Breathless Babble
A conversation with friend and colleague Charles Madigan about how we should not let the news about Trump overshadow more important news stories.
Jim: I hate the thought of the news coverage tsunami that will accompany the official public charges of wrongdoing against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Don’t get me wrong: He deserves the nasty headlines he’s already getting, and the public airing of his alleged misdeeds. Like anyone, he should get his day in court, too. He is, after all, the first ex-president to be indicted, even if I think the New York prosecution is the wrong case at the wrong time. What gives me pause are fears that other important news stories will be overshadowed by the flood of media attention that will inevitably flow Trump’s way when he’s hauled into the dock. Get ready for monotonous TV camera shots of the New York courthouse where Trump will be arraigned and breathless babble from broadcast news stars speculating about the impact on his political career. The stories I’m more interested in are Chicago’s mayor’s race and the election of a Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin.
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Some may say these stories pale in significance to the unprecedented charges against Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. I disagree. The mayor’s race in America’s third largest city lays bare many of the racial, cultural and class issues that have made America a symbol of political polarization. How the race in Chicago turns out will speak worlds about the nation’s ability to grapple with these incendiary issues. The Wisconsin Supreme Court election pits a liberal leaning family court judge against a former State Supreme Court Justice with strong ties to Trump. The electoral face-off carries national implications for abortion rights and the gerrymandered political maps that give one party the edge over another. Indeed, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg on Sunday wrote a long analysis of the contest under the headline: “The Most Important Election of the Year/This Election Could Be the Beginning of the End of Scott Walker’s Legacy in Wisconsin.” How do you see this, Charlie?
Charlie: My wife and I always follow the same ritual on election day: Drive to the handsome municipal hall in Evanston Illinois, walk past a blizzard of campaign signs for every conceivable office, head inside, present credentials and vote, vote, vote. But this time (last week actually) I walked into the town hall with just one name in mind: Stormy Daniels. What the hell? I realized I knew all about her, even the jokes about having sex with Donald Trump; (“Worst 90 seconds of my life!” she said). Will he be indicted? Will he be arrested? Will his loyal followers respond to his call and cause another riot? And who are these Evanston people running for school board? I don’t know. I’ve paid no attention because: A. No kids in school anymore, B. Way too much Trump distraction. You can’t escape it. It’s like having a sewer crew show up in front of your house with jackhammers and roaring trucks and hissing compression lines and guys shouting at each other for, say, a month.
So now Trump faces arrest. The noise is not going to go away. We voted early here in Evanston but just next door, Chicago faces the significant challenge of picking a mayor. The candidates, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas, have collected some $20 million in campaign contributions. The city is not the jolly place its grand people deserve. Crime is an issue of course. It always is in the big city. So is race. Johnson, who is Black, says Vallas opposes teaching of Black history. Vallas says that’s just wrong. But this kind of racial sniping is very damaging to everyone. Maybe by paying close attention, a voter might be able to discern where the truth resides. But the cacophony surrounding the Trump indictment sweeps over all of that, particularly in Chicago, a Democratic city where Trump is already despised. This is one of the most complex mayoral contests in modern Chicago history. I’m not going to predict what will happen, but some smart money is betting the Latino vote will make the decision while the Vallas-Johnson struggle splits the rest of the Democrats. The Donald’s Tuesday arrest and his relationship with that distant old time porn star connection Stormy (The Donald says nothing happened, but hush money clearly exchanged hands) are not on the ticket, but all over the media, nonetheless.
That sewer jackhammer just keeps pounding away. Jim?
Jim: You can hear the jackhammer in Wisconsin, too. Normally no one worries much about a “non-partisan” judicial election in a state known more for cheese than candidates. I think the Wisconsin vote deserves the prominence in the New York Times, though, because of the stakes involved. Neither the liberal leaning candidate for the state’s’ High Court, Family Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, or her opponent, Daniel Kelly, a Trump acolyte and one-time state Supreme Court justice, is affiliated with a party. But the race has become as heated as the political brawl in Chicago.
As Goldberg pointed out, the two Wisconsin candidates are vying for a seat on a court that currently has a four to three conservative majority. But one of the conservatives is retiring, paving the way for the election on Tuesday. A crucial element of the contest occurred about a year ago when the court ruled four to three in favor of an electoral map that virtually assured Wisconsin Republicans control of the state legislature, a position the state GOP capitalized on to restrict voting rights, enact anti-union measures and a pass range of other conservative pet projects. If elected, Protasiewicz wants to push for a judicial review of the maps. Her Trumpy opponent, of course, favors the status-quo in a state that almost overturned the vote in the last election. I hope we will never see a challenge like that again. Given the state of political polarization in America, though, the threat of a repeat can’t be dismissed and would almost surely end up before the state’s high court.
But an equally if not more divisive issue in the race is abortion rights. When the nation’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, an old Wisconsin state law kicked in banning almost all abortions. The law had been on the books for nearly two centuries. Wisconsin’s attorney general, a Democrat, promptly challenged it in a lawsuit that will almost certainly end up on the state Supreme Court’s docket. Currently most local political handicappers say Protasiewicz is ahead. But who knows? Tons of money and support is flowing to both sides of a race that has become the most expensive state supreme court election in history.
Since states have become a crucial front in battles over abortion rights, the stakes in Wisconsin trump Trump, whose prosecution is considered of dubious merit by many lawyers anyway. I hope Wisconsin voters head to the polls with the same loyalty as you and your wife, Charlie.
Charlie: My wife and I have been voting together for fifty-two years now and you know how many elections you and I have witnessed, Jim. I certainly hope the people of Wisconsin and the people of Chicago, both of which have long and vibrant voting histories, will make good decisions and turn out in healthy numbers. But we can’t lose hope if they don’t. Just as I carried thoughts of Daniels and Trump into my polling station, I suspect a lot of those people will face the same thing. But I do think democracy, as flawed as it can be, will carry the day.
Whatever the voters do will be the right thing. I say that because I know they can change it all down the road if they don’t like it. And that is the lesson that awaits that arrogant, dishonest king of Mar-a-Lago if he ever gets his name on a ballot again. Wait until you hear the jackhammers if that happens!
—James O’Shea and Charles Madigan
James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.
Charles Madigan is a writer and veteran foreign and national correspondent for UPI and the Chicago Tribune, where he also served as a senior writer and editor. He examines news reporting, politics and world events.