That question, an update of Richard Nixon’s memorable farewell to news reporters as he dropped out of the California governor’s race in 1962, came to mind on the heels of some unusually welcome news about violent crime in Chicago.

The city finished April with 20 reported homicides, the lowest count of any April since 1962, according to a WBEZ analysis. 

Also, the public radio station found that the city’s “116 murders through this year’s first four months mark the lowest January-through-April tally since 2014.”

Even as the city braces for its usual summertime surge in violent crimes, Chicago still appears to be on pace to hit Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2025 goal of having fewer than 500 homicides for the first time in a decade.

Meanwhile, is Washington tuned in to the good news — and how we can have more of it?

Trump’s historic blizzard of executive orders in the first 100 days of his second term in office poked his presidential nose back into Chicago’s affairs at the very moment when good news is happening without him.

Three of his executive orders in particular seemed to be aimed at Chicago.

One seeks to end all federal consent decrees governing police reform efforts.

That would include Chicago’s agreement, which dates back to the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald, 17, by then-Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014.

McDonald died after Van Dyke pumped 16 9 mm bullets into him. In 400 pages of reports, police had claimed that McDonald was acting “crazed” while walking down the street and had lunged at officers after refusing to drop a knife, leading department supervisors to rule the homicide justifiable.

Video of the incident released later showed that McDonald was walking away. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder, and Chicago and the U.S. Department of Justice signed a consent decree to address the underlying civil rights issues of the case.

A second executive order by Trump calls on state and federal officials, as WBEZ reported, to “publish lists of jurisdictions often called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal officials’ attempts to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally.”

That sounds like Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance. First declared by Mayor Harold Washington in 1985 via executive order, it aims to ensure undocumented residents are not prosecuted “on the basis of immigration status.”

Yet another order signed by Trump would increase access to excess military equipment by state and local officials. It would also increase legal support for officers accused of wrongdoing while on official duty.

Although I believe in supporting law enforcement, the use of military equipment by local departments opens up another long-running debate about the wisdom and effectiveness of militarizing local police, as it could lead to unnecessary use of excessive force on, for example, political protesters.

Finally, Trump signed an order reinforcing an existing federal law that requires English-language proficiency for commercial motor drivers. That doesn’t sound too drastic, but I’m curious about how a Republican president whose party usually emphasizes local solutions for local problems is so eager to stick Washington’s nose into this one.

Amid these executive orders, will Trump and his MAGA movement notice the good news happening on Chicago streets and other big cities?

Is it possible that Trump and MAGA have drawn so much political mileage out of the crime-ridden-hellhole narrative about Chicago to be deterred by mere facts?

“Chicago is a shooting disaster,” Trump tweeted way back in August 2013. “They should immediately go to STOP AND FRISK. They have no choice, hundreds of lives would be saved!”

Stop-and-frisk policies also are very controversial, yet popular among those who first hear about it. Which reminds me of a wise saying of H.L. Mencken that Ronald Reagan loved to quote: “For every problem, there’s a solution that’s neat, plausible and wrong.”

Trump’s tireless tweeting often brings that to mind.

To find real solutions requires more careful examination than you are likely to hear from the next bar stool.

My years of covering crime and other problems in Chicago’s communities have shown me how a lot of street-savvy and dedicated professionals and volunteers at the grassroots neighborhood level have been the unsung heroes that lead to safe and peaceful communities, if we give them a chance.

We can learn a lot from such apparent successes as community violence intervention, or CVI, programs. They hire ex-offenders to mediate gang conflicts and steer high-risk individuals to social services and jobs.

Such programs won’t end all of our urban crime problems, but I’ve seen a promising number of examples that have produced positive results.

Can the answers to our urban crime problems be found on the same streets that produced them? It’s worth a try.

Either way, it’s better than turning our neighborhoods, whose residents want to live in peace and safety, into an escalating combat zone.

Email Clarence Page at cpage47@gmail.com.

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The result of a lengthy and often ad hoc design process that involved innumerable top-notch players, the 24.5 acres at the northwest corner of Grant Park were designed to invite the public to its varied attractions. But the contagion of unsightly crowd control barriers, often coupled with cumbersome security checks, has thwarted public access and become the unfortunate norm in recent years.

Millennium Park was the first important public space in the United States in the 21st century. When it opened in 2004, Millennium Park was rightly hailed as a new kind of park, and it has proved to be a precursor to a generation of vibrant new urban spaces that include New York’s High Line (2009), The 606 (2015) and the Chicago Riverwalk (2016).

In the years prior to its opening, much of the press about Millennium Park, most especially in this newspaper, focused on the increasingly higher costs above the initial estimates. But the ballooning budget reflected an increasingly ambitious scope shepherded by design director and master planner Ed Uhlir, which changed from a modest bandshell and revamped parking garage to the stunning art- and design-driven series of spaces we now know. And those hundreds of millions of additional dollars were largely offset by epic philanthropic fundraising led by Sara Lee CEO John H. Bryan.

