Biden Gets the Chicago Treatment
Barack Obama, an old-fashioned ward boss, orchestrates the president’s removal.
By
Rod R. Blagojevich
July 22, 2024
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(2 min)
Democracy took a devastating hit on Sunday when President Biden withdrew from the presidential race. Along the way, he got it wrong. It isn’t Donald Trump who is an existential threat to our democracy. It’s Barack Obama.
In the old-school way of Chicago backroom politics, Mr. Obama was the conductor of the band that successfully orchestrated the removal of the presidential candidate chosen by more than 14 million Democratic primary voters—to be replaced by someone he and the party bosses choose instead. It’s classic ward-boss tactics.
I’ve known Mr. Obama since 1995. We both grew up in Chicago politics. We understand how it works—with the bosses over the people. Mr. Obama learned the lessons well. And what he just did to Mr. Biden is what political bosses have been doing in Chicago since the 1871 fire—selections masquerading as elections.
Mr. Obama and I know this kind of Chicago politics better than anyone. We both rose up in it, and I was brought to ruin by it when the Illinois Legislature impeached and removed me from the governor’s office in 2009 for conversations initiated by Mr. Obama himself. A common element in my case and now Mr. Biden’s is Mr. Obama’s involvement. He’s the central figure who played a behind-the-scenes role in both stories.
While today’s Democratic bosses may look different from the old-time cigar-chomping guy with a pinky ring, they operate the same way: in the shadows of the backroom. Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rich donors—the Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites—are the new bosses of today’s Democratic Party. They call the shots. The voters, most of them working people, are there to be lied to, manipulated and controlled.
All along, Mr. Biden and the Democratic politicians have been claiming that this year’s presidential race is about “saving democracy.” They are the biggest hypocrites in American political history.
The party that says it is running to save democracy has already deployed the criminal-justice system against the leading candidate of the opposition party. And now they have successfully maneuvered to dump their duly elected candidate for president.
Mr. Biden’s withdrawal proves something even more sinister. They’ve been lying to us the whole time. The president’s unfitness to run for re-election today didn’t just happen. The Democrats have been covering it up for a long time.
They hid him in the basement when he ran for president in 2020, and they got away with it because of the pandemic. But when Mr. Biden’s cognitive issues were exposed during June’s presidential debate, Mr. Obama and the Democratic bosses could no longer hide his condition. The jig was up, and Joe had to go.
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month will provide the perfect backdrop and place for Mr. Obama to finish the job and choose his candidate, not the voters’ candidate. Democracy, no. Chicago ward-boss politics, yes.
