Mike Madigan is a Chicago story but Chicago is an American story. Mitch McConnell is in the same mold: a pragmatic insider who amasses power by mastering the institutional mechanisms that control government. What is lost is democracy and this podcast does a good job of pointing out how Madigan wielded power, how the main focus of his strategy was maintaining that power, and how the entire project completely neglected the fundamental mandate of democratic leadership. Most Illinoisans never heard Mike Madigan speak even a short paragraph. The Most basic and hallowed fundamentals of democratic leadership were irrelevant: engaging the citizenry in a policy discourse that clarifies issues and tradeoffs, publicly arguing the merits of his positions, building public understanding of the processes of democracy— Madigan did not even pay minimal lip service to such ideas. The ossification of democracy in Illinois is now mirrored at the national level. Those seeking a return to public, deliberative democracy must understand what they are up against. Behold Michael Madigan, the ideal typical model of what we must vanquish.