He’s a political outsider running on a progressive platform who narrowly won a mayoral election against a well-connected, business-friendly, Republican-backed Democrat. His opponents are in hysterics. And now that he’s in office, he’ll have to face down a hostile political establishment, which will likely try to derail most of his proposed agenda for the city.

All of this describes the situation confronting Brandon Johnson, who was recently inaugurated after beating conservative Democrat Paul Vallas by a four-point margin to become Chicago’s newest mayor. But it also would have been an apt characterization of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, when a young Bernie Sanders had just squeaked out a victory in his first mayoral campaign.