The most unpopular mayor in the history of Chicago and the most incompetent mayor in the U.S. today is spoiling for a fight.
Not figuratively. Brandon Johnson has visions of blood flowing in the streets of Chi-Town that would improve his standing among the radical leftists who control the city and mark him as a bona fide player in the national "resistance" to Donald Trump.
“The guard is not needed,” Johnson told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities.”
Johnson doesn't believe that creating a climate of law and order, where companies come to Chicago rather than flee the city, is important.
“The National Guard is not going to put food on people’s table [sic]. The National Guard is not going to reduce unemployment,” Johnson said. But neither is the city government if it continues to tolerate the levels of violence and mayhem afflicting the city.
Johnson issued a statement, bragging about bringing down the crime rate over the first six months of the year.
“In Chicago, we have effectively reduced all forms of violent crime by doing what works: constitutional policing, violence prevention, and investing in our communities. This past year alone, we have seen a more than 30% reduction in homicides, a 35% reduction in robberies, and an almost 40% reduction in shootings,” Johnson said in the statement. “We need to keep building on this work.”
"This past year" is a flagrant lie. The statistics Johnson cites are for the first six months of 2025 and are incomplete. Besides, why doesn't he compare statistics from 2019 to 2024? Levels of violence are still above pre-pandemic levels more than three years after the crisis passed.
Crime is down in Chicago across nearly all categories, Pritzker said, citing a 30% decline in homicides so far this year compared to 2024.
But while Chicago’s crime has improved year-to-date, violence is still higher than it was before the pandemic, according to an analysis of crime data between 2019 and 2024.
Aggravated assault is up 16%, figures from the Council on Criminal Justice show, while carjackings are up a staggering 60% and gun assaults were 46% higher.
Though homicides are down since last year, Chicago is still much deadlier than other big cities, at 21.7 killings per 100,000 — well above LA’s 7.1 and New York’s 4.7.
Pritzker and Johnson acknowledged the city had work to do to improve crime — but insisted nobody from the city or state had asked the White House for assistance.
“We have made no requests for federal intervention. None. We found out what Trump was planning the same way all of you did. We read a story in the Washington Post,” Pritzker said.
Both Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker call any potential guard deployment "illegal" and "an occupation." "Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities," Johnson said in his statement.
Johnson called putting violent criminals behind bars "racist."
“We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence; we’ve already tried that, and we’ve ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence,” Johnson said during a fiery press conference in the heart of the Windy City on Monday.
“The addiction on jails and incarceration in this country, we’ve moved past that. It is racist, it is immoral, it is unholy, and it is not the way to drive violence down," he added.
Actually, putting criminals behind bars does, indeed, drive down crime rates. The reforms of the late 20th and early 21st century Pew reports "the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2022, with large decreases in the rates of robbery (-74%), aggravated assault (-39%), and murder/nonnegligent manslaughter (-34%)." During this time, we put a record number of people in jail. Is it just a coincidence that the move to "reform" the criminal justice system by releasing criminals early and not even charging them has led to a spike in crime?
Johnson is wrong, and his rhetoric, calling any guard deployment "illegal" and "an occupation," along with his shaky hold on city hall, might tempt him to create a confrontation that could easily turn violent.
Brandon Johnson is a loose cannon and not to be trusted.
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