Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, offered a thoughtful and politically correct coronavirus warning to the people of his Texas city.
He told them to stay vigilant and stay home. And he threatened to shut the town down if people didn’t follow the rules.
“We need to stay home if you can,” Adler said on a video in November reported by the Austin American-Statesman. “This is not the time to relax. We are going to be looking really closely. … We may have to close things down if we are not careful.”
Only one tiny problem.
According to the newspaper, Mayor Adler wasn’t at home following his own rules.
He was hanging out in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on vacation with others.
And so, yet another politician joins the ever-growing list of arrogant morons — most of them Democrats, but a few Republicans — in the most notorious group in America:
Coronavirus-rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me politicos.
There are so many now you can hardly count them all, like flies over a chunk of liver sausage on a hot day.
They wag their fingers at people and shut down “nonessential” small businesses and ruin the business owners’ lives as they “follow the science.”
Some take care of their politics by letting teachers unions shut their public schools. But they send their own kids to private schools, which are open.
They do whatever the hell they want. They go to fine restaurants. They get their haircuts. They hang out in Cabo, an upscale resort destination where celebrities vacation, and issue warnings.
But there is one benefit to the hypocrisy:
Clarity.
And so, for example, when they tell us of the wonders of government-run health care, we can imagine them putting themselves and their families first in line.
But right now they enjoy their heavily subsidized health insurance plans while we lowlifes pay for our own health care — and for theirs.
There is a downside to the hypocrisy. People stop following the pandemic rules.
It’s plain that we’re living in a vast human behavioral science laboratory. We see that the pandemic — and the fear stoked by many in media for other, partisan reasons — has led to a vast concentration of executive power.
And that power is subject to the laws of human nature. For what is the favorite subject of just about everyone? Themselves. In this, at least, politicians are human.
I asked Charles Lipson, the writer and professor emeritus of the University of Chicago, about the hypocrites for an upcoming edition of The Chicago Way podcast that I co-host with WGN executive producer Jeff Carlin.
“A big part of the populist movement — on both the right and the left — has been that people in power have cut themselves special deals. And that rich people and people in power have formed a kind of alliance to cut themselves those special deals,” Lipson said.
He mentioned a few, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who violated his own rules to eat with a large group at one of the fanciest restaurants in the state, The French Laundry. The menu rotates daily and Wednesday’s included “Bitter cocoa laminated brioche and Diane St. Clair’s animal farm butter.”
That’s bread and butter to the rest of us.
There are no prices listed for guests of The French Laundry. How tacky.
“We have a two-tiered system,” Lipson reminded me. “This isn’t like the airlines where you buy a first-class ticket on the law. People won’t put up with it. And they’re right not to put up with it.”
But Chicago and Illinois have put up with this kind of thing for decades. Another benefit to the pandemic is the rest of the country is learning how we roll.
“I recognize that my travel set a bad example,” Adler said later in a weaselly apology. “I recognize that the fact I took that trip, and at the same time, was continuing to urge people to be cautious is confusing.”
Confusing? No, Mayor Adler, it is not confusing.
We’ve seen it with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Newsom and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to mention a few.
They are lords. We are serfs.
They make flowery pronouncements, like some insipid prince in “The Princess Bride.” And we are expected to doff our caps, cower, and close our small businesses and lose our livelihoods.
The lords live on Zoom like all technocrats. They talk on TV about how it’s all been so emotionally difficult for them, but they feel no pain and don’t lay off government workers. They lose nothing.
And private sector serfs who don’t live on Zoom? They’re on unemployment and told to keep their masks on.
I wear a mask, but then I see photos of politicians at fancy restaurants without masks, and I wonder:
Do they think we’re fools?
A stupid question. If you’re at a poker game that you think is crooked, but you can’t figure out who the sucker is, look in the mirror.
Even a Democrat I happen to like, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, joined that club. She cut a public service spot telling Chicago to stay home. It was so popular among national pundits that they treated her like some conquering superhero.
Lightfoot said that “getting your roots done is not essential.”
I don’t worry about my roots. They’re white, though I’m told I have perfect senatorial hair. But I don’t want to be a senator. I just wanted a haircut. My wife wanted her hair done.
But Lori said no.
Then Lori got a haircut, because, well, she said she just had to.
Hypocritical rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me politicians, even during the pandemic, aren’t different from you.
They just have power.
And you don’t.
Listen to “The Chicago Way” podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — at www.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.
Twitter @John_Kass
