Hitler, Dahmer, and the Politics of Hate in Wisconsin

For those of you reading this blog who are not following politics in Wisconsin – and believe me, I pay as little attention as I can  - this great state which once had the reputation of being the epicenter of clean and open government has become an open sewer of filth, characterized by vile name-calling and narrow-minded “me first” politics.

 

On both sides.

 

The most recent incident was late last week, when it was announced that the John Doe probe into activities surrounding Scott Walker’s office when he was Milwaukee County Executive has been closed, and that no additional charges will be filed.  Apparently the Democrats had been hoping that Walker would be indicted on criminal charges, and they were deflated to learn that those conducting the probe closed up shop after catching a handful of Walker’s top lieutenants in a variety of moderately serious charges, leaving Walker unscathed, save for the perception that for the CEO of Milwaukee County, he apparently had no clue what kind of shenanigans his senior staff was up to. (Wink wink nudge nudge.)

 

But, as my lawyer said to me many times in my legal battles with my former employer five years ago, “there’s no law against being stupid”.  Apparently the guv is OK with leaving that perception.

 

Shortly after the John Doe probe was shut down late last week, Graeme Zielinski, the (former) official spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, let out a blast of Tweets, three of them comparing Governor Walker with Jeffrey Dahmer.

 

If you don’t know who Jeffrey Dahmer was, you can stop reading now. 

 

Shortly after Zielinski’s blast of Tweets hit the internet, a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter called my former colleague Mark Belling –who was vacationing in Hawaii – and asked for reaction.  Belling, the host of the highly rated right-wing talk show on WISN-AM and frequent filler-inner for Rush Limbaugh on his nationwide radio show, said “and they accuse my side of hate speech?  What’s the difference between Graeme Zielinski and Jeffrey Dahmer? Only one was found to be insane.”

 

Of course, my long-time friend and colleague Mr. Belling was trying to make a clever remark to the newspaper (a remark which got a good deal of play), but Mark apparently forgot that in 1991 a jury found Dahmer was NOT mentally ill (I know, I know---the worst murderer and cannibal in Wisconsin since Ed Gein) – a point which, while factually accurate, is probably not really well-remembered by us ‘sconnies.

 

But this time, Zielinski’s hateful Tweets did NOT get massive re-Tweeting.  Apparently, even the hardest of the hard-core left realized that Zielinski was in outer space.  In fact, several lefty friends whose Twitter feed and Facebook posts I follow began to ask their fellow Democrats to call the party headquarters (listing the phone number with their Tweets and Facebook status updates) and say “it’s time for Zielinski to go”.

 

And, indeed, Monday we learned that the DPW took action.  They docked Zielinski a week’s pay – about a thousand bucks - banned him from Tweeting - and removed him as party spokesman, although plenty of Dems are still calling for his outright dismissal, saying this latest flap is far from an isolated incident and should be regarded as the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

Although I doubt it, this public woodshedding of Zielinski could be a start toward toning down the hateful rhetoric.  The Republicans and their young turk, Jeff Waksman, the mouthpiece for the Dane County Republicans whose acerbic partisan rants (“press releases”) have caused the Party to issue formal apologies, could take a hint and tone down their messaging, too.

 

Governor Walker is not Hitler, despite the signs and placards saying that during the protests against Act 10, and he’s not Dahmer.  He may not be that popular in the bluest of the blue counties in the state, but he is the duly elected (and reaffirmed through recall) Governor of all Wisconsin.  The Democrats can change that at the polls next time around, but comparing him to a serial-killer cannibal is not going to win them many friends.

The Brats and Beer Summit

At the time I’m writing this, early Monday afternoon, I’m aware of five politicians who have made public statements that they’re not attending Governor Walker’s “beer and brats summit” tomorrow:  Dane County Democrats Mark Pocan (my representative in the state assembly) and Senator Jon Erpenbach; and Republicans Steve Nass, Andre Jacque, and Chad Weininger.

The Democrats, Pocan and Erpenbach, are making public statements that they don’t see the beer and brats summit as a means to an end; they say it’s more important to have a seat at the table when legislation is being discussed.  Nass made a public statement about not going because he’s mad at the Democrats for saying snotty things over the weekend about Republicans.

Pocan and Erpenbach are, as usual, misguided; Nass is just an a-hole.  No news here.  Green Bay area Republican assemblymen Andre Jacque and Chad Weininger aren’t boycotting like Pocan, Erpenbach, and Nass; both say they made prior commitments to events in their district which they’re honoring.

Erpenbach, of course, was the de facto leader of the “Wisconsin 14”, who decamped for Illinois, putting off the inevitable for a few weeks and getting a lot of media.  Pocan, who is running for U.S. Congress, is apparently sending the message to potential voters that he’ll have nothing to do with Republicans.  Nass hates and is against everything, so, no surprise there.

