Although the Democratic Party has long presented itself as the party of the blue-collar, working-class man, this image has been crumbling in recent years.
Former President Donald Trump certainly broke the Matrix in this regard in 2016, reaching out to Rust Belt manufacturers and coal miners that had been largely abandoned by the new progressive movement’s swift attachment to intersectionality and the job-killing Green Agenda.
Yet the last year’s far-reaching COVID tyranny, which is causing deep rifts between Democratic leadership and public sector union workers, has made this disconnect that much more apparent.
Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was confronted with this fraught relationship head-on this week as she was loudly booed at a fundraiser for a plumbers’ union that endorsed her in 2019.
As Lightfoot was introduced on stage at the event for Plumbers Union Local 130, loud boos filled the room according to reports and videos posted to social media in which the outburst of disapproval can clearly be heard.
Of course, to hear the Chicago Sun-Times tell it, there was likely only a small smattering of faint boos.
“I was there when she was speaking. There were a couple of people in the corner that booed. But it was nothing significant. And it didn’t disrupt the event at all,” the union’s recording secretary Pat McCarthy told the newspaper, who insisted that the mayor was able to “finish her remarks” and even got “a cheer” at the end.
Perhaps one person cheered, but watch this video of Lightfoot being introduced and tell me if this sounds like “nothing significant.”
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language which some viewers will find offensive.
Please enjoy this video of Lori Lightfoot getting booed.
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 27, 2021
You can hear one of the fundraiser attendees say in the background as the boos filled the auditorium that the reception was “f***ing brutal,” which sounds slightly more accurate than “nothing significant,” if you ask me.
As one anonymous source told the Sun-Times, it seemed more like Lightfoot was “booed off the stage” and that the “resounding” boos were “almost deafening.”
All the same, union administrators seemed pretty insistent that the boos were not indicative of the union’s relationship with Lightfoot.
“We’ve been supporting the mayor since Day One. We were the first union to support the mayor. She’s been here numerous times at meetings and stuff,” the union’s president Jim Majerowicz said. “She’s a great partner of ours.”
Majerowicz also found it “hard to believe” that there had been significant booing going on, but he told the paper he was downstairs at the time and could not hear the crowd when Lightfoot was introduced.
The mayor’s political director, meanwhile, told the newspaper that Lightfoot will seek the union’s endorsement when she runs for re-election.
“They have a great relationship. And I would expect them to be on her team in 2023,” he said. “I don’t believe that she was, quote-unquote, ‘booed’ at this event. I believe she was well received. There may have been a couple of people in the room who came in there to shout and be loud.”
One union that certainly doesn’t have anything nice to say about Lightfoot right now is the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
Lightfoot has been publicly feuding with the union’s president John Catanzara over her insistence that all members of the Chicago Police Department disclose vaccine status or be placed on unpaid leave.
As many as 50 percent of the force’s members could be subject to such punishment over their refusal to cooperate with the city mandate.
This is quite literally deadly in a city whose weekend shooting statistics are the frequent subject of national headlines and where the violence has only worsened this year.
Chicago experienced its deadliest September in nearly 30 years, according to new data from the Chicago Police Department.https://t.co/bRIRtJYKIi
— WTTW (Chicago PBS) (@wttw) October 1, 2021
It’s beyond disturbing that Lightfoot would go to such lengths to alienate the police force in a city already notorious for its violent crime, especially when first responders have been working through the whole of the pandemic and not only have already largely been exposed to the virus but stayed on the job when there was no vaccine.
Plumbers Union Local 130 leadership and Lori Lightfoot’s political campaign may still be trying to cobble together a mutually beneficial political relationship, but the average Chicago plumber is likely starting to wake up to just how poorly she’s running their fair city — and how little she thinks of its working class.