While lily-livered Democrats from the great state of Texas fled the jobs they were hired to do—apparently bribed and subsidized, possibly illegally, by beta man-boy Beto O’Rourke—scores of Illinoisans continue their exodus from Illinois in search of freedom and decency. In the past week, two news stories have illuminated just some of the reasons Illinoisans continue to exit this godforsaken state.
Wannabe-president J.B. Pritzker embarrassed himself and the state by standing shoulder to shoulder with those Democrat hooky-players who vehemently oppose the ubiquitous and historical practice of gerrymandering. Their opposition is new, born just last week.
Oddly, Democrats hightailed it to one of the worst gerrymandered states in the union, seeking sanctuary in their fight against gerrymandering. Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project, which seeks to “eliminate partisan gerrymandering,” gives Illinois an “F” grade. This is a news story so rich in irony that only Democrats and South Park could write it.
In 2018, fork-tongued Pritzker campaigned against gerrymandering. Once in office, however, he supported gerrymandering as ardently as he supported sending his wife and kids to Florida during lockdowns when he shut down Illinois for the Chinese Communist-created pandemic.
Is Pritzker ashamed of his duplicitousness? Not a bit. His conscience is as shriveled as his hubris is expansive. He just made an appearance on smug Stephen Colbert’s dying show, where even leftist Colbert couldn’t resist taking a shot at Pritzker’s hypocrisy. Colbert held up a map of Illinois showing the absurd voting districts that give Democrats grossly unjustifiable congressional overrepresentation.
Did Pritzker blush, stammer, or chuckle nervously like normal people confronted publicly with their own hypocrisy would? Nope. Not even the teeniest sign of a tweaked conscience flashed across his well-fed face.
Instead, he made a joke: “Well, we handed it over to a kindergarten class and let them decide.”
His “joke” was another slap in the face of Republican voters, whom Pritzker and his collaborators—those jokers in Springfield—regularly ridicule through lawmaking.
Thanks to Pritzker and his collaborators, Illinois kindergartners wouldn’t have time to redraw voting districts, what with the 2020 law requiring state employees—that is, teachers—to use class time to inculcate kindergartners with leftist beliefs about homosexuality and “trans”-cultism.
Another embarrassing Illinois leader who made the news this week was U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez, who just attended the second annual Panamerican Congress of lefties, where she infamously said, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.” (It should be noted that Ramirez represents the 3rd Congressional District, which has preposterously gerrymandered boundaries.)
She’s not a proud Guatemalan and proud American. She’s a proud Guatemalan before she’s an American. And while it’s Crater Lake clear that she’s proud to be Guatemalan and that her Guatemalan identity supersedes her American identity, it’s unclear whether she has any pride in her American identity at all. As a leftist and part of the America-hating squad of shrews in Congress, it wouldn’t be surprising if Ramirez has no pride in her American identity. Unsurprising but shameful, nonetheless.
Her parents broke our immigration laws by coming to the United States illegally, presumably for a better life for their children than Guatemala could offer. And now Delia Ramirez, the child of illegal aliens, has the honor of sitting in Congress, where she extols a country from which her parents fled and seeks to destroy what makes America so desirable to people of every race, ethnicity, and nation of origin.
Caught in the conflagration, she began by admitting her true feelings. Ramirez tried unsuccessfully to put it out via a nonsensical statement on X:
Honoring my Guatemalan ancestry only strengthens my commitment to America. That is the truth I carry with me always. And it is a truth that many Americans carry with them. Anyone who denies our claim on this country simply because we dare to honor our diverse heritage and immigrant roots only exposes how fragile and small-minded their own idea of America really is.
First, no one suggested that Ramirez shouldn’t honor her Guatemalan heritage. Americans’ umbrage derives from her saying she is a proud Guatemalan “before” she’s an American.
Second, how does honoring her Guatemalan ancestry strengthen her commitment to America? What does that even mean?
Third, no one denies her “claim on America” because she honors her heritage. We are a nation of immigrants. And the children of immigrants have historically honored their ancestries in myriad ways. They honor them through holiday traditions, clothing, music, food, and language. My family honored my grandparents’ Swedish heritage, but my mother—who was born in Waukegan—would never have said, “I’m a proud Swede before I’m an American.”
By calling her critics “small-minded,” Ramirez is trying to besmirch Americans of diverse ancestries who see her words as expressions of thanklessness for the power, position, and privileges she has obtained in this great nation.
When people say things like, “Why don’t you go to Guatemala,” it’s not because their ideas of America are fragile and small-minded. It’s because they’re far bigger, more deeply rooted, and visionary than the petty, thin, tribalistic ideas of leftists like Ramirez. Those Americans whose parents and grandparents came from all over the world and who love this country resent what leftists like Pritzker and Ramirez are doing to it.