even formal representation. The tumult in our national politics points to the urgency of democracy’s rebirth. We are still more an oligarchy than a democracy. Added to this, we chose for a time a leader, who despite his promises, did not “Make America Great Again.” Although the nation has survived his presidency, as we survived mediocre presidents in the past, his election and administration are proof that more reforms are needed.
In Chicago, as we continue to confront the legacy of machine politics with more convictions of public corruption by government officials. However, the machine is not yet, “dead, dead, dead,” as Mayor Harold Washington so hopefully proclaimed nearly thirty years ago.
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