If you think that the right-wing isn't shaken by the Wisconsin movement take another look.
Some well intentioned folks think that lowering expectations about the impact of the Wisconsin fight back is a smart move. Evidently, there is a fear that exaggerating the effectiveness of grass roots people power will lead folks to expect immediate results. An expectation that, if disappointed, will produce demoralization and resignation.
This is certainly a danger. However, it's equally true that exaggeration in the opposite direction is likely to have the same effect. Arguing that a militant mass mobilization on a scale unprecedented since the 1930's is matter of indifference to the reactionaries of the GOP and their corporate backers is no way to galvanize people for a fight, whether long or short. In this instance underestimating the power of the people is as a great a folly as exaggerating it.
Likewise, we should avoid committing these same errors when assessing the opposition. When failed politico turned talking head Harold Ford began rhapsodizing on MSNBC about the political "brilliance" of the GOP rushing the union busting bill through as a non-fiscal measure, it became apparent why he couldn't get elected dogcatcher. There was nothing brilliant about it. It's the sort of parliamentary parlor trick one learns about in exercises such as the high school Model United Nations. However, such tricks carry inherent political costs that most politicians are loathe to risk unless their backs are against the wall. Regardless of how the GOP and their right-wing toadies try to spin this, the idea that it was some cleverly conceived stratagem rather than a hasty improvisation simply won't wash. It was and remains a high stakes gamble designed to stop the hemorrhaging of support for the GOP on both a state and national level.
In raw political terms, if not institutionally, this was no GOP victory. I won't rehearse all of the ways in which this can be demonstrated. The polls have spoken eloquently enough on this point. I'll just address a couple of points that I've not seen stressed elsewhere. Points that give us much food for thought as we move forward in this fight. Points which establish what has frightened and continues to frighten the right-wing.
The first point is one that some white progressive are hesitant name. It isn't simply that the streets of Madison were choked with angry, noisy crowds. It is that these were largely crowds of angry, noisy white people. Considering that over the past 40 years the GOP has built itself up by being the party of white resentment, pitting whites against blacks, Latinos and others, this is an ominous development. The fact that Blacks and Latino's were active and enthusiastic participants as well served to underline the point and made such participation crucial.
The second point is related to the first. The Wisconsin movement has presented an alternate model of white, middle class, grassroots protest in direct competition with the ersatz example of the Tea Party. We'd do well to remember that much of the appeal of the Tea Party has been based on fake economic populist condemnations of bank bailouts. Against this the Wisconsin movement posits an authentic anti-corporate populism that has the potential of cutting across the fissures of race and class that the Tea Partys have exploited so artfully for the past two years.
Wisconsin hasn't simply rung the bell announcing the emergence of vibrant new movement of resistance, it may well have sounded the death knell of the GOP's strategy of race baiting a faux populist posturing. If the GOP's aparatchiks and their corporate paymasters aren't fearful of this prospect then they would be fools as well as unprincipled con-artists. Their success in peddling their particular brand of snake oil up til now argues strongly against this view.
Now it is up to all of us to insure that their fears become reality