They say old Rahm Emanuel came out last night—or maybe it was the real one hiding in plain sight all the time: a sneering, aggressive pol who went “nose-to-nose” with a mental-health advocate demanding, “You’re gonna respect me!”Demanding respect at the top of his voice.
The alleged exchange took place off-camera between Chicago’s mayor and Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a member of Mental Health Movement, a group that has been fighting the mayor over the closure of six mental health clinics across the city. Behind a door that separated the mayor from a roomful of constituents at a campaign stop in the Wicker Park neighborhood, Ginsberg-Jaeckle says, he got Rahmbo’d.
“This is the Real Rahm,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle wrote on Facebook. “Calm and collected in public, raging angry and self-defensive behind closed doors.”
But Emanuel's campaign, while not directly refuting the mayor's alleged call for respect, said the exchange was more cordial than Ginsberg-Jaeckle's version of events. The mayor's office has reached out Ginsberg-Jaeckle and Delgado to address their concerns, campaign spokesman Steve Mayberry said in a statement.
"The mayor was eager to get to the substance of the residents' concerns," Mayberry said via email. "After respectfully listening to the residents, he asked that they respectfully listen to his point of view. As a result, the meeting ended cordially and the mayor is working with health officials to address the residents' needs."
Debbie Delgado, another member of the group, interrupted Emanuel, prompting the behind-closed-doors altercation.
“She told of losing her son to gun violence,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle wrote. “She told [Emanuel] how her other son was holding him as he died. She told about how the city's Northwest Mental Health Clinic in Logan Square saved their lives, helped her and her son deal with the PTSD and depression. Then she asked why he took that clinic away from her.”
Rahm said he would speak with the pair, and Ginsberg-Jaeckle said they then left the room for a private conversation. That’s when Emanuel allegedly shouted: “You’re gonna respect me!”
The mayor’s office wouldn’t address the supposed angry exchange.
“Since it was a non-city event there were no city people there to witness it,” said Chloe Rasmas, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office.
Rahm said he would speak with the pair, and Ginsberg-Jaeckle said they then left the room for a private conversation. That’s when Emanuel allegedly shouted: “You’re gonna respect me!”
………
“We delivered 10,000 letters to the mayor’s office in October 2012. They didn’t respond. So, we started sending one email a week. No response. We held forums and protests. The day before a vote on the budget we did a sit-in outside the mayor’s office, and they forced us out by cutting off any access bathrooms,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle said, running down years’ worth of attempts to talk with the mayor.
“I could go play by play, but long story short we could not get through to this man. Finally, the extreme we reached was crashing his events.”
That’s what they did Wednesday night, not expecting much other than to be escorted out. Locke said Rahm told police to hold off when Ginsberg-Jaeckle and Delgado rose from their front-row chairs to confront the mayor. It was all cordial, until the trio left the room.
Respect should not be demanded, it should be earned.
Why do I get the sense that Rahm Emanuel is suffering from a really bad case of "Middle Child Syndrome"?
In either case, I hope that the people of Chicago realize that they are dealing with a guy for whom a difficult reelection campaign is likely to make him an even worse mayor than he already is.
I would also one of his supporters, Republican Senator Mark Kirk, is blowing the racist dog whistle by invoking Detroit, while Republican Governor Bruce Rauner is
They wouldn't be endorsing who is tied in the minds of their base to the "Kenyan Muslim Atheist Radical" Barack Obama unless they were pretty firmly on the same side, and they were worried about his chances.
I am so hoping that he loses the April 7 contest.
*I cannot claim credit for this bon mot. It was coined by Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism.
1 comments :
He has to maintain an image of a Serious Person. A Very Serious Person is someone who is carrying on a tradition since the late 1970's when Heritage announced they would come for Social Security and pensions. Heritage's client, Ronald Reagan created a strategy. They ran up "strategic deficits"-- it's a nice way of saying "make sure the government doesn't work, complain about a crisis, then sell it off." The elites elsewhere continue this Reagonomics strategy in order to get us to hand over to the rich what the World Economic Forum "brownfield investments" -- the public's assets. If it takes a million dollars in brainwashing, so be it. Heritage's representive supplies the reason: "the bigger government gets, the smaller God gets. As people become more dependent on government, less dependent on God." Chicago wouldn't allow talk like that, and Democratic voters are a bit too inquiring to let an appeal to God win them over. So Rahm is doing the work that Republicans aren't really capable of doing -- attack a Democratic stronghold with the help of his 30 million dollars and (D) before his name.
Why Rahm? The real Rahm is uncouth because his father was a Irgun terrorist. His big brother is a wonky doctor and Washington consultant, and he wants to be as good as him. With these role models, he has given himself a messiah complex and tremendous chip on his shoulder. His anger is a result of this conflict: a compasion-less connected geek who seeks status and applause. Yet because nobody want's a sociopath savior, he has to hide it, and only allows anger outbursts in private. Notice in the video, he didn't actually lose his temper. That would be excusable anyway, it's an emotional subject. He actually did something way worse. What he did was calmly look away from Delgado and drink from some strange milk carton *immediately after she said her son died in his brother's arms*. As if to say "No time for you little people, I'm on a mission from God."
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