America's choice: To be like Chicago, or not

'Proclivity for violence can reshape America into a brutish nation'

By Steve Cortes
Real Clear Politics

Now-indicted actor Jussie Smollett claimed that Donald Trump partisans attacked him late at night on a deserted Chicago street in January 2019. Though most of the corporate media gladly amplified his concocted tale, to sensible Chicagoans the story reeked from the jump. First, because the bone-chilling polar vortex that night practically precluded outdoor human activities, even for hearty Windy City residents. And even before evidence emerged that he paid two Nigerian brothers to stage the “attack,” Smollett’s story that his assailants screamed “this is MAGA country” seemed farfetched to the point of farce: 21st century Chicagoans are fully aware of the deep-blue Democratic political proclivities of our city.

But that scam prompts a pertinent question for today. Do we, as a nation, want to be Chicago or MAGA country? As societal unrest and economic anxiety grip our land, the ascendant and increasingly aggressive leftists seek a wholesale transformation of America into the harsh realities of Chicago, a place afflicted by violence, bereft of opportunity, and committed to stifling statism.

In recent weeks, agitators have deployed street violence to achieve political power in ways unseen in this country since at least the 1960s, and perhaps since the Civil War. Amazingly, a litany of establishment media voices are providing explicit approval and cover for them. CNN anchor Chris Cuomo declared, “Show me where it says protests are to be polite and peaceful.” Well, Chris, human decency and common sense dictate that protests in a civil society entail neither violence nor vandalism. But, if you are too conscience-challenged for such awareness, the First Amendment to our Constitution also protects, explicitly, “the right of the people to peaceably assemble.” Perhaps Cuomo skipped Bill of Rights day when he attended law school.

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