The Wisconsin win is important but don't even think about declaring victory yet.
We are winning important fights but the battle continues especially in red states where it seems everything is under attack.
Do you remember how it felt in the days after the last midterm elections? I do. For weeks, the ubiquitous right wing propaganda machine produced poll after poll to prove the inevitability of their complete triumph. The unstoppable red wave was coming, and the only thing the rest of us could do was submit. We went to the polls with equal measures of fear and devotion.
And the next morning our flag was still there. We were elated. MAGA world was despondent.
And yet… The victory was partial, contingent. In Washington, the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives now is a platform for whacky conspiracies. Jim Jordan’s Committee on the so-called “Weaponization of Government” is spending huge sums to to search for alleged “deep state” scandals and rehash old canards. Meanwhile, Speaker McCarthy’s singular legislative achievement is a bill that will increase the deficit, further empower big oil, and increase our reliance on fossil fuels. About the looming crash into the debt ceiling, they have so far offered nothing.
At the federal level, the Senate and the President are a check on MAGA power. Not so in the states. There, extreme MAGA republicans are accelerating their attacks. The recently unthinkable is now fact: in a major American city, Jackson, Mississippi, the GOP has imposed a separate police and judicial system for white and black residents. And Black residents have been stripped of any control of those systems. In Ohio, a new voter ID bill means tens of thousands of residents, from students at Ohio State University to seniors who no longer drive, will not be able to vote in the state. In Florida, Governor DeSantis and his rubber stamp legislature continue to abuse their power to enact cruel laws targeting the most vulnerable Americans.
It is a hard lesson: Yesterday’s great day for American democracy must be seen as just one more day in a very long campaign.
To be sure, it feels good to win. A great deal of hard work delivered victories on many fronts: Donald Trump was indicted in New York. In bringing charges, Alvin Bragg reminded us that no one is above the law. In DC, a three-judge panel ruled against Mr. Trump’s contention that his former Chief of Staff was shielded from testifying to what he witnessed in the run up to January 6th, and on that fateful day. In Chicago, a hard-fought mayoral race ended with both sides accepting the results and agreeing to come together to move the city forward. In Wisconsin, by an unheard-of majority, voters chose to put a Democrat on their Supreme Court, changing the majority of that court and breaking its partisan approach to abortion rights and gerrymandering. These wins don’t just feel good; they will have important consequences both in the short term, and for the ultimate fate of our democracy.
Janet Protasiewicz in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
History is turning in our favor. In Wisconsin Democrats are moving from defense to offense. In Michigan, where autocrats have been turned out, state government is once again making lives better, attracting private capital, and building infrastructure. Across America, in places as different as Arizona and Maine people are organizing to tune out the endless stream of nonsense and conspiracy and to instead focus on making government work for us again.
We are winning, but we have not won. Stay strong. Stay active. Stay the course.