Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel enters his second term with a growing list of crises – from police brutality, failing schools and gang violence to grim finances – and doubts from critics and allies that he'll find the solutions.
"His entire legacy is resting now on making real reform happen," David Axelrod, who served with Emanuel when both worked for the Obama administration, tells the Washington Post.
The newspaper reports, however, since city officials last month released a video of a white police officer shooting a black teen 16 times, public anger has been "bitter and more personal."
"Oh, it’s personal, all right. We’re making it personal," a former Emanuel supporter, Ja’Mal Green, tells the newspaper during a protest calling for Emmanuel's resignation.
The Post notes Emanuel's current problems have long plagued the city, but reports the mayor has irked voters with a string of scandals, a lack of transparency – the video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald wasn't released for a year – and his "abrasive personal style."
"The mayor has a reputation for getting people to do things even if they don’t want to do it," Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny Davis, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, tells the Post. "But at this point, he’s going to need people to follow not out of fear or power but out of a sense they’ve been convinced. People want to love their city. But they also love and want justice."
The worst is hardly over, the Post reports.
Leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union are threatening to strike – the second since Emanuel took office in 2011 – and a massive tax and fee increase – including the largest property tax increase in modern Chicago history – is about to take place, the Post reports.
"If Rahm were to resign, Chicago would only move from one chaos to another chaos," another Illinois Democrat, Rep. Bobby Rush, wrote in a letter to the Chicago Sun-Times.
"We have at this time a critical point to bargain for real change."