Lori Lightfoot

About

Lori Lightfoot is a Democratic Party American politician and the former Mayor of Chicago. She was elected Mayor in 2019 but lost her re-election bid in early 2023. Prior to serving as Mayor, Lightfoot was a lawyer, U.S. attorney and administrator of the police department. Throughout the course of her political career, Lightfoot has been the subject of numerous memes online, most notably Where's Lightfoot? and "Lori Lightfoot Beetlejuice Comparisons."

Career

Lori Lightfoot was born in Michigan on August 4th, 1962. After working her way through college and prior to serving as Mayor of Chicago, she was a lawyer in private practice, a federal prosecutor and an administrator of the police department. Under Rahm Emanuel, her predecessor, she served as Chair of the City's Police Board before resigning to run for Chicago's Mayor in 2019.

Lightfoot was the first openly lesbian mayor of a major American city and the first Black woman to be Mayor of Chicago. After winning her election in 2019, her tenure was marked by a series of challenges including opposition from police and teacher's unions, the coronavirus pandemic, and violent crime.

In late February 2023, she then lost in the first round of the 2023 Democratic Party primary for Chicago's mayoral race, failing to get enough votes to be among the top two candidates,^[1] becoming the first elected mayor in 40 years to lose a re-election bid.

Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas, the two candidates who advanced to the runoff, both differentiated themselves from Lightfoot on the issue of policing. Johnson ran as a progressive, supporting increased funding for mental health programs as a way to combat crime, while Vallas ran to the right of Lightfoot, espousing a tough-on-crime message.^[2]

Online History

Throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s, numerous posters online have often mocked Lori Lightfoot for her physical appearance and stature. She has frequently been compared to aliens and fish in memes. For example, rightwing influencer Benny Johnson posted a meme picturing Lightfoot as a fish on March 1st, 2023, right after her re-election loss, earning over 18,000 likes in 12 hours (seen below).^[3]

Lori Lightfoot Beetlejuice Memes

A number of memes comparing Lori Lightfoot to the character Beetlejuice were also posted following her mayoral loss, many by those who were happy to see her lose. For example, on February 28th, 2023, Twitter user @CINCoftheHouse earned over 100 likes for their meme making such a comparison in one day (shown below, left).^[4] Also that day, the first tweet of a Twitter thread by user @Brick_Suit calling for memes against Lightfoot to celebrate her loss and encouraging users to not "pull any punches" received over 2,700 likes in a similar timeframe.^[5]

Related Memes

Where's Lightfoot?

Where's Lightfoot? is a series of image edits featuring Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in various photographs as a means of joking about her for closing different public spaces during coronavirus outbreak in March 2020.

External References