If you can’t stand the heat … complain about it.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson whined Tuesday about “right-wing extremism” and blamed his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, for the many troubles afflicting the Windy City.
Johnson insisted that he “inherited” the city’s ongoing migrant crisis and accused conservatives of unfairly caricaturing Chicago as a crime-ridden metropolis.
“It is abysmal and it’s an affront for everything that is good about this country, for the extremism in this country to use people as political tools to settle political scores for something that happened 400 years ago,” Johnson said during a riff on public safety.
“They’re still mad that a black man is free in this country,” the mayor went on. “This is nothing new.”
“Everyone knows,” Johnson added, “that the right-wing extremism in this country has targeted Democratically run cities, and quite frankly, they have been quite intentional about going after Democratically ran cities that are led by people of color.”
“And their whole motivation is to create disruption and chaos,” he went on. “This is the same Republican right-wing extremism that stormed the Capitol. It’s the same right-wing extremism that refuses to accept the results of the Civil War. It’s raggedy, it’s disrespectful.”
According to the most recent year-to-date statistics from the Chicago Police Department, overall crime complaints have surged by 19%, motor vehicle theft has shot up 47%, and robbery has gone up 25%.
Notably, murders have dipped 12% during that time frame.
Johnson also chucked Lightfoot under the bus for the migrant problem and patted himself on the back for steps his administration has taken in response.
“[With] the international crisis that I inherited six months ago, I’ve made it very clear that we are going to make sure that we remove people out of police districts, women, children who are living on floors and sleeping outside, that we’re going to create spaces that provide more dignity,” the mayor declared Tuesday.
Since August 2022, more than 20,000 migrants have poured into the city, in part thanks to a busing system implemented by states like Texas to move them to sanctuary cities.
That influx has seemingly overwhelmed the city’s social services. An estimated 68,000 Chicago residents are believed to be homeless.
Johnson credited himself for the “Unity Initiative,” a campaign to shuffle migrants from public areas to churches and other locations for shelter.
“Did you know, when I was sworn in in May, the previous city council did not budget for 2023’s migrant mission?” he said.
“So not only have we stood up the full force of government in a collaborative way, we did it without the previous city council even providing resources for it.”
Johnson became the 57th mayor of Chicago back in May after narrowly winning a contentious runoff over former school superintendent Paul Vallas.
Lightfoot was defeated in the first round of voting back in February.
