By: Mark Glennon*
Suppose, just suppose, for this fall’s elections, a Democratic candidate emerged somewhere in Illinois and said something like this:
I want prosecutors who prosecute. I want the border enforced – millions of illegal immigrants every year is suicide. I believe in school choice for kids in failing districts. I want no political or social indoctrination in schools by any side. I believe in the goal of colorblindness and the melting pot, and I reject today’s identity politics. Biological men should not be competing in women’s sports. I want government to get off the backs of Illinois employers. Term limits, fair maps, real ethics reform and property tax cuts are long overdue. And I will work with anybody in any party to achieve each of those goals.
Wouldn’t a Democratic candidate running on those things do well in most of Illinois, even in most of Chicago?
Every one of the positions above is widely popular in Illinois, yet not a single Democratic candidate I’ve seen, in any Illinois race, has staked out a centrist platform something like the above.
As recently as ten years or so ago, all those positions would have been considered mainstream. What happened? Why are no such candidates emerging?
The full answer may be debatable, but much of it surely is that yesterday’s far left became today’s ruling establishment. Gov. JB Pritzker, Senate President Don Harmon and House Speaker Chris Welch would not agree with a single point in that moderate platform provided above, nor would most other members of the Democratic supermajority in the General Assembly. They’ve routinely supported even the most radically progressive officeholders such as Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
Therefore, to embrace positions like those above would mean crossing Illinois’ Democratic establishment – and its money. In December alone, JB Pritzker contributed $500,000 to the state Democratic Party, and the party has an exceptionally strong “ground game” of political workers and activists.
Another cause is the deep and vitriolic tribalism that rules the day. Most candidates no doubt figure they couldn’t possibly say something like the above, no matter how popular it would be with voters, because they’d be accused of being one of “them” – the other tribe.
Still, it’s a wonder not even one Illinois Democratic candidate somewhere has the independence to claim the political center. On issue after issue, polls show our ruling progressive majority is out of touch with most voters. You’d think that a least some moderates would see the opportunity to challenge progressives far to the left of voters, but it hasn’t happened.
To the contrary, one moderate Democrat is calling it quits because he’s out of sync with the ruling majority. That’s Rep. Lance Yednock of Ottawa. “My moderate views at times can make for strained relations in this current House Democratic Caucus,” he said in a statement announcing that he won’t seek reelection. For example, he voted against the SAFE-T Act that eliminated cash bail, which polling says Illinoisans opposed but was passed by the Democratic majority.
What about Illinois Republican candidates?
Most all of them would agree with the list of positions above, and they win in solidly Republican districts. In most of the state, however, two-issue voters appeared to dominate recent election results: Anybody in a party associated with Donald Trump or abortion restrictions had little chance. That party’s challenges are another story for another day.
Stanford historian Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote that 2024 will be a “year of reckoning.” So much of our progressive government is so far detached that things simply “are not tenable,” he says. For example, “either the border will close, or the United States will suffer radical political realignments.”
He was referring mostly to national issues but the same applies to Illinois. Most of us in the center care little about party labels and, in the long run, centrists have the numbers. It’s indeed just not tenable otherwise. But don’t expect 2024 to be that “year of reckoning” in Illinois, given the absence of any Democratic centrists.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints, and independent research and commentary nonprofit organization.
Audio and summary 
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
The general election in Illinois doesn’t matter. The primary election does. The primary election is the important election that decides who wins the general election in the fall. The Democrat primary election apparatus has been hijacked by the progressive party, and every Democrat got on board that hijacked plan, for fear their own political career would crash. The money flows to the progressive. But hey, the Bolsheviks had a good run too, they lasted for several years after they hijacked the Russia government for their own purpose. But then Stalin came along and crushed the Bolsheviks, like actually murdered all… Read more »
To undue the damage will not take a year of reckoning. It will take decades.
Argumentum ad baculum is getting old Mark. It’s not going to work moving forward.
Pritzker, Harmon and Welch the unholy trinity. It will never change in Chicago or Illinois, the path set by former politicians have been toxic And will cause this state and Chicago to fail. I talk from direct experience, born and raised in Chicago just look at what happened. The existing housing is very old, it needs updating which people cannot afford, taxes are too high. Look at the number of churches that have closed, members do not have the extra money to support them. Restaurants that were great are gone people cannot go out and dine. Jobs that existed in… Read more »
Wyatt, in the 80s I said to myself that Chicago ain’t Detroit. I find it hard to keep saying that anymore.