I was hopeful last week after Lightfoot ate shit but I'm getting major Bernie-after-Nevada 2020 vibes from where things are now with Johnson. All the big money is behind Vallas and so are all the city's white neighborhoods, and so are a lot of conservative Black voters, frankly.
It's not just that people can't imagine a better future, it's that they're actively distrustful of people who offer one. The Jesse White endorsement sealed it, I think. Better the same shit we've been fed for 50 years, as endorsed by a Chicago political elder, than even the idea that we try something different.
It takes collective, society-wide deprivation and suffering to break people out of their conditioning, and things aren't there yet. Until the US goes through its own century of humiliation we're just going to keep getting Vallases again and again and again, even in a "progressive" bastion like Chicago.
I've seen a shit ton of Vallas ads up in Lakeview and Lincoln Park, which definitely tracks.
I have a Lakeview friend who sees the signs up there, and her rich parents are also voting for Vallas. But I feel(/hope) like he shouldn't have much more support than the conservatives who already voted for him in the primary.