On Tuesday, Chicago’s crazy election season will come to a close. A full complement of 50 aldermen will have been elected, as will one new mayor. Some of us will be happy with the results; many of us will be disappointed.
In our city, there are few clear consensus candidates. We have been taught, in this American media environment of the 24-hour news cycle and vicious smear campaigns, to expect winners and losers. We even expect, on Election Day eve, either to feel like winners or losers ourselves.
Your mayoral candidate may have won. They may have lost. But the truth of the matter is that Chicago’s mayor will succeed if we, Chicago’s citizens, put in the hard work to ensure they succeed. Our new mayor will be only as good as we demand him to be. Our vote on Election Day is, in some ways, only one small role we play in the governance of our city.
The reality of the fact is that, whoever is elected, our candidates are only as good as we make them. Political wins and losses are not achieved in election seasons but in the work of governance that follows. Much of the conversation of the last few months has been about a strong City Council or a weak one. But the work of government involves us all. We cannot be weak residents. We must be engaged.
We have an obligation to cast our proverbial vote, to raise our actual voice, to advocate for our policy priorities, to demand action on the pressing needs of our time, each and every day of the next four years before we return to the municipal voting booth.
This is the lesson not only of our election season but of our sacred season as well.
One of our mayors was famously dubbed “American Pharaoh.” As Passover approaches, we are reminded that leaders, left to their own devices, will do what is best for themselves, what preserves their power. They, like the pharaoh of Exodus, can design policies that cause separation and suffering, especially for marginalized groups, but really for the society as a whole. In the face of entrenched power, whether in Egypt or City Hall, we not only need figures like Moses to proclaim a mission of liberty but also an engaged community to take that march to freedom. One lesson of the upcoming Seder is that only by marching together does society turn toward its best self.
Easter and Passover arrive at the same time, and each brings its own unique message of personal responsibility. The resurrection story is not just about Christ rising but also about the obligation, resting upon all the disciples, to continue to proclaim and witness the good news.
That same responsibility to proclaim and witness rests on us as well. In just a few days, a new mayor will be elected. We know too well that, after any election, most people simply sit back and expect the elected candidate to fulfill their campaign promises. However, history shows us that promises made during election season tend to fall to the side of the road after the final votes are counted. Worse, we’re sometimes told to wait and give elected officials the time to implement their priorities, until so much time passes that, only by looking back, do we see those promises broken.
As engaged citizens and people who desperately need a better Chicago than the one we inhabit today, we can neither wait nor sit back and watch. We must work from the outset, from Wednesday forward, to ensure our city rises from its current state to a future redeemed.
There are too many pressing concerns for us citizens simply to pass the problem off to politicians. We must stay engaged to share our voices, ideas and input to work toward true economic equality, meaningful police reform, centralized approaches to reducing gun violence, sustained expansion of access to mental health services, deeper work in climate justice, expanded programs for welcoming refugees and immigrants, and a moral budget that unites our highest expectations with how we spend our tax dollars.
The offices of elected officials seem to paralyze them because of a system set in place to continue “business as usual.” Like the disciples after the resurrection, the proclaiming of good news and the future of Chicago lie in our hands. Like the children of Israel enduring the bitterness of oppression, the path to the promised land is ours to walk.
We’ve seen a lot of passion and pressure during the runoff campaign. We need the same and more beginning Wednesday. We’re looking for the new mayor to be the answer. The truth of this season is that we must be the answer.
Chicago faith leaders Rabbi Seth Limmer and the Revs. Otis Moss III, Ciera Bates-Chamberlain and Michael Pfleger joined the Tribune’s opinion section last summer for a series of columns on potential solutions to Chicago’s chronic gun violence problem. The column continues on an occasional basis.
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