The public reaction on the park’s opening that July centered on the park’s considerable design features with Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion; Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain; Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (also known as The Bean); and Kathryn Gustafson, Piet Oudolf and Robert Israel’s Lurie Garden as the main attractions. These inventive venues are high art that doesn’t pander and were conceived to be fully accessible. But recent years have seen Millennium Park’s original promise diminished by bad public policy and safety concerns that need to be reconsidered.

And today, many parts of the park are showing their age. The Gehry-designed trellis above the Pritzker Pavilion’s lawn is currently undergoing extensive repairs. Much of the concrete on both sides of the bandshell is cracked and spalling; original signage is badly faded and dated; and the much-needed public restrooms need a good refresh. In contrast, Cloud Gate and the plaza it sits on look great — the result of renovations completed last year. But Crown Fountain could use a similar overhaul.

The very idea of the public park is America’s most important design contribution to the 19th century. Early examples like New York’s Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston’s Fens and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park were almost always placed in a central location, open to all without a cost of admission. Parks throughout the country became central to cities’ identities and their public lives. Frederick Law Olmsted was not just our foremost landscape designer but also a proselytizer for the role of parks as civic institutions and promoters of public health.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Millennium Park — ‘the best thing former Mayor Richard M. Daley ever did’ — 20 years later

And parks are a key part of Chicago’s design legacy. Our boulevard-linked system of large parks — Jackson and Washington parks on the South Side, Douglass and Humboldt parks on the West Side, and Lincoln Park on the North Side — combined the considerable talents of Olmsted, Calvert Vaux and William Le Baron Jenney, among others. The boulevard system’s 26-mile length touches on numerous neighborhoods throughout the city. These green open spaces often spurred the initial development of these neighborhoods and can provide an impetus for their ongoing renewal.

While still one of our newest parks, it’s important to recognize that Millennium Park’s efficacy as a public park has been hampered in recent years. Originally, ticketed events were rare: The occasional big artist necessitated temporary fencing around the pavilion and its lawn. But recent years have seen “temporary” fencing around the perimeter of the entire park, and many periods when entry is tightly controlled with invasive security searches and long lines to just visit the park. Much of this can be attributed to public safety concerns during the pandemic, but it’s long past time that these anti-democratic restrictions are removed. Ticketed events should be the rare exception. Gates and fences should be eliminated.

This corner of Grant Park might be the most accessible single spot in the entire city, with abundant public transportation. CTA buses and trains are available nearby, and Metra and South Shore Line trains stop at Millennium Station directly below the park. And car parking is not a problem with 3,976 spaces underneath in the Grant Park North and Millennium Park garages.

But this public access is no longer reflected at the perimeter of the park, where the fencing is seldom removed. Balancing maintenance and repair with public access isn’t easy. But adding militaristic public safety measures shouldn’t be a part of Millennium Park.

Millennium Park was Mayor Richard M. Daley’s remarkable response to a gaping hole that revealed railroad tracks and surface parking over the eastern half of the site — neither reflecting what an early cartographer labeled as “forever open, clear and free” nor Daniel Burnham’s vision of the grand formal lakefront park that is Grant Park.

Millennium Park’s original attractions still hold genuine power, allowing you to see yourself and the city reflected in The Bean’s fun house mirror; to walk on or be drenched in the water at Crown Fountain; and to hear live music from the exuberant stainless steel explosion of Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion, a contemporary remaking of the traditional proscenium that’s reminiscent of Louis Sullivan’s rousing 19th century rendition at the Auditorium just a few blocks away.

Each of these experiences endures, as designed. But public access to these public assets is vital — and has been severely compromised through the last two mayoral administrations.

Millennium Park needs to, once again, become a living, breathing part of the city.

Mayor, tear down these walls.

Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan’s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

I have thought a lot about what then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a March 4 news conference, in the aftermath of a notorious Oval Office meeting where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not being thankful enough for American support. Trump then cut off U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to pressure Zelenskyy to agree to a bad deal but applied no pressure at all to Putin, even as he continued deadly attacks. “You should never have started it,” Trump said to Zelenskyy, blaming him for Russia’s invasion of his country. 

The Trump administration’s proposed deal to end the war in Ukraine was everything Putin was asking for: legal recognition of Russia’s control of Crimea, unofficial recognition of Russia’s control of nearly everything else it has seized since 2022, a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO, lifting all sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 and enhanced U.S.-Russia economic cooperation.

In return, Ukraine would receive only a vague “security guarantee” and commitment to help rebuild, with no assurance that the United States would help provide either or details of who might. Unsurprisingly, this plan emerged after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin for several hours last week and had no apparent input from the Ukrainians. To get any kind of U.S. commitment for future assistance, Ukraine basically had to bribe the Trump administration separately with a favorable deal for minerals extraction.

If you’re Zelenskyy, or anyone in Ukraine right now, you have to be asking yourself too: How does any of this make sense? Why is the U.S. president blaming a democratic partner for getting invaded by an aggressive, authoritarian neighbor? Why is he pushing a “peace” plan that explicitly rewards Russia’s crimes? What could possibly explain an approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict that so nakedly favors Russia? 

Bob Kustra: Donald Trump caved to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Will he repeat in the Russia-Ukraine talks?

