The tone of your post, "maybe Wisconsin is more conservative than people want to accept," suggests a disturbing sympathy with Scott Walker and his goons that I'm not comfortable with. There's a lot to be in tune with when it comes to Wisconsin politics, but don't insinuate that it's secretly some impenetrable Republican stronghold, because it's not. Wisconsin has dueling strains of passionate left-wing and right-wing movements. It's a very politically engaged state -- one of the few in America where "didn't vote, lol" wasn't ahead of Trump and Hillary in 2016. You have the WOW on one side, the People's Republic of Madison and the Driftless on the other. They gave us Bob La Follette but also Joe McCarthy, Paul Ryan but also Russ Feingold, Tammy Baldwin but also some obese slime creature that lives in Big Muskego Lake and eats government regulations and gay people. I may have made the last one up but you can't conclusively prove it.
But I don't know where pride in not being Illinois necessarily rallies the state behind Walker's government-business complex. Sure, there are Wisconsinites who say they hate "Illinois" and "Chicago" because they're not allowed to use the n-word, but the most FIB-hating Packer-loving cheeseheads I know are people who are brimming with Badger pride yet still, believe it or not, give a shit about public education and a common good that extends beyond oversized lot lines in fucking New Berlin or wherever. My old neighbors in Lake Geneva used to get out the vote for Dennis Kucinich. A Democrat will probably replace Paul Ryan because Walworth and Racine Counties are falling into the gaping maw of opioids and meth, and because the Republicans will probably run
an actual Nazi.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.