A swelling list of candidates are vying to claim Chicago’s mayoral seat. Many of them are career Democrats, running on policies that have more in common with Brandon Johnson’s so-called “progressive” position than many of his supporters are ready to acknowledge. We hate opportunists like Johnson and the Democratic establishment; we equally hate reactionaries like Alexi Giannoulias, Susana Mendoza, John Kelly, and Danielle Carter-Walters.
Alexi Giannoulias
Giannoulias is a career Democrat politician who loves Obama almost as much as he loves the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Styling himself after the former Illinois Senator and then US President, Giannoulias is trying to be just as adept at charming the public with his personality while funneling money to the killer pigs of CPD. During his presidency, Obama, a devout US imperialist, pushed billions of dollars in support of Israel and into perfecting the U.S. military’s use of drones to drop bombs on civilians across Yemen, Iraq, and Pakistan in his supposed war on terror. Giannoulias wants to follow in the footsteps of his close friend. If elected, Giannoulias would hire 1,000 new cops and add $150 million to CPD’s budget in the name of “public safety.” $150 million would be a reward for a department where police brutality is a staple feature and would add to the department’s already overblown $2.1 billion budget, which is one-third of the city’s overall budget. That amount does not include the $82.5 million set aside to serve up blood money to victims of CPD misconduct, a number the department has overspent every year since 2020 – almost as if they know they can get away with inflicting violence on people. Giannoulias’ candidacy and calls to further fund CPD are backed by $22 million in funding from trade unions looking to cash in on infrastructural development off the backs of the masses who will pay the price for Giannoulias’ tough-on-crime position. CPD has already spent $225 million to resolve over 200 misconduct lawsuits. We’re sure this number will increase with Mayor Johnson’s tireless efforts to let killer pigs off the hook for murder, having given his boys blue free rein to spend their over $200 million worth of overtime payments committing much of the same crimes they’d arrest a person on the block for without a second thought. So in truth, Alexi and Brandon aren’t so different after all. They both admire Obama, have a lot of love for CPD, and will ensure the masses keep suffering under the boot of police brutality.
Susana Mendoza
Mendoza is a self-proclaimed “neighborhood girl” from Little Village who boasts about going directly to the voters and representing the interests of the people. But Mendoza’s rise in Illinois politics has been less about what the people want and more about defending criminals within the Democratic Party, many of whom have stolen and defrauded the voters she claims to serve. Mendoza’s list of political allies at one time included Ray Frias, the disgraced 12th ward alderman who once said the role of a state lawmaker is about “making money”; Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who tried to sell the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Obama to the “highest bidder”; Ed Burke, the infamous alderman convicted of bribery, racketeering, and extortion after forcing anyone looking to contract with the city to hire his law firm, enriching himself in the process; and former speaker of the Illinois House, Mike Madigan, who in 2025 was convicted of bribery and wire fraud for using his position to get bribes for himself and political allies. Mendoza has vowed to be tough on crime, but stood behind and accepted support from Frias, Blagojevich, Burke, and Madigan in her political rise to power. Even as Mendoza has said repeatedly that Chicago is in a financial crisis, rather than shrinking CPD’s budget, Mendoza wants to increase its funding while bringing back the controversial shotspotter technology responsible for the shooting death of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in 2021. While Adam’s killer, CPD officer Eric Stillman, has yet to be held accountable for his murder and is still on the force, Mendoza has vowed to make it more difficult for people to get out on pre-trial release – a move that will continue to keep people detained at Cook County Jail – that is, unless they’re killer cops.
John Kelly
Like Giannoulias and Mendoza before him, Kelly has promised to hire 1,000 more police officers and bring back shot spotter during his first year in office. The lobbyist whose family tree is filled with cops wants to empower CPD to issue a snap curfew downtown, giving the pigs free rein to harass and assault Black teens gathering in downtown spaces. The message to Black teens: you’re not welcome, while telling the public that the pigs that stalk, harass, and add to the violence in their neighborhoods are somehow the solution to this violence. In addition to his love for the pigs, Kelly is also a corporate guy who thinks he has all the answers. His plan to fix Chicago’s financial crisis calls for attracting more corporations downtown and growing the city’s tax base. But as more and more Black and Latino residents are being pushed towards the suburbs because of rising rents, we don’t believe they are the tax base or the people Kelly has in mind to benefit from a revitalization of Chicago’s downtown area.
Danielle Carter-Walters
Carter-Walters is a proud Black Republican and Trump supporter. She’s best known for calling out the Democratic establishment and for her racist rhetoric towards immigrants. While we have no love for the Dems, Carter-Walters’ reactionary position that somehow immigrants are to blame for the crimes of the ruling class and US imperialism is bullshit. So long as rulers of this country are willing to bomb, exploit, and extract the wealth of people all over the globe, immigrants will have no choice but to flock to the shores of the very country that destroyed their livelihoods, killed their people, and forced them to flee thousands of miles from their home countries to our shores.
Before the Quigleyites and Johnsonites flood the comments with their bullshit calls for votes. We want to be extra clear: 4 years from any candidate claiming to be the best fit to run this city is 4 years too many.
If having the most “progressive mayor in the history of Chicago since Harold Washington” has taught us anything is that there are no electoral solutions to police brutality and mass incarceration under capitalism. Capitalism-imperialism is a global system of oppression. It can’t be reformed, improved, made to work for the oppressed, or out-resourced by local attempts to feed the community and stop the violence. That’s why the only thing this electoral circus can do is keep the ruling class in power over the oppressed. If you consciously sell the lie that a vote will take down a system which makes murder, violence, and exploitation seem like human nature while simultaneously committing unspeakable atrocities (including literal genocides) in the name of profit, congratulations, you’ve made yourself a lapdog for the ruling class. For those looking for another way, the first step is to learn quickly that this not a system that can be reasoned with or voted away at the ballot box. There is only one solution: Revolution.