But Russia isn’t just getting its way on Ukraine. The Trump administration has taken many other actions that have long been on Putin’s wish list. America has inexplicably damaged ties with its allies through a pointless trade war and eroded trust with our closest partners.

With his threats to take control of Panama, Greenland and Canada, Trump is normalizing the very idea of violating other states’ sovereignty, something Putin has been trying to do for years. 

The administration has also stopped or gutted programs designed to combat years of Russia’s gray zone warfare against the United States, including cutting funding for cybersecurity offices that fight foreign meddling in U.S. elections and disbanding the task force responsible for enforcing sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia is the only major economy excluded from Trump’s punishing tariffs so far.

The Trump administration is defunding or dismantling a slew of other institutions that frustrate Putin because they combat Russian disinformation and help strengthen civil society and democracy around the world, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy.

But that’s not all. Massive cuts to scientific research and attacks on America’s higher education institutions are undermining some of America’s greatest strengths and contributions to the world today. 

America’s strong and stable economy has been the envy of the world, but Trump’s inexplicable trade policy is even eroding that too.

If Russia wants a weaker America, this is exactly how you get there. This column isn’t long enough to list all the ways that Trump has done so yet, but you get the idea. 

The question then is: Why? Once you eliminate all the answers that make no sense, the answer that does may be the right one. 

The clues have been there all along. A Republican-led Senate panel that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election found that at least 16 Trump campaign associates met with Russian officials or contacts, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s report details at least 140 contacts between Trump’s campaign and transition team and Russian nationals or intermediaries.

But even if you dismiss those reports as part of a “Russia hoax,” don’t you find it odd that the Kremlin spokesperson is openly cheering how America’s foreign policy now “largely coincides” with their own?

As the old Cold War saying goes, Americans believe in coincidences, while Russians believe in making coincidences happen.

Whether America is now aligning with Russia wittingly or unwittingly, only one of these two countries will reap the benefit, and it won’t be ours. The sooner we admit the problem, the sooner we can stop it. 

Elizabeth Shackelford is senior policy director at Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center for International Understanding and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of “The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.” 

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Whether he’s helming a real estate company, backing a string of casinos or bankrolling a football team; founding Trump University or purchasing Miss Universe; running for president or running the country, he makes sure to perform the part for all the world to see — chronicling his endeavors in self-aggrandizing books, splashing his name across buildings, launching his own social media platform when he was banned from the others.

“The Apprentice” may have been his first reality TV show, but America has been serving, in Trump’s estimation, as his cast, crew and set all along.

And now that his main character vibes and commitment to artifice are back in the White House, he’s determined to remake our past, present and future in his image, once and for all.

Whether it’s threatening universities that don’t bend to his will or axing the entire team of scientists compiling a massive report on the effects of climate change or laying waste to programs he doesn’t care for — programs that feed hungry people and educate children and create a safety net for seniors — his vision won’t be blurred by inconvenient truths.

Whether it’s ignoring a unanimous Supreme Court ruling or arresting a sitting judge or detaining a Tufts student over a co-authored oped or deporting U.S. citizen children, including one with cancer, his story won’t be sidetracked by laws.

Whether it’s banning parts of history from being taught in our schools or purging military heroes who weren’t white men from Defense Department websites or banning words like equality, Black and inclusion from government documents, his commitment to whitewashing is absolute.

Whether it’s issuing an executive order declaring that the United States doesn’t recognize transgender individuals or refusing to engage with reporters who use gender pronouns in their emails, there’s always room for cruelty in this show.

One thing that doesn’t fit neatly in the Trump narrative is thousands upon thousands of fed up Americans flooding the streets and sidewalks of small towns and bucolic suburbs and giant cities.

So many people. So many signs. So much righteous indignation at what’s transpired in 100 days. So much determination to bend this narrative back toward constitutional adherence and democratic ideals, away from economic ruin and global isolation.

So many Americans who refuse to be relegated to extras in the stories of their own lives.

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a recent speech to New Hampshire Democrats. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Earlier in his speech, he had this to say:

“It’s time for us to be done with optimism about their motives or their objectives. It’s time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who don’t know how to organize a group chat. It’s time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy and wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of children’s cancer research. Time to stop thinking that we can reason or negotiate with a madman. Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering when we need to fight.”

The governor’s been getting some blowback from critics who say he’s inciting unrest. But megaphones and microphones are not violent weapons. They’re tools for change, and they’re constitutionally protected. He’s right to encourage Americans to exercise their rights.

He’s also not alone.

No less than David Brooks, a longtime conservative commentator — he described himself as “a happy member of Team Red for decades” — is making a similar plea.

“So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks,” Brooks wrote in the New York Times on April 17. “In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade. But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.”

This isn’t normal politics, he argues.

“We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican,” he wrote. “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement.

“I’m really not a movement guy,” he concluded. “I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now. Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

It’s not how Trump would script it. But America isn’t his show. It’s our nation. It’s our communities. It’s our values. It’s our shared history and sacrifices and sweat and triumphs and traditions and dark chapters and hard-earned lessons and joy and art and cherry blossoms and mountains and 125,000 lakes and everything we’ve been trusted to care for and leave in better shape than we found it.

It’s real. It’s fragile. It’s all of ours.

Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.

Twitter @heidistevens13

President Donald Trump’s second administration is no different. One day before he took the oath of office for a second time, Trump vowed boldness and greatness right out of the gate. “The American people have given us our trust, and in return, we’re going to give them the best first day, the biggest first week and the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency,” Trump boasted to his supporters.  

Whether one believes Trump has reached the bar he set is in the eye of the beholder. According to a bevy of public opinion polls released this weekend, most Americans don’t think he’s doing a particularly good job. What is indisputable, however, is that Trump relishes busting norms, expanding presidential power and signing dozens upon dozens of executive orders. If his first administration was often at war with itself, the second is unified and action-prone, even if those actions — such as deporting a man to El Salvador despite a court order preventing that — tie up the court system.

Trump promised big things, not only on the home front but internationally as well. While the president’s “I’ll solve the war in Ukraine in a day” shtick was never a serious proposition, it nonetheless demonstrated a sense of urgency on Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Trump wanted it solved, quickly, and claimed he was the only person on earth who could do it. He said much the same about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which has turned the coastal enclave into an inhospitable wasteland. On trade, Trump vowed to push countries that were taking advantage of the United States into new deals. Adversaries would learn to fear America again, and allies would learn to respect it as a superpower rather than a dupe. 

The world, however, tends to water down the grandest expectations. Presidents can issue as many pronouncements as they want, but if results don’t come, then they amount to a lot of hot air. Trump’s first 100 days hasn’t been a complete failure, but it hasn’t been a resounding success either.

On Ukraine, Trump was true to his word by lighting a fire under a diplomatic process. He has arguably done more in his first 100 days to push a diplomatic solution to the war than Joe Biden’s administration did in three years. Senior U.S. officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and envoy Steve Witkoff have met Ukrainian, Russian and European officials numerous times in multiple capitals to try to get the process moving in the right direction. Whereas Biden was highly reluctant to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into negotiations, Trump has no qualms with using the bully pulpit and the stick to force the Ukrainians to cooperate. 

The problem is that nothing has come of Trump’s peace initiative — not yet, at least. The two short-term ceasefires U.S. officials attempted to ram through were either rejected by Russian President Vladimir Putin or violated before the ink was dry. The respective positions of the combatants are so far apart that Washington is having a tough time trying to get to a middle ground. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized Russia’s maximalist goals during a recent interview, and Zelenskyy is again refusing any territorial compromises. The Trump administration tabled a draft peace accord, but the terms — including U.S. recognition of Crimea as Russian territory, a freeze of the front lines and undefined security guarantees for Ukraine — have managed to do nothing but upset everyone. 

The war in Gaza, which Trump also vowed to end, continues to kill dozens of people every day. The president deserves credit for helping cement a three-stage ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in January. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never bought into the effort, choosing to resume the war after the first stage, a six-week ceasefire, expired. Trump for all practical purposes has gotten bored of the entire affair, moving Washington’s policy ever closer to what Netanyahu wants to do — and as far as I can tell, that consists of bombing Gaza every day until Hamas lays down its arms and goes into self-imposed exile.

The trade wars, meanwhile, are in full swing. Trump’s love of tariffs is now operationalized. The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, are in a full-blown economic conflict, with tariffs, export controls and investigations sullying a trade relationship that was valued at more than $580 billion last year. For Trump, this is precisely the point; China will start changing its predatory ways only if it’s forced to do so. The Trump administration is banking that, over time, Beijing will agree to come to the negotiating table in order to preserve its access to the world’s largest consumer base.  

The question, as always, is whether China will follow the script. Right now, Chinese President Xi Jinping is choosing hardball, retaliating tariff for tariff, stopping the export of certain rare earth minerals and rejecting any talks with the Americans until Trump either initiates a call first or lowers the 145% tariffs he issued weeks earlier. Nobody knows how long the staredown will continue. 

Depending on where you stand in America’s ever-widening political divide, Trump’s first 100 days are either a horror show or a necessary corrective. What’s certain is that the next 100 days are likely to be as frenetic as the last. 

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

I’m gonna change my way of livin’, and that ain’t no bluff

Why, I’m thinkin’ about changin’ the way I gotta strut my stuff

Because nobody wants you when you’re old and gray

There’s gonna be some changes made today.

Oh, really? Democrats have been grappling with their own version of that resolution, especially ever since the disastrous defeat of their party’s presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, in November.

”If you’re honest about yourself and your reputation, you want to leave when you can still walk out the front door and not be carried out the back door,” said Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee after three decades in the upper body.

The “Biden Effect” is the label Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker applied to the wave of goodbyes now rolling through the Senate, as some longtime stalwarts show signs of getting too long in the tooth.

Having covered Durbin numerous times during his tenure, I’ll miss him. He had a masterful command of the issues, whether I agreed with him or not, and I often learned a lot from him — which is more than I can say for a lot of other lawmakers in the Machiavellian mud wrestling that too often gets in the way of the government’s ability to help real people with real problems.

However, I also find a lot of agreement with those who say too many senior lawmakers are simply too reluctant or stubborn to step aside and give some of the younger whippersnappers a chance.

