By Daniel Nardini

What a whirlwind the past four years have been for Chicago. When Lori Lightfoot was elected, I don’t think I or anyone else could have seen what was coming. The year 2020 has changed not only Chicago, but also America and the whole world. The sad thing in my view was how thoroughly unprepared so much of America’s leadership was for the pandemic and the political upheavals that occurred. People were practically ordered to stay in their homes, their tiny apartments, their slums and told that if they left, they would die of this as yet almost unknown virus. The authorities acted more through fear-mongering than anything else. People were even fined for simply doing things like going to the grocery store or not wearing a mask in public.

It only got progressively worse from there. Unsurprisingly, people took to the streets to get out of the barricades and we had extreme left-wing violence against statues (mostly against Christopher Columbus), then against the police trying to keep order, and then finally against each other. This comes as no shock to me if people are kept locked up for too long and then fearfully into meekly obeying authority. Lori Lightfoot was far from the only one who failed this test of leadership to be fair. This happened in other cities across the country. Equally predictable was the rampant out-of-control crime that occurred. Chicago was (and still is) far from the only city to experience this. Lori Lightfoot was far from the only one to put Chicago on draconian lockdowns even when vaccines against the coronavirus had already been discovered and were being administered.

In many ways, we are still dealing with all the consequences of what happened in 2020. Crime is still a problem. While the pandemic has subsided due to the widespread availability of vaccines, we have now overcome the far greater problems of inflation and shortages of even basic consumer goods due to supply chain problems. In this regard, the current leadership of this country has failed the people and people are understandably in a dark mood because of that. So, the vote is in and Lightfoot is out. Lori Lightfoot was far from the only city manager whose leadership left something to be desired, but now she has paid the price by not being elected to another term. Whoever is elected, I can only hope that person will be able to handle the vast canyon of problems facing Chicago.