Chicago's Awful Mayor

I keep wondering what it will take for America’s ordinary decent people to decide that they’ve had enough of interminable stay-at-home orders.

Will it be bankruptcies, evaporation of life savings, depression or hunger that finally pushes them to that point?

Perhaps it will simply be the unmitigated arrogance and hypocrisy of some public figures.

The mayor of Chicago, for instance.

Her name is Lori Lightfoot and there’s nothing light about the way she’s putting her foot on the neck of Chicagoans.

Less than two weeks ago she shut down most businesses in the Windy City and ordered everyone to stay indoors. She threatened those who don’t comply with $500 fines.

Unlike more benevolent dictators in other places, Lightfoot doesn’t want her people to exercise or get fresh air. She wants them inside. Numbed into submission by their televisions.

When issuing the order last month, Lightfoot said,

Stay at home. Only go out for essentials. You have to readjust your thinking. Be smart. Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront. The situation Is deadly serious and we need you take it deadly seriously.

You cannot go on long bike rides. Playgrounds are shut down. You must abide by the order. Outside, is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks. I can’t emphasize enough that we abide the rules.

Lightfoot didn’t explain how a long bike ride is any more dangerous to the public health than a short one. Neither did she explain why running 3.1 miles - 5K - is more dangerous than a one mile jog.

She didn't because these are nonsensical limits. Orwellian rules pulled out of thin air by yet another drunk-with-power elected official.

It says something about Chicagoans that they didn’t rise up and rebel. Then again, the people of Chicago have a habit of electing awful leaders, going back to the first Mayor Richard Daley who took office in 1955. They’re used to atrocious leadership.

But Lightfoot is finally catching flak after she was caught violating her own ridiculous rules.

Photos on social media Sunday showed that Her Honor got a haircut after closing down all of the city’s stylists and barber shops. They also show her standing mere inches from the woman who styled her hair.

Did Lightfoot apologize for her transgressions? No, she did not. Instead, she insisted that she needed to look her best since she was the mayor. The rest of the women of Chicago can look like a dog’s dinner, for all Lightfoot cares, but she will be well groomed.

“Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended getting a haircut over the weekend even though barbers and stylists were shut down under the state’s stay-at-home order, saying she’s the face of the city and the woman who cut her hair wore a mask, reported the Chicago Tribune.

Asked about photos on social media showing her with a stylist, Lightfoot acknowledged getting a haircut, then said the public cares more about other issues.

“I think what really people want to talk about is, we’re talking about people dying here. We’re talking about significant health disparities. I think that’s what people care most about,” Lightfoot said.

In response to a follow-up question, she said, “The woman who cut my hair had a mask and gloves on so we are, I am practicing what I’m preaching.”

No, m’am you are not practicing what you are preaching. You are a raging hypocrite.

Ironically, Lightfoot recently cut a Covid-19 public service announcement telling Chicago’s women that “Getting your roots done is not important.”

Emphasis on YOUR.

“I’m in the public every day,” she sniffed. “And candidly, my hair was not looking the way it did. I thought maybe I’d do it myself, but I knew that would be disaster.”

There are plenty of hair stylists and barbers in Chicago who would be happy to don face masks and gloves if they could just have their livelihoods back. 

If I were a Chicago hairdresser I’d be tempted to open for business today and dare the two-faced Face of Chicago to shut me down.