That’s where, as the old song reminds us, some changes may need to be made.

If there were a complaint about Durbin that resonated with me it was his reluctance to put pressure on Supreme Court justices for some questionable ethical practices. If nothing else, Durbin was an institutionalist, which is not always bad but also has its limits when changes need to be made.

His exit comes at a time when the tide seems to be turning against Trump.

Even Fox News, known for finding even the tiniest silver lining in any Trump tempest, offered little relief to the president’s MAGA supporters in light of recent polls. As the 100th day of his second term approached, a Fox News survey found voters approved of the job Trump was doing on border security, but were displeased with just about every other issue — including inflation.

Remember the inflation consternation that dogged the Harris and Biden campaigns?

“Voters remain gloomy about the economy, as 71% rate economic conditions negatively and 55% say it is getting worse for their family,” Fox reported.

Voters’ assessments of the economy have improved slightly since December, before Trump took office, but only 28% think the economy is improving under Trump. Additionally, 51% believe his policies are hurting the country, compared to 40% who say they’re helping.

That’s been a big challenge for the Democrats lately and has caused schisms along the lines of the generation gap.

The younger generation, as my own parents and grandparents soon learned, can be a lot less patient with the problems their elders tolerate.

For example, about half of Americans approved of the job Trump was doing a week after he took office, according to The New York Times average of dozens of leading polls. About 40% disapproved.

However, by the 100 days mark, his approval rating had fallen to around 45% and more than half of the country disapproved of his performance.

Editorial: US Sen. Dick Durbin left stage with no huffing or puffing

Trump manages to eke out a net positive rating among voters on border security (55%), but on immigration voters disapprove at a rate of 48%-47%. On the economy generally, his showing is 38% approve to 56% disapprove.

“His worst ratings,” Fox concluded, “are on inflation (33% approve, 59% disapprove), followed by tariffs (33%-58%), foreign policy (40%-54%), taxes (38%-53%), and guns (41%-44%).”

With much more drama coming down the pike in Trump’s global trade war, and as the deleterious effects of DOGE’s monkey-wrenching of the federal government begin to dawn on the public, it’s hard to imagine that voters will look more favorably on Trump or on the Republican majorities in Congress that have let him go unchecked.

Yet what voters need to hear is a clear and persuasive alternative to Trump’s framing of the problems facing the nation. The Democrats seem still to be struggling with strategic direction: Should they revive the “resistance” or (to quote Clintonista James Carville) “play dead.” Young Democratic insurgents have suggested a wave of primarying to get rid of feckless incumbents, and the old guard has bitten back.

In short, both parties show signs of unease with their current leadership. We may need a new generation of leaders to step in, but, first, we need to look for ways to give them some help.

Email Clarence Page at cpage47@gmail.com.

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Jeppsen, at the time, was a 17-year-old ballet dancer who commuted six hours a day to attend a school where he wasn’t bullied for the thing that made him brilliant. Every weekday he would leave his Wisconsin farm by 5:30 a.m., hop a ride with one of his parents to a 6:22 a.m. train in Harvard, Illinois, decamp in Chicago, board a bus and arrive at school by 8:30 a.m.

After school, he would arrive home around 9 p.m., at which point he’d feed the family’s seven goats, tend to his other farm chores, finish his homework and get ready to do it all again the next morning.

“My initial feeling when I came here was, ‘Oh my gosh. I fit in,’” Jeppsen told me back then.

He went on to graduate from The Juilliard School.

“I feel so loved,” he told me shortly after he graduated from Juilliard in 2023. “And I feel that I got to become the person I am because I was able to find my people: my friends, my teachers.”

What could be better? That’s my fondest hope for my own kids. For all kids.

“Some other kid is going to come here in five years and feel like this is home,” Patera said in 2017. “And he’s going to feel like that because of the work that Zach is doing now.”

I connected with Patera several more times over the years. When I meet a grown-up who carves out a space for young people to feel safe and loved and celebrated in a too-cruel world, I tend to keep them on my radar.

In 2020, I wrote about Patera traveling 400 miles with a crew of teachers and staff to hand-deliver diplomas to every one of his seniors — from West Dundee, Illinois, to Dyer, Indiana — when COVID-19 canceled graduation.

“You’d get a lot of, ‘No way. No way,’” Patera told me at the time. “And then the student is crying and the parents are crying and I’m crying and everyone’s crying.”

In 2019, I wrote about Patera’s Annual Dispensing of Unsolicited Advice, a road map he delivers to students every year at the senior lunch.

For example: “Develop the courage to be disliked. Have high expectations for the people around you. Think for yourself and don’t be afraid to express well-founded but unpopular opinions.”

In 2022, I wrote about his recovery from brain tumor surgery — a procedure that left half of his face paralyzed and his giant heart expanded. (Metaphorically on the heart thing, not medically.) His students sent him into that surgery with a box full of hundreds of letters wishing him well. One girl gave him the stuffed penguin she took into her own tumor surgeries. Surgeries, plural.

“I’m reading letters from kids who’ve gone through far more challenging things than I went through or am likely to ever go through,” he said. “And they’re offering wisdom and perspective, delivered with such kindness and compassion. If they’re engaging with the rest of the world with any level of that kindness and compassion? Our future’s bright.”

