Can Ted Dabrowski Heal Pritzker’s Illinois Wasteland?
By John Kass
Wednesday Sept. 10, 2025
Is Ted Dabrowski the last chance for the people of Illinois?
After two terms of the despotic Gov. J.B. Pritzker who shut down schools but opened strip clubs and cannabis stores, where is Illinois?
After decades of Democratic machine rule, after Boss Madigan’s iron-control of the statehouse and Boss Toni emptying the Cook County jail with her Soros judges, and all that usual timid silence from Cook County Sherriff Tom Dart. So where is Illinois?
A wasteland.
But there is a man who for years has tried to warn Illinois with facts and reason:
Ted Dabrowski.
The president of wirepoints.org is stepping down from that job to run for governor is the guest on this week’s Chicago Way podcast that I co-host with WGN producer Jeff Carlin. Please listen and share it with your friends and family.
Why should you please share this podcast with those you care about and love? Because a great state is dying from Democrat corruption and neglect. Civilization is collapsing before your very eyes. And Ted Dabrowski might just be the last chance for Illinois.
He’ll formally announce his candidacy for Governor of Illinois on Friday. But he’s in.
“This state Illinois is an amazing state,” said Dabrowski on the Chicago Way podcast. “And it should be a top five state for economic growth, for prosperity, for wage growth, for education. You know this state has so many assets that most other states would dream of having, right? With the lake and the farmland and the universities and the Chicago economic engine. You know you can’t make that stuff up.
“It’s great, but our politicians over the last few years have destroyed it, and we’re watching a great state shrink in population. Its economy isn’t growing our kids aren’t reading anymore. I think maybe reached a point where we might be able to tip this thing into common sense and unite for the first time in a long time.”
And why not?
Dabrowski is not as silky as Obama was. He doesn’t spin rhetoric and cheap self-destructive dreams. His father was a legal Polish immigrant and his mother a legal immigrant from Ecuador. He’s a policy analyst and investment banker. He reads numbers like tracks in the wilderness and sees opportunity for Illinois draining away.
The people should be primed for a change. Do they want to continue living in a wasteland?
Dabrowski isn’t some magical unicorn. Illinois doesn’t need magic. Illinois needs sound management and courage.
Currently, Illinois residents pay among the highest taxes in America. The crime is offensive and a constant threat so taxpayers move out, but the criminals who remain have an ally in Pritzker and the Democrats who pushed the leftist scourge of cashless bail.
After years of Madigan Democrats failing the public schools, the schools don’t educate kids anymore, when AI is revamping the employment landscape. As Dabrowski has found and has proven using the states own metrics, most Illinois students can’t read or write or do math at grade level.
Billions of tax dollars have been spent to make them ready for a lifetime of living off the taxpayers, either as welfare recipients or in prison.
That’s Democrat policy.
But all that does is grow the blight killing Illinois like angry weeds.
A political news story about perennial candidate Darren Bailey is exciting the Illinois mushrooms who like to sit in the dark and be fed waste products by various combine media reporters. Remember the news reporters who are talking him up, including my old paper the Tribune. There are things I’m hearing about Bailey I don’t like.
Bailey will not be governor, no matter what combine reporters hope for. He has no money and no support and no votes. And his running mate gives off creepy vibes.
The only Illinoisans who perhaps may be intrigued by a Bailey candidacy for governor are the drunk political writer for the Tribune and the fat man positioning himself for a presidential campaign.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s two terms have ruined Illinois and turned the land of Lincoln into a black hole that he’s desperate to escape from.
It would be an epic campaign, Pritzker trying to run away from what he’s done in Illinois on those fat short stumpy legs of his.
Under the Democrats, urban crime has escalated and threatens stability and culture. The anarchy brought by George Soros and the pro-Soros media, by Soros’ support of do-nothing Democratic prosecutors and racist judges that look to free repeat offenders at any cost, as our sons and daughters pay with their lives. And JB Pritzker and his Democrats have endorsed Democrat Boss Toni and her permissive judges.
The corrupt newspapers say nothing. They see themselves as social justice warriors, not as the tribunes of the people.
-Dabrowski understands it. He put it out in an X posting:
“This is the underlying problem,” Dabrowski posted. “More than 7,800 murders in Chicago over the last 13 years. Most in the country.”
Under Pritzker, the Illinois schools don’t educate, but Democrats still elevate the Chicago Teacher’s Union as political muscle to be praised and protected. As I’ve written and reported before, Illinois kids can’t read or do math at grade level, and it’s getting worse. Again, all those kids are ready for under Pritzker is prison or a lifetime on welfare. And taxpayers flee.
Pritzker has billions to spend on himself. And many of us have become sickened by what Pritzker and the Democrats–and oily combine Republicans and their press agents–have done.
Many have left, yes, and I’m one of them. But our sons still live in Illinois and the young women they love. And nothing is ever written and inevitable. We can change destiny.
But it takes clear headed thinking, courage, and your votes.
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(Copyright 2025 John Kass)
About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.
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Comments 16
Ted is the recipe for success, and I wish him well. I lived in Old Town in the late 80s, and I had the best time of my life. Ribs at the Twin Anchors were the best on the Northside.
