In the early 80’s I was a tow-truck driver and an ambulance chaser in Chicago. I had a mentor, who was very well connected. He took me under his wing, and taught me everything- how to listen to a police scanner, how to get to accidents quickly, how to “help” accident victims so we can get their car towed in to our shop (and refer their legal case to our lawyers), how to pay off cops, and how to get paid from body shop owners and lawyers.
I made pretty good money in those days, and learned all about the Chicago Democrat Mafia network. The lawyers that paid us for accident cases would promise they could get us out of just about any charge. That is, if they could get the case seen before their favorite judge- which they mostly could.
I recommended these lawyers to everyone because they’d pay me, and they’d deliver. I saw many such cases where people I knew got their cases thrown out of court. I saw the person at fault become the victim, and the innocent victim become the person at fault. I was even a defendant once.
That’s how it worked. Everyone who knew someone that was connected, could get one of these lawyers, who’d get one of these judges, and get a case thrown out of court, even with evidence.
That’s what it meant to be “connected” in those days. If you had the right lawyer, he knew the right judge, you’d walk. These days, I’m sure it’s mostly the same.
Everybody in Chicago knows about this. It’s always been this way. One hand washes the other. Politicians get people government jobs, so they have an insider who now owes them a favor. They get each other jobs, and infiltrate court systems, bureaucracies, schools, police departments, law firms, prosecutors offices, you name it. They are everywhere, and they control everything. Well, most of it. I’d say 90%.
It was my experience paying off cops on a daily basis that only about 10% of them will refuse the money. They were the (somewhat) honest ones. They knew exactly what we were doing, and didn’t stop us, but they didn’t want to be involved- usually because they were close to retirement.
Now, the political side. One day I was introduced to an alderman. My well-connected friend introduced me as someone he could trust, so the alderman shook my hand and asked me if I wanted a job with the city. He promised me a great job, but first I’d have to do some politicking to earn it.
He put me in contact with a precinct captain who took me out knocking on doors for several days. This precinct captain explained his job to me, “It’s my job to pull votes out of my pocket. If I can’t do that, I’m fired. So this is how I do it…”
We went door to door with sheets of registered voters on our clipboards. We had all the information on every house- how many voters lived there, who moved, who died, who they voted for, how involved or motivated they were.
We told the people that we were just there to make sure everyone was registered to vote. But in reality, we wanted some information. What we really wanted to know was how many voters lived there, who moved, or died, AND whether they were likely to vote republican or democrat in the next election (or didn’t want to say).
We kept tallies on every house in his precinct. We’d go back to his office at the end of the day and make separate lists, highlighted with dead people, those who moved away but were still registered, and those not likely to vote. The campaign headquarters would need these lists before election day, so they could use them to create votes from.
This has been going on in Chicago for as long as anyone can remember. And it’s not frowned upon by most working-class citizens. It’s appreciated. They like their corruption too. They like being able to pay a cop off and get out of a ticket, or pay a crooked lawyer off and get out of jail. They like that freedom. 90% of everyone in Chicago does.
That’s been my experience. I lived in Chicago from 1971 to 2004. (I was 12 to 45.) IN fact, it’s mostly agreed on as a historic fact by Chicagoan’s, that Mayor Daley stole the election in 1968 for JFK. Illinois was the huge battleground state that night. They just kept counting votes for days until they had the desired result.
It’s obvious to me that the exact same thing happened in 2020. I saw with my own eyes how they closed the polls at 11PM, kicked out all the republican poll workers, and counted as many votes as needed for as long as needed. Anyone from Chicago, and anyone with any street sense knows it happened.