Chicago’s Left Experiment

The Dig

Daniel Denvir

News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Featuring Alex Han, Asha Ransby-Sporn, and Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor on Chicago's left political experiment. In the wake of Zohran's remarkable victory in New York, organizers all over the country are taking a close look at Chicago under Mayor Brandon Johnson. A Chicago Teachers Union leader elected in 2023, Johnson's win was the culmination of years of militant labor and social movement struggle. But while much has been achieved, Johnson and his allies have also suffered many defeats--and the mayor's approval ratings are alarmingly low. In this episode, three long-time local organizers, including a socialist member of city council, analyze the state of the left's bid for governing power and what broader lessons it holds. Recorded live in Chicago.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of The Dig is brought to you by our listeners who support us at patreon.com
0:04.4	and by Haymarket Books, which has loads of great left-wing titles, perfect for dig listeners
0:10.5	like you.
0:11.5	One that you might like is fake work.
0:13.8	How I began to suspect capitalism is a joke by Lee Claire LaBersch.
0:18.2	The year is 1999, and the world is about to end. The only thing standing
0:23.6	between corporate America and certain annihilation is a freshly employed 22-year-old and her three-ring
0:31.3	binder. In this genre-bending memoir, LaBerge reflects on her stint at one of the most prestigious management consulting
0:38.9	firms in the country and what it teaches us about the absurdity of work. As Melinda Cooper puts it,
0:46.5	at once hilarious and deadly serious, LaBerge's Chronicle of the Absurd tells us more about
0:52.6	the logic of contemporary capitalism than any work of
0:56.1	standard economic history or organization theory. Find fake work at haymarketbooks.org, where all
1:04.1	hardcover books are 10% off every day. Welcome to The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver,
1:22.6	and I'm broadcasting from Providence, Rhode Island. What is going on with Chicago?
1:29.8	It's a question that people on the American left have been asking a lot
1:33.7	since Zoran Mamdani won his spectacular upset in New York.
1:38.4	That's because in 2023, Chicago Teachers Union leader Brandon Johnson won Chicago's mayoral election.
1:46.3	It marked one of the most significant electoral victories for the American left.
1:51.5	In particular, it was a crowning achievement for that city's militant labor and social movements.
1:58.5	Those movements have grown powerfully over the past decade and a half as
2:03.5	left-wing activists took over the CTU and took their members out on strike with widespread
2:10.1	community support, setting off a new era of teacher union militancy across the country.
	...

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