To Governor Walker, and the Republicans in the state legislature, you did it, you have, for the most part ripped apart
Robert M. La Follette's legacy. You have turned Wisconsin from a a laboratory of democracy, a forward-thinking state, to a state run by ALEC, the Koch brothers, and Wisconsin manufacturers and commerce. I know that right now, you and the Republican cabal in the legislature are backslapping, smoking cigars, and congratulating yourselves on your victories.
It was just four years ago that you first attacked the middle class by ensuring that those in public service could not organize and unionize, and if they did those unions would be weak and powerless. You blamed teachers, snow plow drivers, and a host of other public servants for the state's budget woes. Problems that were caused by those that live in a world of champagne and caviar—not those that live in a world of canned beer and Friday night fish frys.
Our state motto has always been FORWARD; however, in the last four years you have done nothing to move the state forward. You killed any chance for high-speed rail in Wisconsin, a decision that is still costing the state money. You cut taxes on those earning the most, and as that money has to come from somewhere, you cut funding to schools.
Your actions the last four years have been shortsighted and show an utter lack of critical thinking, a skill Governor Walker may have learned had he stayed in college. You claim to be thinking of the working man when you busted unions, I will not go into the facts and figures to show you that you have done just the opposite, as you have shown in this legislative session that facts mean nothing to you. You say unions are not needed anymore, that they have outlived their usefulness. If that is the case, then why are corporations spending billions of dollars to get rid of them?
With the passage of right-to-work legislation (which in fairness should be called right-to-freeload), the Wisconsin I knew growing up is dead. Prior to the Republican wave that captured both houses in the legislature and the governorship, no one in Wisconsin saw the divide and conquer strategy. A strategy that would rip this state apart. Families were torn apart and friendships were destroyed.
Someday though, the Democrats will take charge again. It is my hope that they are able to undo the damage the corporate arm of the Republican Party has done to my beloved state. It will take decades to undo the damage wrought in just a few short years by the GOP. But it will be done, and maybe in that time we can repair the damage that divide and conquer politics has done to our personal relationships as well.