"How Dark Money, Gerrymandering And Democratic Complacency Altered Wisconsin Politics"
Fresh Air Interview With The Author Of "The Fall Of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest Of A Progressive Bastion And The Future Of American Politics
Fresh Air Interview With The Author Of "The Fall Of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest Of A Progressive Bastion And The Future Of American Politics
Wisconsin: "We Are Ruled By Feudal Serfs Of Corporate Capital"
We still remember Wisconsin.
It was America’s “laboratory of democracy,” the state that set the highest ethical and political standards and dared the rest of the country to rise to our example. If other states allowed their politics or their governance to be diminished by corruption and a win-at-any-cost approach to politics, Wisconsinites would dismiss them as inferior.
And Wisconsinites were right to do so.
WISCONSIN did not seek to be compared with other states. Wisconsin sought to be the north star — the exemplar that the rest of the country might emulate. That did not make Wisconsin perfect. Wisconsin made mistakes. We elected the wrong people. We fell back. But we corrected our mistakes. We elected the right people. We moved forward. Our representatives in Washington led the way in struggles for honest politics and honest governance. At home, our elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, made us proud.
The drafters and early amenders of the Wisconsin Constitution established a framework for honest and responsive governance: strong constitutional offices (not just a governor but an independently elected lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and superintendent of public instruction). The Legislature was large, and accountable to citizens at the grass-roots rather than to monied interests. The state Supreme Court was nonpartisan and duty bound to uphold the rule of law. Democrats and Republicans and Progressives embraced the ideal of Wisconsin and the “Wisconsin Idea” that extended from it.
But one of the drafters of the state constitution warned that Wisconsinites needed to be vigilant. “There is looming up a new and dark power,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Ryan warned in 1873. “The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power. … The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: ‘Which shall rule, wealth or man? Which shall lead, money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations, educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?’”
THE DAY HAS COME. The feudal serfs of corporate capital rule Wisconsin, as Britain’s Guardian newspaper has revealed in a detailed examination of documents associated with the John Doe inquiry into wrongdoing by Gov. Scott Walker and his cronies. The details are disgusting. A governor of Wisconsin is seen jetting around the country, begging for money from billionaires like Donald Trump. Legislators are little more than errand boys for big business interests seeking to avoid basic accountability — even when children are exposed to lead paint. And Supreme Court justices decide cases precisely as their campaign strategists and donors desire.
Partisans of the two major parties clashed last week over the revelations. But this is bigger than party politics. This is horrifying. And this is not Wisconsin. Scott Walker is making a great state into something small and vile. The governor has been exposed. He has shamed himself, and he has shamed Wisconsin — a state that some of us remember, and love.
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