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Albert Cory's avatar

Since I grew up in the Chicago of Mayor Daley the first, I can claim some acquaintance with traditional party machines. I think this article is a laundry list, where you have every possible factor that anyone's ever thought of. If everything is important, then nothing's important.

Particularly, the section "Decline of the Urban Machines" has (1) no differentiation on which factors mattered the most, and (2) factors don't apply particularly to Chicago. I can't speak for NYC.

The move to suburbia happened after WW II and had no effect on the Chicago machine. Both Daleys ruled long after that, as did Rahm Emmanuel. Civil Service reform happened in the 1800's. Primaries existed long before the Machine fell apart. Television and debates had no impact. The 1924 immigration reforms had no effect. Ethnic neighborhoods lived on in Chicago for at least 50 years after that. I grew up in a multi-ethnic one (Irish, Polish, Italian, etc.)

In the old days, having a job with the City meant you were a precinct captain or ward committeeman, and keeping the job meant delivering the Democratic votes in your area. Once people were able to get good jobs without bowing to the Machine, and follow politics on their own, then it started to fall apart. A general atomizing of society also helped in that.

I'm not a supporter of DEI but it did not rise as an alternative source of patronage. Analyses of political movements in the last 15 years and where "wokeness" came from have been coming thick and fast since the election and those are a better explanation.

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Coco McShevitz's avatar

Great article, although I would take issue with the assertion that Asian-Americans and Jews benefit much if at all from DEI. Asians and Jews appear to be Schrodinger’s minorities, oppressed minorities when convenient for the left, white-adjacent when not. But on balance Asians and Jews do great in the U.S. without the need for DEI, and in reality both groups would be wildly overrepresented on elite university campuses (which frequently lead to elite jobs) if DEI admissions criteria were discarded.

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