This is an important Twitter thread on the Wisconsin Republicans’s plan to commit a series of atrocities against democracy next week.
BREAKING—as in breaking democracy: a truly shocking & naked power grab underway in Wisconsin. Dems won every statewide race this Nov. Now, the GOP unveiled sweeping bills to straightjacket the Gov & AG, stomp on early voting, & lock in power on state Sup Court. Votes THIS TUE. 1/
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) December 1, 2018
I think you should do what ever small part you can to raise awareness about this because it is going to happen unless people look up from their holiday shopping and raise holy hell about it.
How can this possibly be legal? The governor-elect should already go to court to stop it.
“When asked if he would consider legal action against the plan if lawmakers move forward, Evers said, ‘Everything’s on the table.’
“‘We’re exploring options — all of them,’ Evers said. ‘But we hope not to take them. We hope legislators will rethink their strategy.'”
More on this here and here.
Evers’ strategy is going to be — before he even has an administration up, running, or staffed — to try to negotiate with Republicans in the Assembly and Senate to vote against some or all of these bills while challenges go forward in the courts. As I noted in my comment below, the court challenges do not stand much chance of success because the Republicans have a lock on the court system here. To succeed in the Legislature — fighting vote-by-vote with a very short time horizon — he has to flip 15 Republican votes in the Assembly or 2 Republican votes in the state Senate. Evers’ chances of success in this are greater than zero but not much.
The problem is that talking to the Republicans won’t work. These people are hardheads. Evers simply does not have many cards to play.
. . . cuz it has the ring of informed truth — reprehensible though that described Reality be.
“Why do Banana Republicans hate democracy” is already an obsolete question: they recognize that their actual program consigns them to permanent minority status. But they like power — they prefer to exercise it, even if they have to do so from the minority. So they cheat.
This, above all else (imo), is why everyone still associating themselves with the BRP* merits shunning and ostracism. They hate democracy. –> They hate America.
*Banana Republican Party, successor to GOP
. . . motivation in the reporters’ own voice at that second link:
Now, I see no reason whatsoever to doubt that the motives imputed to the WI Banana Republicans there are in fact their actual motivations. Seems transparently obvious. But I would be surprised to see any WI Banana Republicans admitting openly that those bolded bits are in fact their actual motivations. Occasionally one does slip up and say the quiet parts right out loud, so maybe that has happened. But then quotes of them doing so should obviously be included in the article, rather than the reporters simply declaring those motivations in their own voice.
It’s highly unusual for reporters to impute motivation in this way — i.e., in their own “voice”, invoking their own reportorial authority — rather than attributing it to somebody else doing the imputing. Whether the Banana Republicans describing their own alleged motivation or their opposition attributing their proposals to their alleged “real” motivation.
I actually see good reasons for the journalistic convention that’s broken here. At least in “straight news” articles, as this one purports to be, reporters should simply report what people claim their motivations are (without endorsing as fact that that’s what they actually are), alternated with any available factual evidence that suggests these are not their actual motivations. This also extends to NOT reporting what people “think”-“believe”-“feel”, etc., even when they’ve explicitly said that’s what they “think”-“believe”-“feel”, etc. Reporters instead should stick consistently to the formula: “so-and-so says [asserts/stated/claimed, etc., etc.] they [think-feel-believe, etc.] X”. To deviate in either direction from this formula puts the reporter in the position of reading the subject’s mind — either that the subject is accurately and honestly describing their own motivation where they’ve stated it, or (as in this instance) that the reporter knows the motivation — i.e., can read the subject’s mind — without the subject describing it.
What the reporters are saying in that second article isn’t that controversial. But the Republicans have got this queued up and ready to go. Under the rules for special legislative sessions in Wisconsin, they do not need to concern themselves with public notice, hearings, etc. as they would in a regular session. Most of the bills they’re putting on the table will be passed and on the way to Walker for signing by the end of the week.
. . . “controversial” in any sense of likeliness of being accurate. In fact, I explicitly said the opposite:
The only controversy I addressed was about the violation of journalistic ethics on display here, because I found it remarkable and interesting (noting, a violation reporters commit all the time, so not claiming anything all that special in this violation — except that they normally violate it in the form of credulity in reporting as fact that what someone says is their motivation is in fact their motivation; far more unusual for reporters to impute motivation, as here, in their own voice, hence invoking their own reportorial authority, with no attribution to anyone).
That aside, thanks again: the locally informed perspective is always welcome.
The Republican Party has been falling down this will to power rabbit hole for decades now where what is legal is entirely defined as what you can get away with. There’s no regard for the norms of democratic governance or even black letter law.
But whimpering about this won’t help us. In fact it hurts us, it makes us look weak. And frankly, if the Democratic Party here had taken a jump down the “will to power rabbit hole” back in the early 1990’s or so, we’d be a lot better off here than we are now.
Unlike the US Supreme Court, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is an elective body where members serve 10-year terms. Like the US Supreme Court, the right wing has a lock on the Wisconsin Supreme Court because for the last decade or so the right wing has been much better at electoral politics than the liberals here. They don’t just control both houses of the Legislature and (up to a few weeks ago) all the state Constitutional offices, they control the Court system as well. So all the Democrats’ court challenges will have the effect of so many sternly worded letters.
. . . similar attacks on democracy by the democracy-hating NC Banana Republicans after NC voters had the audacity to elect a Dem Governator in 2016 (iirc those specifics).
So the Dem quoted in one of priscianus jr’s links (this thread) calling the WI Banana Republicans’ proposals “unprecedented” looks to be on shaky ground on that score (only).
They hate democracy cuz when it works they lose, but they like power, so they cheat.
Why couldn’t the incoming Dems undue all those last minute laws?
The Wisconsin GOP should take a look at what happened to the CA GOP after Pete Wilson and Prop 187. This could turn a purple state pure blue.
But CA wasn’t massively gerrymandered. WI has essentially disenfranchised a significant portion of the population and so Democrats will need to rely on the courts and (hopefully an outraged public) to have any hope of getting justice.
For reasons that I describe below, you can pretty much forget about Democrats getting relief through the courts. Although they may have some success at the lower levels, they will lose on appeal.
As for public outrage, the Republicans know what they’re doing — they have their bills lined up and ready to move, and unlike the situation in 2011 the procedural restrictions they will operate under during the special session allow them to pass legislation quickly. The net effect of this is that they will be done and on the way out of town by the end of this week.
Add to this the fact the Democrats are an electoral party, building public outrage is just not in their repertoire (they didn’t build it in 2011 either). Bottom line is, “getting justice” for the Democrats is not a hopeful proposition here.
Demographics shape politics in California in a way that’s not likely to happen here. Even if it were, Prop. 187 was almost 25 years ago, that’s a lot of time to wait.
It has been, still is, and will continue to be, a Civil War.