In recent days, Democratic Party strategist David Axelrod has urged that Rahm Emanuel become the chair of the Democratic National Committee, which will elect its new leader early next year. Today, The Hill published a piece headlined “Rahm Emanuel Is a Terrible Choice for DNC Chair,” warning that “if the Democratic National Committee is trying to find a new leader proficient at alienating Black voters, it couldn’t do better than Rahm Emanuel.”
The article, by Norman Solomon, notes that “in terms of well-connected power-brokering, Emanuel’s ties with Democratic elites and corporate donors have been second to none,” with a resume that includes senior advisor to President Bill Clinton, congressman from Illinois, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and White House chief of staff for Barack Obama, before becoming mayor of Chicago in 2011.
But, the piece adds, “his eight-year record as mayor could trip up Emanuel if he runs for DNC chair. Long before leaving office in 2019, Emanuel had fallen into disrepute. By the end of 2015, a poll found that his approval rating among Chicago residents had sunk to 18 percent. No wonder he decided not to run for a third term.
“Emanuel stands out at provoking bitter enmity from Black people, crucial voters in the Democratic Party base.
“He earned notoriety for the cover-up of a video showing how Chicago police killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald one night in October 2014. For 13 months, during Emanuel’s campaign for reelection, his administration suppressed a ghastly dashboard-camera video showing the death of McDonald, an African American who was shot 16 times by a police officer while walking away from the officer. (A jury later convicted the officer of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery.)
“Memories of Emanuel’s malfeasance have remained vivid. In 2020, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) expressed a widely held view when she tweeted: ‘Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership.’
“Last weekend, amid reports that Emanuel was weighing a bid for DNC chair, Ocasio-Cortez denounced him as a symptom of what ails the party: ‘There is a disease in Washington of Democrats who spend more time listening to the donor class than working people. If you want to know the seed of the party’s political crisis, that’s it.’
“Longtime Chicago journalist and activist Delmarie Cobb wrote a scathing assessment of his mayoral record in 2021. While mentioning that Emanuel ‘closed 50 public schools in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods,’ Cobb also pointed out that ‘he closed six of 12 mental health clinics in these communities.’ She added: ‘Now, who needs access to mental health care more than Chicago’s Black and brown residents who are underserved, underemployed and under constant threat of violence?’
“Emanuel’s response to the McDonald killing was emblematic of his arrogant leadership method, routinely clashing with the basic interests of racial minorities and the non-affluent. When Emanuel was nearing the end of his last term, The Nation magazine summed up his term this way: ‘The outgoing mayor’s legacy will be defined by austerity, privatization, displacement, gun violence, and police brutality.’”
NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive@gmail.com
Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and national director of RootsAction.org. He was on the State Central Committee of the California Democratic Party for 10 years, and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008, 2016 and 2020. His latest book is War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.