The game just changed entirely in Wisconsin
I can’t stress it enough but the rule first and foremost for anyone interested in following politics at all is: “Elections have consequences regardless of who wins. Some are immediate and some are for the long haul, with repercussions that will likely exist long after the winner is no longer in office.” It’s the same thing for every election – not just the White House, but just about every race down the ballot – which is why you should feel obligated to vote and vote Democratic in every last one when they happen. A case in point is the 2010 midterm elections, in which the Midwestern states that made up Democrats’ “Blue Wall” all elected Republican governors, which in turn allowed conservatives to dominate the Wisconsin state supreme court.
Nearly fourteen years later, we’ve been able to undo a considerable amount of the damage by electing Janet Protasiewicz to the state’s supreme court, and on Monday, the court struck down the GOP’s gerrymandered maps of the moderate state, allowing them to be replaced with fairer maps: an 18-15 liberal leaning majority in the state senate, with an assembly that would tie 50-49 Trump. This leaves us with a fairly flippable state assembly that a few Democratic investments could help – and it also paves the way for the GOP’s brutal gerrymander to soon be struck down. Voting harder can and does work – and voting the right way keeps your state moving forward without having to reverse the decade or so that Republicans winning one election can harm. Let’s vote blue down the ballot and keep this trend going on Nov 5!
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making