Drabik for Village Council?
The local culture warrior may have a higher office in sight.
Depending on where voters get their information, they might view Village Council candidate Paul Drabik as an earnest young Army veteran, an accomplished speaker and writer, an up-and-coming public servant.
That’s how Drabik presented during an hour-plus conversation on Robin Rutkowski’s Spilling the Village Tea podcast. He spoke of his Westmont youth, his time in Ramadi, Iraq, as an artilleryman with the 1st Infantry Division, and his passion for the Constitution and America’s “representative and consensual” government.
Drabik spoke of getting involved in local politics through the local GOP organization as a means of gaining experience. “What am I going to do, run for state representative or state senator or something without having any experience in government? That’s a fool’s errand,” he told Rutkowski.
He reconsidered after people, impressed with his public speaking skills, suggested he run for office. In 2022, he snagged an appointment to the Human Service Commission as a way to learn about the community and local government. During his campaign, he’s paid only glancing attention to bread-and-butter issues such as downtown residential development and fiscal policy. If there’s a social service issue he identified or helped ameliorate as a member of the Human Service Commission, there has been scant mention of it.
No, most of Drabik’s attention is riveted on our highly respected library, which he described in his Village candidate spot as “an out-of-control bureaucracy.” Throughout his campaign, he repeatedly has shared a litany of complaints about the library director and Board of Trustees, and expressed strong support for an elected board.
Beyond the library, he seems most engaged by the ongoing culture war. While he has claimed no allegiance to the MAGA movement, Drabik’s social media activity, his articles for the far-right Gateway Pundit website, and the Behind Enemy Lines podcast he hosts with J6er Terry Newsome of Darien echo familiar hard-right themes. The podcast, which opens with the sound of multiple gunshots, features Newsome and Drabik ripping into not just the library, but “leftists,” RINOs, immigrants, State Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, and books and programs they consider inappropriate for children. In one particularly disturbing clip that is circulating on social media, Newsome dehumanizes and disparages a local minister and their partner while Drabik chuckles in response.
Earlier in the campaign, Drabik mostly downplayed these involvements. When asked by Rutkowski if he’d like to mention his podcast and links, Drabik demurred. “You can find that info on my website. I’m not afraid of the stuff, in fact I lean into it, but I think (Spilling the Village Tea) seems to be about getting to know the candidate and I don’t want to sit here and hawk myself.”
Drabik attempted to put distance between his local campaign and his other political activities. “My campaign is about running for Downers Grove Village Council and the issues that affect Downers Grove and my service to the community of Downers Grove. So, I really see those things as two separate things and not necessarily related,” he told Rutkowski.
Yet, for all his soaring rhetoric on American Exceptionalism and his restraint in interviews and on questionnaires, Drabik’s social media presence has been unlike that of any local candidate I’ve observed. He inexplicably allowed Newsome to serve as his proxy on Facebook where, using language familiar to listeners of Behind Enemy Lines, Newsome called everyone who dared question his candidate “Downers Grove Democrat extremists,” “straight, pasty-white liberal women of Downers Grove,” “radical leftists,” “hateful Downers Grove LGBTQ nazis” and “trolling f*cktards.” Last I checked, Drabik remained unapologetic about his podcast partner’s lack of neighborliness.
Drabik also has mixed it up with commenters on Facebook and Next Door. He accused the My Downers Grove page of “the fascism of censorship.” Elsewhere on Facebook he told a commenter, “there’s plenty wrong with the Republicans. But the only anti-American party is the Democrats. They advocate for violation of free speech. They advocate for government agencies being weaponized against citizens and parents who speak out against pornographic material in schools” before closing with “the Democrats are the most anti-American, toxic, and dangerous party the United States has ever seen. They are trying to destroy freedom. Their complete reformation is their only hope.”
Drabik has complained that “people have gone in public and spoken about my record, suggesting that I lied about my military record, suggesting that I didn’t attend my HSC meetings, suggesting that I’ve tried to access personal information, which is a crime, and they’ve defamed my character and tried to destroy my reputation.”
He took issue with an unnamed commissioner who reportedly said Drabik didn’t deserve a seat on the Village Council. “Well, it’s not about ‘deserve’ commissioner, it’s about ‘earn’ and I planning on earning the Downers Grove people’s vote,” he wrote. Drabik also criticized Mayor Bob Barnett’s endorsements in the race and asked voters to cast just one ballot—for Paul Drabik.
In the last week, I’ve noted a subtle shift in Drabik’s campaign. Whether he has been revitalized by a deep-pocketed donor or simply decided to focus on issues that reach beyond the boundaries of Downers Grove, Drabik has gone full-on culture warrior. “We are done mouthing platitudes, fake decorum,” he wrote on March 25.
He also announced that he will host a Save Our Suburbs (SOS) town hall. “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it,” according to a Facebook post that features headlines about an alleged assault in a District 99 school, a free speech challenge against the Downers Grove Park District, a controversial locker room edict in a Deerfield school, and DGPL children’s books that Drabik finds offensive. Note that none of these issues will appear on a Downers Grove Village Council agenda.
The town hall, set for 7 p.m. tonight, March 27, at the American Legion in Downers Grove, invites activist groups and communities to share information, tell their stories and network to get out the vote. “We are building a coalition of concerned citizens,” the post reads. “Let’s take back our communities.”
That wider appeal, if successful, could presage a future Drabik campaign for county or state office. And if Drabik finishes strong in the council race—his latest messaging asks supporters to “make April 1 a mandate”—it could reveal the relative strength of a small band of loud and unyielding local naysayers.
But for now, it’s uncertain whether the patriotic history buff or the far-right extremist, who apparently considers most commissioners and half the Downers Grove community as the enemy, will ascend the Village Council dais if Drabik is elected on Tuesday.
The field of six candidates hints at a potential power shift on the council. That’s why I’m voting for moderates Chris Gilmartin, Tammy Sarver and Rob Roe. In recent months, we’ve seen 4-3 votes when 7-0 or 6-1 would have sent a stronger message. But in any case, the village council functions best if commissioners are capable of collegiality and cooperation, no matter their political bent. Stubborn individualists and unengaged seat-warmers are a wasted vote.
In a Facebook post, Drabik wrote, “If we can’t look each other in the eye and have a civil conversation, then we can’t have a civil society. I believe we still can have those types of conversations.”
We’ll see.