Rahm Emanuel is not the savior of the Democratic Party

Emanuel has a long history of serving himself at the expense of the people in need in Chicago and in Illinois. After a stint as US Ambassador to Japan, Emanuel wants to return to national politics

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Rahm Emanuel, National Politics/Thursday June 12, 2025

Rahm Emanuel was one of Chicago worst mayors, not because he described himself as an “a-hole,” but because in the two terms he served, he did little to improve the city.

Mayor Emanuel was a failure.

Chicago is a road test for leadership. It has the toughest problems, many that have so far been insoluble.

Emanuel sailed as its captain on a platform of public relations spin, creating perceptions that fell far short of the reality.

Not only did he fail when he served two terms as mayor, but he put his own selfish interests ahead of the interests of the people, when he targeted Arab Americans during his first week in office, closing the city’s annual Arabesque Festival, shutting down the Arab Advisory Commission, and avoiding Arab Muslims from his annual “Iftar events at City Hall.

Rahm Emanuel’s official photo as US Ambassador to Japan

Emanuel’s father’s role as a member of the terrorist organization the Irgun during the 1940 war in Palestine, which fueled the hatred that lingers today, has cautioned him to do everything possible to marginalize Arabs and to undermine their interests.

When Emanuel ended his term as mayor, Chicago was no better than when he started.

And that is exactly what Emanuel is trying to spin today, a chance to do the same for America that he has done for Chicago. Nothing.

Instead of offering solutions to the nation’s toughest problems, Emanuel is simply doing a better job of attacking President Donald Trump than most of his Democratic Party colleagues.

It’s called “Houdini Politics,” or “Houdini Government.” It’s a shell game in which you claim you are improving politics, but in the end, all you are doing is a sleight of hand shift of the shell game deception.

Emanuel surfaced on the Illinois political scene when he was funded by pro-Israel lobbyists to take down Congressman Paul Findley, who was arguing for a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Before Bill Clinton reached out to Yasir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to engage with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to negotiate peace, Findley was pushing for the two sides to engage in talks int he late 1970s when real peace was possible and the radical armed Israeli settler movement was in its infancy and could have been curtailed.

But Emanuel, when he was 30 years old, worked to take Findley down, pushing Illinois State Rep. David Robinson to run on a campaign fueled by anti-Arab hatred, pandering to false accusations of anti-Semitism, and not hesitating to use hate as a foundation for his political ambitions.

Hating on Arabs and Muslims in the 1970s and 1980s was an easy platform to stand on without worrying about consequences. (In 1975 after I was honorably discharged from serving during the Vietnam War in the U.S. Air Force, the FBI launched an investigation into my background with demeaning claims I was a “terrorist.” After wasting $2 million and two years of going nowhere, the FBI report concluded I was “just concerned” about bettering the conditions of my Arab American community.)

It was easy for Emanuel to gin up the hatred against Findley, but he failed. But that didn’t stop him. He was a fundraiser for Richard M. Daley’s mayoral run in 1983, and he hated me because Daley and I were close int hose years when Richie was targeted by Mayor Jane M. Byrne.

Emanuel is good at one thing: keeping his political career alive. He served in the U.S. Congress from 2003 to 2009, then was Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2010 under President Barack Obama. Click to read more.

He spun his White House clout into a Chicago mayoral victory in February 2011, serving two terms until 2021, when he realized he couldn’t do anything to help Chicago, and being mayor might be a drag on his own future.

He immediately convinced then-President Joe Biden to name him ambassador to Japan, where he served until the Democrats, concealing Biden’s growing cognitive problems, lost the White House to Donald J. Trump.

Emanuel will rise from the weeds to run for president after the midterm elections, when Democrats will most likely stumble back into control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.

Trump’s record so far has been erratic, and his continues to segue away from implementing some good programs, distracted by petty arguments and name-calling.

The growing feud with Elon Musk, a real billionaire and successful businessman, is only a chapter in Trump’s downslide.

And the Trump turmoil will be the very distraction from reality that Emanuel will spin to make himself look like a good candidate.

It’s amazing to me how wealthy political executives who fail to do good manage, when they are in office, to pull the wool over the eyes of voters, a second time, to convince them they will do better with another chance at higher office.

Running alongside Emanuel for President is our Governor, J.B. Pritzker, whose record of failure is rivaled only by Emanuel’s own achievement failures as Chicago Mayor.

One reason why Chicago doesn’t look so bad is that it is under the shadow of Illinois, which is even worse. Illinois is ranked among the worst states when it comes to taxes, crime, and a weak economy. But with money and cronies in national politics, and an image that is more smoke and mirrors than truth, you can make even a rotten egg look appealing.

Emanuel is a racist. Pritzker is a spoiled, entitled brat. Both have used wealth and political clout to get what they want, not because they were good at persuasion, but because the Democratic Party is in a shambles. The only thing holding up the Democrats is their inability to address Trump’s troubles effectively

What this country needs is a genuinely talented politician to step up to the plate and provide non-partisan leadership, someone who can bring this divided country together.

Neither Emanuel nor Pritzker can do that.

AROUND TOWN: Anger against the Chicago Federation of Labor and its bullying leadership style is simmering. The latest are reports on how the CFL, which has wrapped itself in “diversity,” is using it to discriminate against Arabs and Muslims. … Chicago union bosses seeking to takeover the Orland Fire Protection District have fabricated a claim that ambulance service will drop, not disclosing that the union is threatening to cut back ambulance coverage in response to an effort to control excessive overtime made by, you guessed it, union leaders … Check out my interview on Thom Serafin’s “The Crisis Cast” podcast where we talk about these topics and more, from the Musk-Trump breakup to Federal prosecutors who selectively target allegations of crime based on the power factor of the politician. We also talk about the new trend in journalism, “perspective news reporting,” in which facts are overshadowed by unlabeled opinions.