Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has had just about enough of people attacking cops and badmouthing the Chicago Police Department using toxic language and obvious disrespect. Now, if that first sentence sounds to you like something I ripped out of a modern version of the Bizarro World Superman series, you’re to be forgiven. This is the same Mayor that stormed into office on a promise to rein in the police, defund them, and fight for “social justice” in policing, much to the city’s detriment. But hey… it’s never too late for someone to turn over a new leaf. (Plus, she has an election coming up and a crime rate that’s through the roof.) So we should give credit where due if she’s willing to step up and issue a call for civility and respect for law enforcement and other “institutions” in our democratic society, as she put it, right? Let’s see what the Mayor had to say. (Fox News)

Speaking at an event on Tuesday, Lightfoot decried attacks on police officers in her city, suggesting it’s a sign of people “losing respect for the institutions of our democracy.”

“That says to me that the people who are acting so brazenly have no not only no respect for themselves, but they don’t have respect for the institution like the police department, who men and women every single day on every watch, are literally risking life and limb for our safety,” Lightfoot said.

“But toxicity in our public discourse is a thing that I think we should all be concerned about, right?” Lightfoot added.

Fair enough. That was rather nice of her. People need to have respect for institutions and Lightfoot is stepping up to the plate. The Chicago PD deserves a fair shake.

But as Fox News goes on to remind us, this may be something of a recent evolution in the Mayor’s attitude, at least when it comes to “toxic discourse” toward our institutions. At a pride event only a few days before, Lightfoot was addressing the recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs and she had a few words for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas that certainly sounded a bit on the “toxic” side.

The mayor of the third-largest city in the country was speaking on stage at the city’s Pride Fest. She began by saying, “If you read Clarence Thomas’ concurrence.” Someone then yells at the mayor from the audience to which she replies, “Thank you. F— Clarence Thomas. He thinks that we are going to stand idly by while they take our rights – our right to marry – our right to have children – our right to live.”

Lightfoot, Chicago’s first openly gay mayor, was enraged at Justice Thomas for suggesting that last week’s landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade should be a prelude to overturning gay marriage.

Even after being called out for the speech, Lightfoot went on Twitter and doubled down on her vulgar language toward the SCOTUS justice.

So we went from “F*** Clarence Thomas” and “I said what I said” to “respect for institutions” in less time than it would take for you to need to mow your lawn a second time. I see.

And these people keep wanting us to take them seriously. I honestly don’t know what to say some days. Given the condition that Chicago and so many of our other cities are in these days, you would think that some of our elected officials might want to climb out of the clown car for a while and knuckle down and try to fix things. But so much of all of this is just fodder for the circus.

Again… I’m happy to see Lightfoot standing up for the police and calling for a bit less violence and a bit more decorum. I hope some of the city’s residents will follow that advice. But if they have a hard time taking her seriously, I also can’t say that I blame them.