Rahm Emanuel Steak Knife Energy

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My favorite story about Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s least favorite person — former Mayor, current Japan ambassador, evergreen Chicago nightmare — goes like this:

Bill Clinton, Emanuel’s candidate in the 1992 election, lost big time. Rahm expressed his feelings about this loss at a dinner with colleagues from the campaign in the following way:

Angry at Democrats and Republicans whom he perceived as "betraying" them in the 1992 election, Emanuel stood up and began plunging a steak knife into the table and began rattling off names while shouting "Dead! Dead! Dead!".

Above is Rahm in the early Aughts, probably on his way to make a parking lot deal that disenfranchises the city forever or something.

Let me first say I do not think or believe there is ever grounds for screaming “Dead” about a political ally (or opponent). I also do not condone stabbing tables with steak knives — especially when you’re Rahm Emanuel. Like, sir, what could you possibly have to be angry about? You’ve been serving the world of business faithfully for decades, and it has paid off immensely even if you have to live in Japan now.

And yet: I’ve always loved this story about Emanuel, horrifying as it is. It encapsulates a certain kind of Chicago energy that feels very familiar.

This story, though technically about one of Chicago’s most uncompromisingly neoliberal political figures, encapsulates the completely unhinged energy of most Chicago organizers that I know — at least, the effective ones.

I’ve spent many years trying to ignore or caveat away how deep this connection feels, the connection between Rahm Emanuel Steak Knife Energy and Chicago Organizers.

Maybe this vibe is just the remnant of Saul Alinsky-style white supremacy culture organizing, the kind that propelled Barack Obama to a national stage, I thought.

Or, as my recovery friends who have sat through this anecdote often notice, maybe it’s just that both Rahm and many of the Chicago organizers I know have addict energy.

But, 10 years after I read this story, scrolling through Wikipedia at 4 AM in my first Chicago apartment, I have to admit that this story feels deeper than how I try to explain the connection away.

In my anecdotal experience — steak knife energy, as I will be calling it for the rest of this post, rarely correlates with race, class, or even training in a particular style of organizing.

Instead — steak knife energy, both when I’ve seen and felt it — seems to be correlated with understanding the stakes when others are trying to obscure them.

Enter Alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa

I’ve written in the past about the structural challenges facing Chicago’s current Mayor: when Johnson was elected Mayor, he and every other Left local official suddenly had power far beyond the Left’s previous capacity. Chicago’s Left wasn’t just a bunch of outsiders who occasionally strong-armed the City into meaningful ordinances or decent contract negotiations. Instead, they were responsible, for, you know, running the government – – which, after years of austerity, was kind of a cluster fuck to run.

So, running the government then also meant Left leaders like Rosa were suddenly in charge of a giant, inefficient, austerity-gutted government with an unprecedented amount of sudden social support and need — without any of the federal funds distributed to manage crises like these.

One can only imagine the strain of this responsibility, and to be blunt, that strain is palpable in the actions and overall vibe of Alder Rosa, who until Monday held leadership positions in Johnson’s configuration of City Council.

Alder Rosa, whatever else you want to say about him, has consistently been playing 4D chess in Chicago’s city government right now — I don’t envy him this role but desperately believe we need it.

Many Chicago organizers who have fantastic politics and too much to do (in every leftist subgroup) tend to be dismissive and suspicious. I also know that every time I’ve felt responsible for addressing an unprecedented unsolvable crisis I have been an absolute nightmare to interact with — and my choices and conduct was far less productive than Rosa’s.

But here’s the thing: Rosa is one of the few Alders that genuinely answers to a base of leaders in his ward in a way that governs his decisions. This means he has a strong enough voting and canvassing bloc that can stand behind his political choices and theoretically depose him if he no longer upheld their agenda.

This small fact is what separates Ramirez-Rosa from other Alders. It’s what allowed him to make radical or unusual choices that challenge developers and other power brokers in Chicago. And it’s also what makes him different from most of their older’s – – at least the ones that have been around in the city government for a long time. Having a base means Ramirez-Rosa’s electoral campaigns aren’t held together by corporate or conglomerate real estate fundraising, for example.

That also means that he answers to his base instead of making choices that serve his personal interests.

This isn’t to say that Ramirez-Rosa doesn’t make choices that serve his personal interests, or that he is a good and moral and pure person.

It means that there is some kind of mechanism for him to be able to challenge power stronger than his own, and that makes a very big difference in Chicago politics.

