Why Susan Crawford's Victory Is a Sign America Might Survive
Wisconsin stood up to a billionaire and declared, “Our state is not for sale!”
Hello Friends!
I remember a time when I used to go to bed and not even care what happened in any election. I didn't think it mattered, I didn't think my vote counted, I didn't bother to waste energy listening to the arguments.
I was wrong.
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These days I have two daughters, and part of being a parent is a perpetual state of anxiety that you're not doing enough to allow them to inherit the chance at prosperity.
For the last few election cycles, I've gone to bed nervous. On November 5th, 2024, I didn't sleep. That's not healthy either. Last night, as the polls closed and the results started pouring in, I waited until Crawford had a lead and then I went to bed.
I turned to my wife and said, “I want to go to sleep with hope.”
This morning I woke up to see that hope had won! The actually qualified and decent candidate won the race! She won by such a margin that her opponent even conceded, that's a rarity in this day and age as the folks in North Carolina will attest (Republicans are still contesting the Democrat's victory in that state Supreme Court race).
The Democratic endorsed State Superintendent of Public Instruction also won her race, and that is equally huge. Her opponent was one of those people who wanted to expand the “school choice” voucher program that takes millions of dollars from public schools. It's a truly deplorable program that has its roots in the white supremacist response to the end of segregation.
I'm not even kidding.
I happened to catch a clip of the Republican endorsed candidate's concession speech. In it, she started talking about the “reading crisis” in the state. Naturally, she was presenting the Republican party as the only possible savior to overcome this crisis. But I sat there thinking, “Naturally there's going to be a reading crisis when you guys are out there banning every book you can get your hands on.”
Nobody asks follow up questions like these. We just allow these awful Republicans to stand on stages and bleat their nonsense, and then the recording of their comments is repeated ad nauseam until people begin to believe it through rote memorization.
That's indoctrination... that's what the Republican party does.
Those are ongoing struggles, but this morning I can breathe a sigh of relief. We've got a good Superintendent, and that means my daughters are much more likely to get a good education in our state. Despite what's happening at the Federal level, Wisconsin has a Governor who himself is a former Superintendent. He's an education first politician, and we are fortunate to have him.
He's not some piece of shit Republican who wants to turn public education into an extension of the Catholic church.
Crawford's win is extremely significant too. Like many of you, I've been skeptical about the results of the 2024 presidential election. There are verifiable reports that various polling places received bomb threats. That represents irrefutable election interference. You are not an election conspiracy theorist if you mention it because it actually happened.
Crawford's victory helps restore some of my faith in our election integrity. The fact that a certain billionaire who will remain unnamed (I won't waste ink on that rat) attempted to purchase the election with probably illegal cash giveaways also indicates they aren't as capable of rigging the vote as we were lead to believe.
That's huge.
That being said, we can presume that efforts are currently underway to fortify the various Republican mechanisms of vote suppression. One of them even got through last night as the population of Wisconsin approved a Republican amendment to the state constitution to force people to present identification when voting.
I don't understand why a population that claims to be so terrified by government overreach can be so easily persuaded to hand the government additional power. The public is afraid of fraudulent votes, but they never even consider that anyone might be illegally prevented from voting because of ID laws.
Democrats need to be better on the messaging that it's just as much a crime and injustice to stop somebody from voting as it is to vote illegally. They also need to emphasize that the number of illegal votes can be counted on one hand, so this isn't a problem and these Republican restrictions are both extreme and unnecessary.
Messaging Democrats... get with the messaging.
But in the larger scheme of things, presenting an ID isn't as significant as the fact that rational people will now be allowed to draw the districts for the next election. One problem is that the Democrats draw fair districts, and the Republicans draw districts that are extremely skewed in their favor.
As for me, I'd love it if the Democrats approved a map where not one Republican could get elected. The punchline is that would actually represent the will of the people. But the Democrats won't do that because they are not yet the party that fights for the people.
I hold out hope that they might yet become that party, a few of them are showing signs of life. If you happened to catch a bit of Cory Booker's marathon speech you know what I mean (thank you Mr. Booker, you are a legend).
Based on this election, Wisconsin is likely to send a few more Democrats to Congress in 2026, and that will be no small thing.
Finally, this election means that women will have their bodily autonomy protected in Wisconsin. There's this absurd law on the books in Wisconsin that predates the Civil War and essentially allows men to treat their wives and daughters as farm animals. It's a disgusting piece of legislation. But now that we have another qualified Supreme Court justice, my daughters will be protected from the crimes of men who are long dead.
Again, I'm grateful.
So, as always, there are lots of fights ahead. We're just getting started. But I keep saying we needed a win, and last night we got one. It might not seem like much, but this was a consequential election. There have also been some signs of fracturing within the Republican coalition. As the economic impact of the idiotic tariffs is felt, it's going to irritate Republican billionaires, and they're going to tell the politicians they own to hit the brakes.
That's how the system works.
We the people have not been deprived of our power. Maintain your joyous energy! Don't fight this fight with anger because anger exhausts you. Keep sending your letters. Keep calling your representatives. Most important of all, KEEP TALKING TO YOUR NEIGHBORS! You might be only one vote, but if you can talk to somebody, now you're two. If you talk to somebody every day for a year, now you're 365! If we all do this, we win in a landslide.
Remember, the narrative is prosperity. The narrative is that we must work to preserve the future for our children. We want them to receive an education. We want them to have access to healthcare. Every American wants this whether they've historically been a red voter or not. It's our job to make everyone understand that the way we achieve these things is by joining together, demanding that our representatives listen to us, rejecting authoritarianism, and voting to preserve our FREEDOMS!
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Yesterday felt like a start, Walter!
Congrats on your Wisconsin wins, Walter! As a Floridian, it gave me some hope too - despite the fact we continued to elect two Trumpets to replace Gaetz and Waltz. But the positive spin on that one is that the Dems cut their lead by half compared to last election.