(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Face of the Party? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-11-18 Idk if this kind of thing matters, but I am going to throw this out there for consideration. Was thinking today about Sherrod Brown’s lost Senate campagin. There aren't many like him now. It made me wonder if JB Pritzker, ILs current governor, is emblatmatic of where the Demcoratic party is oriented right now? And wheth3er or not that a good thing. JB is an hier of the Pritzker family fortune. The family have interest in the Hilton and Hayatt brands. He has a net worth of 3.7 million billion. Before venturing into politics, he was a venture capitalist and a Demicratic party bundler. He worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and has close ties to Rahm Emmanual (Rahm hews way to the center and has favored a battleground strategy vs a 50 state one). Priztker also contributes to philanthropical projects in medicine on education (more on that in a minute). The Pritzkers are not necessarily anti-labor but fwiw 10K workers from Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt locations went on strike this year, complaining that hotels took advantage of COVID-era staffing and service cuts that have never been restored. “I used to work in room service, but after COVID, they closed my department. Guests complain to me that they can no longer get a steak delivered up to the room, and the tips aren’t what they used to be. I’m making less than I used to, and now two families share my house because we can’t afford the rent anymore. Fwiw room rates are at record highs and. hotel industry made a gross operating profit over $100 billion in 2022. While JBP was not personally involved in the management of these operations, his wealth derives from it and, well, it’s easy to see where his interests lie. Then there’s also this incident. In 2018, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Pritzker had intentionally caused a mansion he had purchased next door to his home to become uninhabitable. By removing its toilets, he appealed his original property tax assessment[193] because the newly built property was uninhabitable. The Cook County assessor reduced the home's value from $6.25 million to about $1.1 million, which granted Pritzker an 83% property tax reduction , equal to about $230,000 per annum.[194] The Cook County inspector general accused Pritzker of a scheme to defraud the county.[195] Pritzker stressed that the county regulations had been followed, but paid the county treasurer $330,000 to reimburse the amount of the property tax reduction.[195] As if he doesn't have enough money already. JB claimed that Cook Country was making a political attack before settling. Isn't this the kind of crap we hate Trump for? While protective of their interests on the economic front, the Prtizker family are active philanthropical endeavors. In June 2002, the family announced an additional gift of $30 million to be invested in the University of Chicago’s Biological Sciences Division and School of Medicine. The family’s Tawani Foundation, which has since provided funding to Howard Brown Health and Rush Memorial Medical Center in Chicago, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Foundation Fund, and the University ofMinnesota’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Health. The Prtizker’s have a particular interest in promoting physical transitionsfor people with gender identity issues and promote the the idea that sex exits on a spectrum (one of JBs cousins, Jennifer, who founded the Tawanni founddation, transitioned in 2013). Depending on your perspective, this is awesome cutting edge activism, or the use of financial leverage to promote an idea that is not widely accepted. Pritzker seems to me typical of the Demcoratic party’s orientation movement away from the bread and butter concerns in favor of social issues favored by suburban voters and the professional classes. This mix of social liberalism and neo-conservative economics strikes me as problematical. It leaves us a little slow to react on bread and butter issues while putting ourselves mway out in front of our bases mores. It’s as if the party traded the GOP for Dewey and Rockefeller Republicans while they got back the Wallace voters (hint: there is more of the latter). Demcorats embraced thatin the 1990s when the party was looking for alternative funding from unions and urban machines. Once allies , they are now front and center in the party. Is it coincidence that they are on the rise and the party is not? EDIT: Sam Stein at Bulwork quoting Ron Klain ““We didn’t deliver what people wanted—help with child care, help with elder care, more security in their lives. Instead we delivered more remote things—bridges and roads, clean energy, future jobs in future chip fabs.” While that doesn't directly pertain to Pritzker, I don't think he particularly invested in any of those things, either. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/18/2287130/-Face-of-the-Party?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/