I had been planning on writing this diary and then Mark E Andersen's diary titled, Wisconsin: They deserved it .... prompted me to get busy. Follow me below the locked buck horns for another take on the story.
I recognize the Wisconsin that Mark wrote about, I have been a member of that community. I have family that is part of that community and I hope that if I am ever lucky enough to permanently move back to the land of the Badger that I will be a member of that community again, regardless of what part of the state I live in. I used to think that all of Wisconsin was part of that community, a state of progressive thinkers in the home of the Progressive Party. I was wrong.
I just returned from our yearly sojourn to close up the family cottage, not that far north in Wisconsin terms, it would not qualify as being in The Northwoods. Yet the residents of that area embody the conservative ethos that it turns out is the face of Wisconsin. This is the Wisconsin contingent that believes in self-sufficiency. They fix their own chainsaws, boat motors and snowblowers. They have a freezer full of fish with enough room left for the buck that will be shot during gun season. They get the Thanksgiving turkey from the wood or field next door and not the grocery store. They buy jewelry with the added incentive of a twelve gauge shotgun thrown in. There is a four-wheeler in the garage next to the pickup truck and there is a utility trailer in the driveway. Next to that utility trailer, the ice fishing shanty is waiting for the quickly approaching winter. Sport is existence and existence is sport.
This is not an educated populace in the classic sense of the world. The university crowd in their ivory Madison tower and especially the WDNR with their book-learnin' are reviled. I've been a part of the crowd that reviles the WDNR; overly strict rules that are burdensome to riparian ownership abound. This is a community that believes in using the resources available to them to make the best opportunities for their family but also has great respect for those natural resources. This is a community that voluntarily assesses each property owner $200 per year to maintain a lake that by law is public property and must provide public access. This is the community that believes in logging all of the hardwood out of an unused lot for the income it will generate yet leave the resulting detritus and all the pines to create a deer habitat. This is the community that clings to their god and their guns (and their Packers) and not in a threatening way but in a way that says this is a part of our lives and how we live them.
This is a different crowd than the loathsome commenters on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel - my take is that they are suburbanites who fled Milwaukee and are not willing to take on any of the challenges of that city and its residents. But, suburbanites or Northwoods, they are all in the same political voting bloc. Some because they will do anything to deny taxpayer funded services to people of color in the city and most, simply because they believe in taking care of themselves with minimal government intervention.
Other than the rabid RWNJ talk radio hosts and their suburbanite audience, I don't find that the people of Wisconsin are that different than they were 50 years ago during my youth, 40 years ago when 18 was the drinking as well as voting age and $2 pitchers were served in the dorms on Thursday night, or 30 years ago when I left Wisconsin to follow my husband's job. What has changed is the message, the message enabled by no money in local journalism and big money in the political message machine. The message has been that teachers are evil. In reality, they are evil because their union held political power that was controlled by the members. But the message has been they are not the members of your community that nurture your children. They are not the members of your community that own homes, pay taxes and belong to your churches. They are defined by their membership in their union that protects them and in extension the environment where the community's children spend the vast majority of their non-sleeping hours. And that union had a political voice.
I may be possible for Wisconsin to move past the divisiveness, IF the RWNJ talk-radio leaves the air, IF the big money (out-of-state) political voice could be quelled. But I don't think that Wisconsin will ever return to the state of Progressive politics. The sense of community has been broken and that is what Progressivism requires, the knowledge that when we all do better, we each do better. Wisconsinites still have common bonds, PACKERS, hunting, PACKERS. The challenge will be to see if those common bonds can be enough to forge a state political identity somewhere in the middle of what was once considered normal and the far-right policies implemented by Walker and his cronies.
As an addendum, there is this phrase that Wisconsinites used to identify out-of-state visitors, FIPs (or F***ing Illinios People) and it mostly is used to refer to people who come to the state to use the natural resources without cherishing them and especially those guilty of breaking the speed limit laws. The state government calls them tourists and tourism dollars. I wish a campaign could be started to identify all the out-of-state political money and ideas as FIPs because it is really no different.
Edited 11-13-14
Addendum addendum: I cannot believe that the discussion has devolved into slamming or defending the use of the euphemism FIP, FIB, FISH. That comment was made simply to point out that that there needs to be some campaign to show that outside money and outside ideas are molding the political diatribe in Wisconsin. For those of you horrified that anyone would consider such a term, what might you think, if not say, if the street in front of your house suddenly became the favored route for motorcycles or cars with straight pipes, or cars with jacked up wheels and boomboxes banging in the trunk. It's not the I (as in Illinois), its the sense of entitlement and disregard for neighbors and their environment. Anti-Semite? Are you kidding?
Addendum addendum addendum: Let me point out that the entirety of this was supposed to point out that the residents of Wisconsin outside of Madison, Milwaukee, and Douglas County are conservative. Period. They are not Hicks (that's a nice euphemism) or Hillbillies (ditto) they are people that live close to the land and put god family and community first (how ironic that the target of Act 10 might live next door). Their guns are long and part of their existence. The same with their trucks, their utility trailers and their four wheelers. If Dems are going to have a message that resonates with them then, that needs to be taken into account. I'm not saying change the message, I'm saying change the emphasis and the method of delivery.
Addendum addendum addendum addendum: I really thought the people at DKos were better. If I wanted to read sniping, I'd read the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.