Blue Thursday
Blue Thursday is a monthly political happy hour at the Hideout, hosted by Indivisible Chicago and its near-north chapter Blue Beginning. On the third Thursday of the month (usually) we gather to have a few drinks, share some gossip, and mix with and hear from elected officials, fellow activists, and political insiders.
April 18
How’s Brandon Johnson doing? Any better than Lori Lightfoot did? We discuss with two old friends and savvy mayor-watchers: Tribune reporter Gregory Royal Pratt, author of a new book about Lightfoot, The City Is Up for Grabs; and Brandon Pope, who among many other things is the Emmy-winning host of WCIU 26 / Block Club Chicago’s TV show On the Block.
March 21
Are the media meeting the moment? We spoke with press critic Mark Jacob, former editor at both the Tribune and Sun-Times. He’s now proprietor of stopthepresses.org, a Substack newsletter that focuses on media performance in this critical election year; and Michael Spikes, a lecturer at Northwestern-Medill and co-founder of the Illnois Media Literacy Coalition.
February 15
Our guest was Emma Tai, the superorganizer heading up the Bring Chicago Home campaign. Formerly the executive director of United Working Families, she’s credited with running the ground game that elected Brandon Johnson in 2023 and Delia Ramirez in 2022.
January 18
We talked with former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, Politico legal affairs columnist and analyst for CNN, MSNBC, and more. His topic: the many legal entanglements of Donald Trump. His conclusion: don’t wait for the justice system to put him away, do it yourself in November.
November 16, 2023
With just One Year to Save the World, we talked with two campaign pros who have been around the block and then some: Robert Creamer and Pete Giancreco. What are Democrats’ best strategies for winning in 2024? How can we build on our string of off-year successes? Should we be worrying about polls? (No.) Should we get to work? (Yes!)
September 21
Our evening was kicked off with spoken-words by Bigg Ceno, one of the artist-activists who make up Collaboraction Theatre’s youth ensemble The Light. Then we talked indictments, incitements, and electoral requitement with William Howell, professor in American politics at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
hear the audio on WCPT’s SoundCloud channel.
watch the Facebook video (program starts about 2:30)