Pocan and Erpenbach come from the bluest county in the state, and are possibly concerned that the people they listen to would think it traitorous of them to accept an invitation from The Imperial Walker, perhaps not realizing they’re sending a clear message to voters in the other 71 counties of Wisconsin that they’re not going to play ball with Walker, won’t drink his beer, won’t eat his brats, because god forbid, it might be Leinie’s beer from that Republican Leinenkugel family, and Johnsonville brats, from that right-wing sausage operation in Sheboygan County.

In the rest of the world, the part that’s not Dane County, when you get your ass kicked as hard as the Democrats did last week, and the winner invites you to a party in an attempt to say “no hard feelings, let’s turn a new page and work together”, to boycott the party would be seen as the petulant act of a spoiled child.  Even one of the bluest of the blue politicians in Dane County, Dave Cieslewicz, has publicly called for Democrats to be gracious in defeat, to congratulate Governor Walker on his victory, and take him up on his offer to be more inclusive.

At the end of WW2, after the Allies kicked the ass of the Axis powers and the Japanese Empire, the U.S. led the other allied nations in rebuilding Europe and Japan, pouring untold money and manpower into healing the wounds of war and asking in return only for a few hundred acres of land to establish cemeteries to properly honor our troops who gave their lives. (If you have not been to France and seen the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, put it on your bucket list.)

We’ve strayed a long way from the path in Wisconsin, and obviously have much distance yet to travel in recovery.  Those politicians who are boycotting the beer and brats summit have every right to do so.  But they’ve only made the journey longer.

A House Divided

The photo above is stolen from my friend of long-standing, Bill Kiefer, with whom I had the pleasure of working in the Fox Valley’s biggest radio newsroom three decades ago.  Bill is now a senior news executive at Channel 11 in Green Bay.  This photo, taken on Oak Street in Green Bay, which Bill posted on his Facebook page last week, pretty well sums up the state of the state.

Wisconsin is truly a house divided.

This past weekend, I made a quick trip up to Appleton, and returned home shaking my head about the state of poisoned politics in Wisconsin.  Here in Dane County, Governor Walker has far fewer friends than he does in the Fox Valley.  His budget measures have hit a lot of people who live in Dane County very hard and very personally.  Political yard-signs supporting Walker are few and far between around here.

As you travel north from Madison on Highway 151, you know you’re getting closer to Walker country when you begin to see more and more Walker yard signs.  When you turn off Highway 151 to take Highway 26, the “short-cut” to Highway 41, you begin to see a smattering of Walker yard signs.  In Rosendale, the state’s best-known speed trap, there’s a spectrum of political yard signs: some for Walker; some for Falk; even a few for Barrett.  A few miles north of Rosendale, there’s a big yard sign – about six feet long and four feet high – that says “Walker for Governor”.  But the person who put up the sign spray-painted a black X over the word “Governor” and added the word “President” under it.

Now you know you’re not in the state’s bluest county.

When you hit Highway 41 just south of Oshkosh and begin the trek up what I call “The Main Street of the Fox Valley”, Walker signs proliferate.  Every quarter-mile or so, there’s a Walker sign or billboard of some sort.  But just north of Oshkosh, I saw a humongous billboard – probably twice the size of a normal roadside billboard – and my jaw literally dropped when I read what it said:

GOVERNOR WALKER – WORKING FOR ALL OF WISCONSIN, NOT JUST THE SPOILED FEW

The spoiled few.  Who are they?  Teachers?  The women who work in school kitchens, preparing the meals for our children?  The men who plow our roads in the winter?  The man or woman who checks our stores to make sure the cash registers are not cheating us on prices, and our gas pumps to make sure that when it says it’s delivered a gallon, it’s really delivered a gallon?  The people who work in nursing homes taking care of our elderly?  The ones who pick up our trash when we set it on the curb? Are these the spoiled few?  Was it 950,000 spoiled people who signed recall petitions?  It sure wasn’t “out of state union thugs” who signed those documents.

All the way through Neenah and Menasha, Walker billboards are predominant; and just before I exited Highway 41 at Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton, there was a big sign that said “I Stand With Governor Walker”.  As I made my way east on Wisconsin Ave and then turned north on Richmond Street, into a more residential neighborhood, there was an intriguing mix of signs, some supporting Walker, some encouraging his impeachment.  It looked not too dissimilar from the photo above.

When I got to my friend Greg’s house, on Grant Street, he had the American Flag flying proudly from his home, and a yard sign that said “I Stand With Governor Walker”.  Across the street, his neighbor’s yard sign said “Impeach Walker”. 

