Democracy's Rebirth: The View from Chicago

274 Pages·2022·9.825 MB·English

by  Dick Simpson, Lori Lightfoot

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The View from Chicago
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DICK SIMPSON
FOREWORD BY LORI LIGHTFOOT
Democracy’s Rebirth

Democracy’s Rebirth
The View from Chicago
DICK SIMPSON
Foreword by
LORI LIGHTFOOT
© 2022 by Dick W. Simpson
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Simpson, Dick W., author. | Lightfoot, Lori E.,
writer of foreword.
Title: Democracy’s rebirth : the view from Chicago / Dick
Simpson ; foreword by Lori Lightfoot.
Description: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021046123 (print) | LCCN 2021046124
(ebook) | ISBN 9780252044304 (cloth) | ISBN
9780252086380 (paperback) | ISBN 9780252053290
(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Chicago (Ill.)—Politics and
government—21st century. | Chicago (Ill.)—
Social conditions—21st century. | Democracy—
United States—History—21st century. | Political
participation—Illinois—Chicago—History—21st
century.
Classification: LCC F548.52 .S56 2022 (print) | LCC
F548.52 (ebook) | DDC 977.3/1104—dc23/eng/20211026
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046123
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021046124
For Margaret, Kate, Jeffrey, Lilian, Polly,
and all who fight for democracy

Contents
Foreword LORI LIGHTFOOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
1 Challenges to Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 The Rise and Fall of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 Income and Racial Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4 Money in Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5 Nonparticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6 Polarization and the Politics of Resentment . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7 Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8 Structural Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
9 Cascading Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
10 Deliberative Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
11 Spirit of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Foreword
LORI LIGHTFOOT
Democracy—at its core—represents our acknowledgment of our shared
humanity. But rather than being an end in itself, it is, in fact, a means to
something greater. In essence, democracy is an argument that says that our
society’s greatest success comes by all its members having an equal oppor-
tunity to unlock their shared talent and potential.
Democracy’s argument also demands that its participants engage with
our public institutions, our elected officials, our public dialogue, the facts,
and, above all, with one another. Obstructing or denying this democratic
engagement in any way not only denies the fullness of our democracy, but
also rejects our shared humanity, leaving us all lesser for it.
For more than fifty years, Dick Simpson has been actively engaged our
democracy here in Chicago and across the nation as both a participant and
an analyst. He served as a Chicago alderman, ran for the U.S. Congress,
worked on a dozen transition teams for new chief executives, and was an
advisor in my own mayoral campaign. In addition to that, he has taught and
mentored thousands of students as a professor at the University of Illinois in
Chicago and written more than twenty books on elections, ethics, and local
and national government.
Taken from the vantage point of Chicago’s own challenges and successes,
Professor Simpson’s latest work, Democracy’s Rebirth: The View from Chicago,
provides a unique analytical prospective on the current state of American de-
mocracy as we transition to a post-Trump era nationally and a post-machine
era locally.
Published during one of the most challenging moments in our modern
history, this book serves as the summation of his decades of experience, re-