Brandon Johnson's public spectacle of grievance is getting old

Respect the mayor. No matter what he says or does.

I'm semi-serious here. As Brandon Johnson boils and accuses and flails about, a certain clarity sets in among the onlookers. Well, me, anyway.

This is not a guy charting a course, but someone reacting to the chaos going on around him, much of his own making. He isn't building bridges, but burning them. How else could he snap at every single shiny lure dangled in his face?

Respect is earned. I can't recall ever saying "Respect me!" to anyone who wasn't a pair of mischievous preschool boys. But I do sometimes preface a statement with, "As someone who's been on staff for 37 years ..." Meaning, "You know, sport, I've been doing this since before you were born. Perhaps, before you explain to me your keen new system cooked up in a meeting yesterday, you might consider what I have to say."

It never works anyway, and I don't demand respect from new associates or random strangers because I respect myself, plenty, and try to always consider the source. I couldn't check my email otherwise.

So when Brandon Johnson is served up an obvious gotcha question — do you really want to be going to London for a Bears game this weekend? — he could have stayed cool, could have pivoted onto a topic most Chicagoans can relate to — our 3-2 Chicago Bears.

Did he do that? Eventually, yes. But caught off guard, as always, this is what he prefaced it with:

"It's disrespectful and condescending that the Black man is going to London for a game. It's disrespectful. It is. The governor went to Tokyo to attract business. And I'm going to London to attract business."

The same weekend the Bears are playing. What a cool coincidence. One even Johnson eventually acknowledged.

"And while I'm there, I'm going to root for the Chicago Bears."

Since he brings up the governor, let's imagine JB Pritzker — a deft politician — answering a question the same way.

"So you're going to Japan, Gov. Pritzker — plan on eating any sushi while you're there?"

"Why do you insult me so? Oh sure, ask the big guy if he's eating something healthy, huh? Ask the Jew if he's going to chow down on smoked salmon."

It would never happen.

Johnson is a pressure cooker of boiling grievance. Someone asked him about the ruinous cost of his plan for Chicago Public Schools to take out a short-term, high-interest loan to cover a pension payment and a new teacher contract. His response was to damn the "so-called fiscally responsible stewards" for "making the same arguments" as antebellum slaveholders.

"They said it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people," Johnson said. "And now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system."

That's nuts. Pardon my bluntness, but the South trying to hide the indefensible atrocity of slavery behind a fig leaf of economic prudence does not, in itself, indict economic prudence. COVID vaccines are still a good idea, even if Donald Trump pushed for their creation. Cotton is still comfortable even if the Confederacy grew it. We need to nip this guilt-by-association in the bud before Chicago's mayor cancels the new casino because, well, Al Capone ran gambling establishments.

I wish the media wouldn't bait Johnson. It distracts from the enormous problems plaguing the city. Maybe they need to start framing their queries in elaborate, rococo signs of respect.

"O great one," asks a reporter. "Allow a question from this miserable worm. Given that Chicago is crushed by nearly $40 billion in debt, does not the assumption of a short-term, high-interest loan make things worse, not better? Please be so good as to enlighten us, O esteemable public personage."

I shouldn't joke. The future of Chicago is at stake. Not only the hundreds of thousands of students educated in a subpar school system. But all the people who vote with their feet and go pay taxes in Northbrook and Naperville and Palos Hills so their kids can get a top-notch education. The mayor and the City Council and the Chicago Teachers Union should all be on the same page here. But they're not.

It's probably too late for the mayor to take a chill pill and start trying to get people working together. But he has 2½ years to fill out his term before being replaced by literally anybody else who wants the job. He has to try something. Because this sure ain't working.