Oh My, Wisconsin Looks Lovely in Blue

These last eleven years since Trump descended an escalator to declare his candidacy for the presidency have been difficult for America, the Midwest, and Wisconsin. The Great Recession scourged this region, and nearly two decades later those scars are still visible.

A state that was in 2020 the very epicenter of election denialism and conspiracy theories is almost recovered, so much as any place could have recovered after the last decade of authoritarian populism. Indeed, if one looks back further to WISGOP Gov. Scott Walker's tenure, the period beginning in 2011 looks as though a persistent fever, a fifteen-year malaria, had gripped America's Dairyland.

Perhaps it's best to say that we are not yet recovered, but recovering.

For the last eight years, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has done his best to keep his patient stable, in spite of the worst efforts of the Republican legislature and the state high court's former conservative majority. Evers will be remembered well by Wisconsinites, and his steadiness in feverish times undoubtedly reassured residents that more members of his party would bring more relief to the state.

And yet, and yet, Wisconsin finds herself draped in the loveliest shade of blue this morning. All of the state's principal offices have gone to Democrats, both chambers of the legislature will have Democratic majorities, and over the last few years Wisconsin's high court has slowly gained a center-left majority.

We are, in Wisconsin today, almost well again.