Now Patera is stepping away from his role as head of the school. He’s moving to Charleston, South Carolina, at the end of the academic year to serve as the head of The Cooper School. He married his longtime partner, Melissa, in 2023 and is relocating to be closer to her and his stepdaughter.

“After I got sick I learned that life is short, and sometimes life is very short,” he told me this week. “And I want to be close to my family.”

Patera will be succeeded by Melinda Zacher Ronayne, who serves as director of visual arts at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Before he leaves, a few things will happen. One is that Randy Duncan, renowned choreographer and chair of the dance department at the Chicago Academy for the Arts, will undergo kidney transplant surgery.

Duncan, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side and worked with dance companies around the world, has been living with chronic kidney disease and receiving twice-weekly dialysis treatments. Earlier this year his nephrologist told him it was time to find a new kidney.

“I found it very difficult to make this very personal health decision,” Duncan told me. “I did not want it to affect my students, who would be wondering if I was OK. I want my teaching to be about them, not me. So I hesitated for some time.”

Eventually, with Duncan’s blessing, the school publicized his kidney search.

“I assigned myself the role of gatekeeper,” Patera said, “thinking five to 10 people would call up and say, ‘I’m interested in giving Randy a kidney.’”

They were flooded with emails. And phone calls. And texts.

“We heard from colleagues, friends, more than a few former students, more than a few parents of former students, retired dancers, fans of the school, former employees of the school,” Patera said. “The medical center finally called me and said, ‘You have to stop referring people to us.’”

Eventually, they found a match, who is remaining anonymous.

Also before Patera’s last day, the school will have a spring festival and a senior lunch, where he’ll deliver his final round of unsolicited advice.

Patera will spend his final weeks overseeing a fundraising push, hoping to leverage an offer from the parents of an alum to match the next $1 million the school raises. Patera said the donations go to scholarships for students whose families can’t afford private school tuition, and to patching COVID-era deficits when enrollment — and performing arts in general — took a huge hit.

I asked Patera what he’s most proud of, as he gets ready to pack up and head south.

“I’m not proud of anything I’ve done, personally,” he said. “I’m proud to have been part of a place that cultivated in young people a drive to test the limits of what they thought was possible and go on to do pretty extraordinary things. Most of our culture dramatically underestimates what young people can do, and every one of us in this building has been watching over and over again as young people shatter those impressions. That gives me a lot of hope.”

I mentioned I thought he should be proud of giving those young people a safe space to be extraordinary.

“I didn’t create that,” he said. “I don’t deserve that credit. Forty-five years ago, a bunch of kids who didn’t fit anywhere else, in fact it might have been dangerous for them anywhere else, came here and formed this culture. I’ve always seen it as my job just to protect that. To find the threats to that and try to work against those threats. I hope I’ve been successful.”

It’s been a privilege to watch and report on what I saw, all of which feels like such a balm and a beacon — now more than ever.

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They deployed tactics both analog and digital.

The digital approach involved “geo-fencing” the neighborhood, east of Michigan Avenue and just north of the Chicago River, so no ride-share services would pick up or drop off in the targeted zone. One analog tactic involved erecting crowd-control fencing overnight Thursday that was removed Friday morning — well before the expected teen takeover could even take place. Chicago police still have not explained the mystery behind the up-and-down barricades.

Police working in groups patrolled Streeterville by foot. Officers also roamed the neighborhood in cars and transport vehicles.

The visible and invisible defense measures evidently had their intended effect: A measure of peace reigned for the weekend — though the intense presence of police unsettled some residents.

Point made by the Chicago Police Department: An all-hands-on-deck response evidently can inoculate one neighborhood, for one weekend. There was even no need for an earlier curfew, an idea pushed by Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd.

Even so, such a response could not be sustainable over time, much less scalable to cover neighborhoods citywide.

The Streeterville case study was on my mind this week as I read a new book by Jens Ludwig, co-founder of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. “Unforgiving Places,” which the Tribune excerpted two Sundays ago in the opinion section, is a primer on the roots of handgun violence in Chicago and other cities — as well as the mixed results from tactics intended to help address the urban bloodletting.

Shootings are down in Chicago from their recent peak in 2021 — as reported by the Chicago Police Department, the 102 homicides this year through April 13 are down nearly 40% from 2021, and nonfatal shootings are down nearly 55%.

Violent crime is down nationally since 2021. And Chicago’s decline also coincides with a laudable citywide response to a surge that peaked that year: more than $200 million committed by the city, state and private sector to violence-intervention measures; an anti-violence strategy developed by police Superintendent Larry Snelling; and block-by-block activity by crime interrupters, neighborhood watch groups and others who bravely wrestle with the problem in the streets.

Ambitious as all those measures are, though, the fact remains that Chicago still suffers from a far higher rate of violent crime per capita than either New York or Los Angeles — two urban centers with challenges not unlike Chicago’s.

In a sense, the chaotically choreographed show of force in Streeterville last weekend might serve as a metaphor for the state of the current response to Chicago’s crime wave. There is a certain throw-everything-at-it aspect to the efforts to curb violent crime. Each measure is laudable, but they can lack coordination, are not always driven by reliable data and need to be undertaken more strategically than have been managed to date.

