Don’t Thank Pritzker Yet… And, Certainly Don’t Ignore Him

5 May 2019

WBEZ reported that federal prosecutors are investigating Governor Pritzker & his wife for a criminal matter involving “a dubious residential property tax appeal that dogged him during his gubernatorial campaign last year.”¹ This incident–which should be referred to as “ToiletGate” hereafter–involves Pritzker removing a number of toilets from a mansion he owned to falsely claim the house was uninhabitable, thereby reaping the benefits of a large tax break.

One look at the Illinois Republican Party Facebook Page² shows their absolute glee at this decision by Federal prosecutors: more evidence that any Democratic politician in Illinois is irredeemably corrupt. It gives them added fuel for the war against a potential progressive income tax structure in Illinois, which would replace the states current flat income tax bracket.

Pritzker apologists ran to the governor’s defense. “We smell a set up.” wrote the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board. While acknowledging the investigation may have merit, they were quick to defend the governor, insinuating that the timing of the federal prosecutors news was motivated for political purposes to undermine “Pritzker’s graduated income tax.”³

I have to take issue with these statements. The Chicago Sun-Times is right to state that Pritzker’s (alleged) corruption and fraud are not reasons to completely discount a progressive income tax. But framing the discussion as if it is specifically Pritzker’s plan is disingenuous at best. I’m not just referring to the media’s portrayal of this policy plan. People tend to refer to the architects of legislation as the individuals who specifically vote for it or sign it. We refer to Lincoln’s efforts to free the slaves, or FDR’s New Deal programs as accomplishments achieved exclusively through the powerful hands of specific individuals. This is certainly a form of history, a part of the whole story. However, it usually ignores the enormous grassroots action that constituted the very impetus that necessitated action by the political individuals.

Politicians rarely do anything of import through altruistic intents alone. Instead of thanking Lincoln for freeing the slaves, I’d rather thank the thousands of radical abolitionists of all colors who fought (sometimes violently) to create an environment where the politics of slavery became less tenable. Rather than give all credit to FDR for wage laws, workplace protections, and right to organize collectively, let’s remember the far harder struggle from workers (many of them socialists, communists, and anarchists) who fought with blood (again, many times violently) for decades to create a situation where the capitalist class felt threatened enough that they risked losing control if they didn’t grant these concessions.

Governor Pritzker and the current Democratic supermajority in the Illinois legislature have passed and likely will pass a series of important bills ($15/hr minimum wage, Welcoming Laws for Immigrants, Legalization of cannabis, Progressive Income Tax, Criminal Justice Reform, etc.), but sole credit should not be lavished on these political entities. Politicians represent a focal point within a society’s political economy. On the one hand, each politician re-presents their constituents in political decisions and is invested with their constituents’ power; on the other, politicians refocus political power back into their constituents encouraging certain behaviors from the individual political bodies.⁴ But, this works both ways: if activists create an environment where previous forms of ideology, propaganda, and effects become untenable or break down within a social body, it forces politicians to adapt the way they invest political energy or face extinction. The reason Illinois is at a place & time where it can pass all these progressive policies is not because voters just happened to elect the right people into office, and it certainly isn’t because we put Democrats back in charge. The reason we have these policies is because of the real work done by millions of activists for years.

How different would our history classes be if the focus was on this perspective of a society’s political economy? It’s important to get our history right because history is real; it is not a thing of some other world or some other time but is happening here & now. In the history, Leftist activists are writing with their actions; we shouldn’t give Pritzker or any other Democrat in Illinois anything but a token thanks. Be cordial in an obligatory way. On the other hand, don’t let that praise blind you. I have little doubts Pritzker, Madigan, and the other Illinois Democrats are up to plenty of illicit shenanigans (history is the best determiner of future behavior, or so they say). This isn’t a trivial critique; a lot of energy is spent on electoral politics that could be better spent through direct action, because so much ink is spilled about political elites and not the struggles by grassroots actors. So, don’t thank them yet, and certainly don’t ignore them.

This article was originally published on strangecornersofthought.com.