Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has joined the Atlantic as a contributing editor, the magazine announced on Tuesday.
“Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is as of today a contributing editor for The Atlantic,” the magazine said in a statement.”The Atlantic will be the primary home for Emanuel’s writing, with the former mayor contributing frequent essays to The Atlantic’s Ideas section.”
Also on Tuesday, Emanuel officially became an ABC News political contributor, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The news of Emanuel’s hiring at both places comes the same day that he had a piece published in the magazine urging Democrats to hold elites “accountable” in order to quell middle-class anger.
“Think of what’s happened over the past decade and a half. America endured a war sold on false premises, a bailout of bankers issuing entirely toxic debt, and a massive public effort to prop up auto executives who were building cars that weren’t selling. Is it any wonder so many middle-class taxpayers resent the elites?” Emanuel asked in the piece.
“The middle class has been forced to bail them out from their own mistakes time and time again–and yet the beneficiaries of that goodwill haven’t apologized, let alone taken responsibility,” he continued. “America’s middle class is Cinderella, and the nation’s elites are her evil stepsisters–only now it’s the stepsisters who get to marry the prince. It’s infuriating.”
Before joining the magazine, Emanuel was finishing his terms as Chicago’s 44th mayor.
Emanuel’s final weeks on the job were consumed by the Jussie Smollett scandal in which the “Empire” star insisted that he had been the victim of a racially motivated hate crime. After an exhaustive investigation, Chicago PD ultimately concluded in February that Smollett had made up the whole thing in order to promote his own career. He was charged with 16 felony counts in March, though the charges were later dropped by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Emanuel ripped the decision, calling it a “whitewash of justice.”
Previously, Emanuel worked in the White House as chief of staff to President Barack Obama.