Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is really showing his socialist cred.
He’s announced a plan to possibly open city-owned grocery stores in so-called food deserts in Chicago, following the closures of four Wal-Marts and a Whole Foods.
In other words: Soviet-style central planning!
What could go wrong?
Well, apart from the fact that the Windy City operates on ward-style machine politics, and consistently ranks first in the nation for corruption.
Or that its fiscal profligacy and mismanagement have left it facing a half-billion-plus budget shortfall; its bonds were rated as junk until 2022.
But, wait: Why did all those stores close in the first place?
Hmmmm. Maybe a massive 32% jump in robbery and thefts over the 2022 year to date had something to do with it.
That’s thanks to disastrous city and state policies around policing — including the total elimination of cash bail — and a Soros-backed pro-crime “prosecutor” (Kim Foxx, who mercifully won’t seek re-election next year).
Yes, the plan comes swathed in the favored rhetoric of the Twitter left: The move’s meant to “repair past harms that have contributed to purposeful disinvestment and exclusion.”
But the only harm here comes from the policies favored by Johnson’s comrades, policies that caused Chicago’s crime to jump 29% across this year all categories over the same period in 2022.