Trump has been highly critical of Chicago in the past, calling crime in the city "embarrassing to us as a nation" and "worse than some of the places...in the Middle East where you have wars going on." He’s also decried its migrant policies: "New York City and Chicago play the Sanctuary City card, where criminals are protected..."
His rhetoric on Chicago can often be nasty and over the top, but it’s not wrong. Too many Chicagoans experience the high-crime, low-literacy, high-tax, low-opportunity version of Chicago — which we detail below — and which Trump is likely to point at. But because it’s Trump talking, expect the media and connected class to deflect or even deny that the city’s problems exist.
Their denials should anger many of the ordinary Chicagoans who live with the impact of these problems every day. There are the residents who feel threatened living in the nation’s long-running homicide capital — polls show nearly two-thirds of Chicagoans don’t feel safe from crime. There are the black residents who’ve made their voices heard in multiple hearings, frustrated by the attention and billions in financial and healthcare resources directed towards the city’s illegal immigrants. And there are parents who feel their children’s education is secondary to the extreme demands of the Chicago Teachers Union — one reason why 110,000 black children have fled the public school system since 2000.
Most of these problems have been inflicted by the city’s political class. They’ve stopped prosecuting many criminals. Most students aren’t taught to read or do math proficiently. Fiscal failures have the city, CPS and the regional transit authority all stuck with near one-billion-dollar deficits. And all of that mess is wrapped up in endemic political corruption, of which former Ald. Ed Burke and former House Speaker Mike Madigan are just the latest examples.
Chicagoans’ concerns have merit, and the failures of the city’s politicians deserve to be discussed. If the Economic Club of Chicago was to have an open, honest conversation about the city with Trump, here are five key goals that should get deeper attention:
1. Start arresting, prosecuting and sentencing again. Protect victims, make crime criminal.
If not, Chicago will likely continue to lead the nation in total homicides as it has for the last 12 years. If this year’s murder trend stays on track, it will be 13 years in a row. Overall violent crime will also continue to threaten Chicagoans. Through August of this year, violent crimes were running at a six-year high, over and above the jump in violent crimes last year.