.

.

.

.

Hello and welcome to Behind the News, my name is Doug Henrywood.

The usual two guests for those of you who are keeping score.

Jacob and editor, Michael Utrich, we'll talk about the surprise election of Brandon Johnson

as Mayor of Chicago, and Lily Lynch, author of several fine pieces around the Ukraine war

for new left reviews sidecar blog, we'll talk about how the war undid classic Scandinavian neutrality.

Chicago elected a new mayor in April 4th, Brandon Johnson, a former middle school teacher

and organizer for the city's teachers union.

He beat Paul Vales, the former CEO, he assessed the title of the city's school system by four percentage points.

Narrow, but a result no one expected when campaigning began.

The election was in two stages, a first round with nine candidates held in February,

and then a runoff between the top two at the beginning of the month.

In the first round, Vales got a third of the vote, 11 points ahead of the second place Johnson.

The incumbent Lori Lightfoot came in a distant third.

Early polls taken last November showed Johnson with a little as 3%, barely visible next to bigger names like Lightfoot's and that of Chewy Garcia,

a congressman who ran for mayor in 2015.

In an environment where fear of crime has become such a dominant issue, a progressive candidate with a union background

was someone with only a taste for long odds would bet on, but Johnson won.

Here to tell us what it all means is Michael Utrecht, the editor of Jacobin magazine who lived in Chicago for many years.

...