At the heart of the challenge, as described by Ludwig, is the nature of violent crime itself. Common explanations for the causes of handgun violence — from “super predators” and gang turf wars to retribution for past violence — all play some role. But those pathologies do not begin to explain the root causes of the problem.

Getting to the causes starts with understanding how human nature factors in. The preponderance of shootings, Ludwig finds, result from impetuous, unplanned, almost reflexive responses by young people, mostly men, to the hostile environments they live in. In those unforgiving places, a single misstep can lead to violence and death.

Especially in neighborhoods where young people commonly carry guns, a cross look from a stranger, a grudge carried into a street party or a challenge to a young person’s pride can lead to what Ludwig and some social scientists have identified as the 10 minutes of a person’s life that can lead to death for the victim — and a life-altering prison term for the assailant.

A variety of crime-reduction tactics have worked, and nearly as many rational-sounding approaches have failed. Zero-tolerance policing often backfires, Ludwig writes. But the “pocket parks” some cities use to replace vacant lots almost always reduce crime, data shows.

To make his assessments, Ludwig uses behavioral economics, a field of study that seeks to determine the psychological reasons people make irrational decisions. He points out areas in which behavioral economics conflict with commonsense assumptions about crime: Police activity aimed at preventing violence is more effective than making arrests after a shooting; data does not establish a direct correlation between job creation and violence reduction; letters of apology and other restorative justice tactics effectively prevent subsequent violent acts.

Perhaps Ludwig’s most telling finding is his comparison of adjacent South Side neighborhoods separated by Dorchester Avenue — Greater Grand Crossing to the west, with one of the highest homicide rates in the city, and South Shore to the east, where the rate of violent crime is about half as high.

The people living in the two neighborhoods have much in common. Household incomes are virtually identical, for example. The big difference: The concentration of housing and businesses in South Shore is higher than in Grand Crossing. There are more eyes on the street, more human activity, which creates social cues that prompt people to restrain impulses that lead to violent crime.

Ludwig offers no magic wand to cure Chicago’s violent crime problems. But his book makes clear that human connection, human interaction and the development of a sense of community could be among the most successful antidotes — and a good place to start.

David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

On the one hand, this drawdown is less momentous than it appears. During the tail end of President Joe Biden’s administration, the U.S. more than doubled its military presence in Syria to 2,000 troops, a precautionary measure of sorts after Islamist rebels led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew Bashar Assad’s regime after a weekslong offensive. President Donald Trump’s reduction brings the numbers down to where they were before that mini-surge took place. 

Yet on the other hand, the redeployment suggests that Trump, who wanted to fully withdraw U.S. troops from Syria during his first term before he was talked out of it by his national security advisers, is at least flirting with executing a decision he should have made during his first term. If anything, the case for moving Syria into the rearview mirror is even stronger today than it was back then. 

Every major justification given to keep U.S. forces in place is now irrelevant. U.S. officials frequently argued that maintaining U.S. bases along critical transport corridors at the Iraq-Syria border was instrumental in stopping — or at least complicating — Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon. Yet the downfall of the Assad regime, as well as the emergence of a new government in Damascus keen to dilute Tehran’s influence in the country, means that Washington doesn’t really have to worry about this problem anymore. And to be honest, it was puzzling why U.S. officials worried about it anyway; Israel has proved to be remarkably proficient at finding and destroying many of these weapons shipments before they have reached Lebanon. In any event, Iranian power in Syria is now at a low point.

Russia, of course, was cited as another reason to continue the status quo. If the U.S. departed, the argument went, the Russians would fill whatever vacuum was left, thus expanding its influence over a critical region and making Washington look feckless in the process. 

But this was always a strange claim. First, Moscow had a long-standing relationship with Syria since the early days of the Cold War, when it viewed the Arab country as a Soviet proxy, so the notion that Russia was somehow stealing Syria underneath Washington’s feet was dubious at best and historically inaccurate at worst.

Second, Russia always had an interest in ensuring that a reliable government was in place in Damascus, in large part because the Russians had a warm-water port in the country it desperately wanted to preserve. Finally, the notion that Syria was a prize for the Russians was belied by the fact that Moscow had to bail out Assad time and again over the last decade, first with weapons supplies and then with a large-scale, multiyear bombing campaign. Despite all of this, Russia’s work came to naught in December, when it had to airlift Assad and his family to Moscow as his regime was crumbling. Like Iran, Russia is essentially begging the HTS-led government to turn the page.

Of course, we can’t talk about the U.S. troop presence in Syria without talking about the Islamic State. After all, it was this terrorist group that drew the U.S. military there in the first place. The U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State began in 2014, and the following year, U.S. special operations forces filtered into the country to coordinate with anti-Islamic State militias that had an even greater interest in seeing the militant group vanquished than the United States did. The partnership was ultimately successful; in March 2019, the Islamic State lost the last strip of territory it controlled in Syria, and the territorial caliphate that once stretched from Raqqa in north-central Syria to the gates of Baghdad has been in the dustbin of history since.  

