JB Pritzker

J.B. Pritzker 2023

Jay Robert "JB" Pritzker (born January 19, 1965) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 43rd governor of Illinois. A member of the wealthy Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, Pritzker has started several venture capital and investment startups, including the Pritzker Group, where he is managing partner.

Quotes

  • As governor, I will ensure that all internet traffic is treated equally, so that everyone can continue to use the internet to grow their businesses, further their education, and enjoy the freedom of expression.
  • Carrying a loaded gun into a community 20 miles from your home and shooting unarmed citizens is fundamentally wrong.
  • The best way to spot an idiot: Look for the person who is cruel. Let me explain. When we see someone who doesn't look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us, the first thought that crosses almost everyone's brain is rooted in either fear or judgement or both. That's evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things that we aren't familiar with. In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway.
    • Part of a speech held on June 14, 2023, at Northwestern University, Evanstone, Illinois.
  • Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges. This may be a surprising assessment because somewhere along the way in the last few years, our society has come to believe that weaponized cruelty is part of some well-thought out Master plan. Cruelty is seen by some as an adroit cudgel to gain power. Empathy and kindness are considered weak. Many important people look at the vulnerable only as rungs on a ladder to the top. I'm here to tell you that when someone's path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so their thinking and problem solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades. Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.
    • Part of a speech held on June 14, 2023, at Northwestern University, Evanstone, Illinois.

"Gov. Pritzker's State of the State and budget address" (2025)

From "Read Gov. Pritzker's State of the State and budget address" NPR Illinois (February 19, 2025)
  • I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.
  • The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.
  • I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.
  • I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next?
  • All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.
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