Rahm Emanuel is a big problem for the Democrats
It's the constituency whose turnout makes or breaks the Democrats nationally versus a vengeful man who knows where all the skeletons are buried.
The latest shooting of an unarmed black person by Chicago police is so threatening to Mayor Rahm Emanuel that he jetted home from his vacation in the Workers’ Paradise of Cuba. Tearing himself away from all that balmy Caribbean weather to endure a sleet storm in Chicago Monday couldn’t have been easy. He will certainly miss the political tranquility that comes from having an absolute dictatorship that summarily executed thousands of its opponents. Alas, for the mayor, Chicago is different.
Former ally Al Sharpton is calling for Rahm to resign:
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel should step down following the latest police shootings to stun his city, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Monday, complaining that the mayor "didn't even come back off vacation" to be in his city.
"I've never seen this kind of detachment in the years I've been fighting, whether I got along with the mayor or not," Sharpton, a panel guest on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, commented. "How do you stay in Cuba on vacation?"
Emanuel did issue a statement calling for reforms after a police officer shot and killed 55-year-old Bettie Jones, an anti-violence activist, on Saturday and a neighbor, Quintonio LeGrier, 19, who was an emotionally troubled college student who had returned home on holiday break, reports The Washington Post.
Anger toward the mayor is turning to violence and possibly anti-Semitism, as Ann Sweeny of the Chicago Tribune reports:
A deputy chief of staff to Mayor Rahm Emanuel was physically assaulted while attending a vigil in the block where Chicago police shot and killed two people over the weekend, according to a Chicago police report.
A spokesman for police confirmed that a 50-year-old man was punched, tackled and kicked at Sunday's vigil. Sgt. Bob Kane said no one was in custody for the assault.
According to a report of the incident, the victim was Vance Henry, 50, who was walking with Ald. Jason Ervin at the vigil when they were accosted by a man who cursed Emanuel and the police and said, "What are you doing here, you should be downtown doing something about this." The man also said that "the police are killing us," according to the report.
The man and a second person left the area briefly but returned, repeating the complaints, according to the report.
Henry then told the assailant to "get out of his face," and the man swung at Henry, striking him in the face, the report said. A second person tackled Henry and shoved him to the ground, the report said.
According to the report, the two assailants attempted to kick Henry, grazing him in the back of the head. One of the assailants made an anti-Semitic remark. That remark may have been directed at Emanuel, who is Jewish.
Yet for all then anger toward the mayor on the part of the black community (which accounts for roughly 25% of the Democrats’ national vote, and whose enthusiastic turnout is thus absolutely crucial to electoral success), Emanuel still has considerable support among powerful Democrats. He has worked in the White House for both the Clinton and Obama factions of the party – a rare bridge between the two bitter rivals. And Rahm is known for his fierce temper. Would you want to be on the vengeance list of a man like Rahm who knows where a lot of skeletons are buried?
Manu Raju of CNN does an inventory on high-level support Democrats show for Rahm:
Andrea Zopp has every reason to call for embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign. The Senate Democratic candidate is seeking a leg-up in a contested primary at a time when Emanuel's handling of police violence has enraged many in the city's large population of African-American voters.
But Zopp is declining to call on Emanuel to step aside.
"I certainly understand the frustration of those who are calling for the mayor's resignation and their view that he has not handled these issues well," Zopp, a former head of the Chicago Urban League, told CNN on Monday. "My view is that he is there, and he is paying attention and we have his ear. We ought to use it to drive real change." (snip)
The state's congressional delegation has stayed mum on Emanuel's future, and many aldermen on the Chicago City Council -- including in the black caucus -- have yet to call on him to resign. A new bill in the state legislature in Springfield to let Chicago voters recall Emanuel has won only scant support and is opposed by powerful Democratic leaders. (snip)
"I'm not suggesting that the mayor needs to resign," Rep. Danny Davis, a 10-term congressmen and veteran of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN Monday. "I am suggesting that we need to overhaul in a very serious way the culture of law enforcement in our county."
Davis' voice carries extra significance since it was in his West Chicago district where the latest episode of police violence occurred over the weekend. (snip)
Rep. Bobby Rush, a 12-term Chicago congressman and influential African-American voice in the city's politics, said in a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times this month that ousting Emanuel would "only move from one chaos to another chaos," calling it a "bad strategy." (snip)
Howard Brookins, a Chicago alderman and former chairman of the city council's black caucus, told CNN Monday he isn't calling on Emanuel to resign but has "been disappointed in the handling of this matter" since April when he called for the release of the McDonald video. (snip)
U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a candidate preferred by Washington Democrats for their party's nomination for the state's Senate seat next year, said Monday she isn't seeking Emanuel's ouster.
"Tammy believes the mayor has been saying the right things, but now it's time to do the right things because without real change, words are meaningless," said Matt McGrath, Duckworth's campaign spokesman.
Emanuel is in a fight for his political life. And he will not go quietly into the dark political night. But how are the Democrats going to deal with the anger of the black community over police shootings, and in particular the cover-up of video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald until after Emanuel was re-elected? The Dems were counting on racial grievances to drive black turnout in 2016, which is why Soros is funding #BlackLivesMatter, why Obama is stoking racial resentment, and why no national Democrat politician dares utter the words “all lives matter.”
If this problem were on the Republican side, every candidate for president would be hounded by the media for comments on whether Emanuel should stay or go. But nobody has heard a peep from Hillary Clinton on the matter, and nobody is even expressing any curiosity.
It is so easy being a Democrat. Unless you are Rahm right now.