Even so, U.S. national security officials have repeatedly made the case that departing Syria would compromise all this hard-earned progress and jeopardize Washington’s goal of eliminating Islamic State in its entirety. Yet there are three big issues with this line of thinking. One, this basically means U.S. troops are destined to stay in Syria forever. Two, it suggests that U.S. counterterrorism operators have the ability to kill every single lunatic and unhinged loner who considers himself a member of the group — something that isn’t needed to protect the United States and isn’t possible anyway.

Perhaps most importantly, it assumes that Islamic State will simply pick up where it left off, as if withdrawing U.S. troops will somehow pave the way for an Islamic State-led rampage across Syria. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The U.S. military might be the most capable enemy Islamic State is confronting, but it’s hardly the only one. Due to its past depravities and crimes against humanity, Islamic State created multiple enemies for itself, including the Syrian Kurds, Russia, Jordan, the Gulf Arab powers and even the new Syrian government, which views the terrorist group as a principal threat to its own rule.

These actors will still be fighting Islamic State when U.S. troops leave. In fact, with the United States out of the picture, they might even take more initiative in doing so. 

Trump’s order to withdraw some U.S. forces is a welcome development. He should go much further by going down to zero.

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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One hears that word a lot in discussions of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Or, for lowbrows like me, “The Twilight Zone” might be the pertinent reference.

Abrego Garcia is the Maryland man who was wrongly deported and has been detained without trial in a grim prison in El Salvador. In March, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped Abrego Garcia while he was out with his young son. Within days, he was on a plane to the notorious terrorist confinement center called CECOT in El Salvador, where it is clear that U.S. officials were content to leave him to an uncertain fate.

His wife sued the United States over the deportation in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The process revealed a sordid reality in the administration of President Donald Trump that brings to mind the scene in Lewis Carroll’s children’s tale “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” when the Queen of Hearts impatiently declares during the trial of the Knave of Hearts: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards.”

In essence, that’s the shaky case against Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration no longer disputes that he was mistakenly deported. And, indeed, the Supreme Court ruled the government must obey a lower court’s direction to “facilitate” the prisoner’s return to the United States.

However, Trump, who shows little patience for anyone or anything that gets in the way of his agenda, curiously deferred to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has rebuffed calls for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.

And Trump and his minions continue to accuse Abrego Garcia, without credible evidence, of being a member of the notorious international gang MS-13, whereas in fact he had escaped to the U.S. and was granted “withholding of removal” status in 2019, on the strength of his testimony that the gang had threatened his family in his native El Salvador.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, said on Thursday night that he had an unexpected meeting at a hotel in San Salvador with Abrego Garcia, hours after he had been denied a meeting. But Bukele insisted that Abrego Garcia would remain in El Salvador.

For Democrats like Van Hollen, the issue has been a defense of fundamental principles of human rights, legal access and equal protection under the Constitution.

For Republicans like Team Trump, equal rights for Abrego Garcia is a misguided gesture of sympathy for a man who, as the White House notes repeatedly, entered the U.S. illegally.

“It’s appalling and sad that Sen. Van Hollen and the Democrats applauding his trip to El Salvador today are incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said at a Wednesday afternoon briefing, displaying her rather typical role as a gruff, judgmental megaphone for the president’s views and prejudgments.

Due process, all the formalities that ensure individuals are treated equally under the law, has been called the fundamental right on which all other rights are grounded. It guarantees that individuals have a fair opportunity to be heard before their life, liberty or property is taken away.

Indeed, as an American who happens to live near the strip mall in the Maryland suburb where Abrego Garcia was arrested, I find it “appalling and sad” that the administration shows so little respect for the constitutional right to due process.

It is, after all, one of the bulwarks against the rise of a Big Brother autocracy that Trump seems to find increasingly appealing.

The Trump administration has admitted to an “administrative error” in Abrego Garcia’s case, yet it also says it does not have the authority to secure his return.

Instead, as Abrego García’s lawyers have said, he “sits in a foreign prison solely at the behest of the United States, as the product of a Kafkaesque mistake.”

There’s old Kafka again. I’m not alone in noting the similarity.

Interestingly, a deeper look into the case against Abrego Garcia reveals some loose ends. One arresting officer, for example, linked his Chicago Bulls baseball cap to the MS-13 gang, which sounds pretty thin.

A federal appeals court on Thursday scolded the Trump administration for its handling of the case.

”It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, in an opinion this past week for a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

Wilkinson’s no bleeding heart liberal. The Reagan appointee, as Politico pointed out, “has been on the bench for 41 years and is one of the nation’s most prominent conservative appellate judges.”

Earlier in the week, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found probable cause to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for defying an order to halt deportations of people deemed “alien enemies.”

And U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who has described the deportation of Abrego Garcia as “wholly lawless,” castigated administration officials for having done “nothing” to comply with her order to facilitate his release and return.

Well, not quite nothing. They have helped start a debate over the legal meaning of “facilitate.” I imagine Kafka would have some thoughts on the semantics. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if Team Trump knows the legal meaning of “freedom.”

Email Clarence Page at cpage47@gmail.com.

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