I often listen to Ted Dabrowski when he comes on Dan Proft’s show on AM560. Everything Governor Dabrowski says makes sense to me. I will vote for him for sure.
John, where was this picture taken?
Definitely time to get the word out. JB must be stopped. The easiest way is to insure he doesn’t get reelected. That would also stop his nonsensical presidential ambitions.
A good candidate does no one any good if first, people don’t vote, and then, don’t or won’t vote for the “right” person (whoever that would be) when they do. Just ask Paul Vallas. Look at what we ended up with.
I know Ted personally. He is extremely diligent, calm, and understands what needs to be done. He knows where bodies are buried as well. He will face a firestorm if elected-worse than the one Bruce Rauner faced. Illinois needs not only to elect Ted, but to elect Republican politicians in the legislature who will work with him and not fight him (The Combine).
He will be more of a “Calvin Coolidge” type governor. Not a Trump type governor.
There are so many many problems with Illinois, Cook County, the collar counties, and the city of Chicago. It is unfixable in the short term.
Yeah, Illinois’s problems are unfixable in the short term but it’s well worth a try. Bruce Rauner didn’t try hard enough and he didn’t use his billions wisely for the state, neither. At least he could have given the chance to my fellow South Dakotan lady who was a good mathematician and who challenged him in the primary.
FWIW, I also used to know JB personally. The difference in personality between JB and Ted is night and day. JB feels entitled to be a politician. He’s been wanting this his entire life. When he first ran for Congress on the North Shore, he thought he would waltz into office. He got his butt kicked in the primary.
JB will say whatever he needs to say to win. He will spend money (he didn’t earn it, his grandfather did).
JB is not interested in people. He is interested in himself. Self-absorbed but acting like he is not. 1871 was a vanity project for JB. It was a total failure for Chicago. JB is interested in controlling networks and putting himself at the center, not expanding them. That’s one reason Chicago will never have a thriving startup community.
Illinois needs to boot the execrable toilet magistrate, and most of the legislature. Liberalism ruins everything, and Illinois is the Dresden of proof. After the masochist voters finally tire, a Marshall Plan will be needed to rebuild.
The Pritzker Wasteland so well described by Kass makes you wonder: What could Democrats possibly have in mind for Illinois and the other wastelands they control?
They’re now proposing Communist-Islamists as mayors of NYC and Minneapolis. In 2028 they’re likely to choose the Evil Mannequin Of California over the Evil Whale Of Hyatt Hotels. If Pritzker has hedged his bet in 2016 by buying another term, that would leave him squatting in Springfield, overseeing more feeding at the trough of pensions and schools as more taxpayers flee. Oof.
Kass plays a Greek god of warning here, noting that Illinois can elect Dabrowski or worsen the wasteland. States CAN fail, and Illinois trails New York only slightly in the failure race. Any state or city breeding crime and civic illiteracy can continue to waste away, obese debt notwithstanding. And we Illinois expatriates can only watch in sorrow if our former neighbors invite more ruination through taxes and physical danger.
Well, good luck, Illinois. If you’re looking for happy distraction, maybe don’t count on our Chicago teams.
Ted Dabrowski is our only hope. He has my vote with the three other adults in my household.
Appeal to the Center, the Center left should be a winning formula. Show people that they are not powerless, that they may indeed have a Governor that has their interests at heart and who can listen and act on facts
Someone who can appeal to Illinois’ farm culture, as well as Urban culture. Speak where the Lincoln Douglas debates happened, Ottawa, Freeport, Alton, Quincy. Once upon a time Illinois defined the Nation’s agenda – once upon a time Chicago was influential. All this can happen again.
Its waiting to happen
Wall Street should move to Chicago – think about it, just one example
Paul Vallas for Mayor, Ted for Governor, the you need someone to replace Boss Toni, and then, maybe you can begin to turn the state around. Wirepoints and Illinois Policy Institute have all the data. Vallas knows the budget, Why not ask for federal help?
The sanctuary city and state has to go. The SAFE T act has to go. If they improved public safety and could eliminate much of the bloat, their corruption taxes we all pay, the city could experience a boom.
Then there’s the elephant in the room. No one wants to take haircut to their pension. They must stop the bleeding and move toward solvency. If Ted can figure that out, the bond rating immediately gets better and Illinois is back in business.
It’s a tall order as they will all line up against him. Pritzker will give to the clown Bailey again, trying to pick his opponent. They will call Ted every kind of IST and PHOBE there is hoping something will stick. There will ask him his position on Gaza even though Illinois policy has little to do with it, or anything to do with foreign policy. Anything they can smear him with, there will try.
Is that Gaza City in the top photo?
Ted will get his ass handed to him.
It’s over for Illinois. Stop beating a dead horse.
JELLYBELLY funded bailey in the primary, knowing he was an easy dupe to knock off.
We get the government we deserve, but our kids don’t deserve the government we install.
All in for Ted Dabrowski.
In light of recent events, I want to prophesize, that the Democrat party, as it is currently comprised is going to go the way of Arthur Anderson. They are done. Ted will mop the floor with JB Pritzker and it will be fun to watch. Its so sad that people have had to die for this change to come