I say this because part of the reason Ramírez Rosa is the way that he is, why he has been effective, and also probably why he has such vehement Steaknife energy, is because this base allows him to avoid many of the traps most public officials run into very quickly – – having to answer to powerbrokers with more money and power, instead of his constituents, or giving up entirely and making choices exclusively based on building personal power and resources.

And though there are definitely people, particularly new Alders, who are using this model, most of them are very new.

In theory, having this kind of base is how most unions and organizing groups operate, but theory is very different than practice.

Alder Ramirez-Rosa, for the last 7 years, has become practiced in representing the goals of his organized base in a way that others, including the Mayor, simply haven’t built the organizing base for.

That means that he can make choices that are slightly more risky, or even just more long-term and strategic. And when your choices are based on this, but many of the people around you are making choices based on random self interest or erratic personal power seeking, you start to be a little crazy. You start to act a little weird.

And, in my opinion, that’s when you start to get steak knife energy.

After Alder Lopez’s allegations, Ramirez-Rosa has been stripped of his leadership powers, including Zoning Committee chair.

Mayor Johnson also made Rosa and Alder Emma Mitts hug and apologize, a strategic move from Johnson that also made me feel really bad for everyone involved.

But what matters in terms of organizing imo, is that whomever replaces Rosa will be less able to make bold choices, even if they are personally far less steak knifey.

This feels especially true as people float names like Burnett Jr as candidates for these roles, which to me feels like the scene in Bottoms where they ask Marshawn Lynch to sponsor their fight club and suggest that the best way for him to be an ally is to “not show up.”

I could not find a clip of this scene of me so here’s a still of Marshawn Lynch instead.

Whoever replaces Ramirez-Rosa will not have the organized political base that Ramirez-Rosa has to respond to power.

No Alder does, at this particular juncture, in a way that extends beyond their ward.

I know many of you will start yelling at me about Jeanette Taylor or Jesse Fuentes or Angela Clay — all women of color, with much better, less Steaknife energy than Ramirez Rosa — but all are either new, still getting their bearings, or they are tired, and want everyone to learn how to organize better (I’m paraphrasing everything I’ve heard from Taylor at public events lately).

So the person who will replace Ramirez-Rosa will undoubtedly lack steak knife energy. 

I’ve had multiple city officials message me about this particular dramatic moment in city government to say Alder Ramirez-Rosa’s crisis is why they’d “never run for public office.” I mean, sure!

Who in their right mind wants to hold political office, let alone local political office, in a time of austerity?

No one is arguing that having steak knife energy is a healthy or productive way to live!

It’s fun to write about, sure, but it’s not fun to have it.

And to be fair, there’s probably another essay here about how to… not have Steak Knife energy.

One where we talk about how toxic and burned out this kind of energy makes you. How it makes you enemies and undermines your goals.

In that essay, we quote adrienne maree brown and Pema Chodron and try to trust the universe.

This is an important essay that much smarter people have already written.

Most of them are also less adjacent to having steak knife energy than I am, and better equipped to talk about how to heal from it.

But when we skip directly to that essay, about how to not have steak knife energy while making change, we ignore how the hell you get like that in the first place.

We ignore why good organizers and leftists would ever act like Rahm Emanuel stabbing tables — not because they want to!

The people I know with steak knife energy tend to be clearer about what is possible in our current times than almost anyone else.

They’re not fatalistic or ludicrously optimistic, but instead deeply context-driven, even when no one else is.

They are farsighted enough to understand what motivates the people acting out of self interest, and, at least, sometimes, able to move them towards their goal anyway.

(Rahm, by the way, is a great example of this – – though he was certainly acting in his self interest, what he was doing was also in alignment with a long-term vision — a fully gutted for corporate profit Chicago :)

Steak knife energy people, more than anyone else I’ve met in real life, are clear on what goals fit the task at hand, and how then tasks they seek to accomplish actually help meet those goals.

They are also, as demonstrated in the Emanuel story, sometimes hard to be around and ready to stab tables.

But when you’re clear on how to change things and everyone around you is focused only on their own agendas — who wouldn’t have steak knife energy, you know?

PS — Is what I’m describing not about strategy and maybe just the kind of sweaty angry dude energy we see on The Bear? I don’t know.

Unrelated, I really love how they light The Ominous Turtleneck in this Al Anon scene.

PS — I’m doing that thing again where I send you a bunch of emails in a single week then you don’t hear from me for a month or so.

I’m trying to get out of this habit, but this is partially because the budget hearings for the city has made things pretty chaotic, and a lot of what’s happening currently won’t be relevant once they’re over. I promise not to spam you too much more this week.