My friend and I didn’t talk politics; we talked music, our common bond as old-time tuba players a few years apart at Hortonville High.  We did our business – I bought one of Greg’s reconditioned bass horns – and then talked music for another half-hour, glad to have renewed our acquaintance and solidified our bond as “back row boys”.

As I headed back down to Madison, I spent a lot of time thinking about how our state has become so deeply divided.  It’s not just Scott Walker.  The Tommy Thompson of 2012 is not the Tommy Thompson I knew in the 80’s and 90’s.  It’s two parties that can’t talk to each other about anything, can’t put out a news release without sniping at the other party.  And I kept thinking regardless of the outcome of the recall election, it’s not likely the hyperpartisanship will change.

We will remain, I think, a house divided.

Advancing Backward

Single parenting is an indicator of child abuse.  Women must be counseled face-to-face by a doctor, who must ask them if they’ve been coerced into an abortion.  Public schools must teach that abstinence is the most reliable way to prevent pregnancy.

Well, I guess that last sentence is true, at least the last part of it.

Now that the dysfunctional state legislature has ended its session, the stuff in the first paragraph above is what it got done before it left.  Mining: FAIL.  Venture capital: FAIL.  Job creation: FAIL.  But by God, we’re going to make damned sure any woman who goes in for an abortion (“abortion on demand”, as the wackos say) is going to get counseled and questioned.

The party which was in power tells us it’s all about job creation and getting the government out of the way and out of our lives, has nothing to show for its efforts in the past session except things that get the government even more involved in our lives, and not just our “business” lives, but the extremely personal parts of our lives.

Right now, only the big fans of political news are paying any attention to what the state legislature accomplished in its just-completed session.  The Republican primary is still a couple weeks away, and gradually, over the next week or so, more people will start paying attention to what they’ll be told, countless times on television ads, what that wacko Santorini is up to, to whether Romney is still a liberal or if he’s truly become a conservative, and how Mr. Newt is going to roll back gas prices to $2.50 a gallon with some secret plan.

But after the primary the first week of April, things will start to pick up steam for the recall elections coming up.  That’s when the great masses in the middle will start paying attention.  And when they figure out the party of job-creators is really the party that’s not relevant, with its backward-looking social policies and failure to deliver more jobs….well, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

A Confederacy of Dunces

If you haven’t read John K. Toole’s novel, for which this post is named, I herby recommend it.  It’s not about the dweebs who now inhabit our state legislature and cabinet positions; rather, it’s a look at some of the sub-cultures which flourished in New Orleans in the 60’s.  I can see Governor Walker as the title character of the book, Ignatius Jacques Reilly, a man who enjoys modern conveniences, but has a middle-ages outlook on life and blames his troubles on some higher power, and claims the goddess of fortune too often gives him a bad spin on her wheel of luck.

I got to thinking about “A Confederacy of Dunces” because of the name of the political dweeb who has introduced a “personhood” proposal as an amendment to our state’s constitution.  It’s the same thing the voters of Mississippi just rejected; a proposal which claims “personhood” begins with a male erection or some such nonsense.  This dweeb’s name is Andre Jacque, and he represents people who live in a gerrymandered district which runs from far southeast suburban Green Bay to Manitowoc.

Andre Jacque would be the sort of typical Cajun name you’d run across in New Orleans.  For those who haven’t had the benefit of living in the Big Easy for a couple years, as I have, the Cajuns (a corruption of the word “Acadian”) trace their origins to the French exiles of Canada.  I’m not going to get into the vast difference between Cajun and Creole, which a lot of Midwesterners think are interchangeable terms.

When dunces like Representative Jacque introduce such backward proposals, the media pounce on them and trumpet them.  Stories like this are like the ignorant utterances of Sarah Palin or Joe the Plumber – fun, because they’re so stupid and uninformed.  The stories get picked up by national media, and my contention is that stuff like the Jacque proposal makes Wisconsin look like some backwater state populated by fundamentalist dunces, and – long story short – it does more harm than good to Wisconsin’s image.

Sort of like the sex education stuff the legislature has been wrangling about lately.  Apparently we need to turn back the calendar to the Nancy Reagan heyday of “just say no”, which began as a mantra against drugs and morphed into a plea against premarital sex.

The more you ridicule absurdly unnecessary stuff like the proposed Jacque constitutional amendment, the harder and louder the push-back from the dunces who think stuff like this is important.  Sort of like Miss Vicki’s radio show:  the shrillness of her rants against the recall apparently increases as a direct function of the number of signatures gathered.

To circle back to the beginning, the title of Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book is taken from a Jonathon Swift quote: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him”.  My adaptation of that quote would be something like “when a true dunce appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the idiots and lunatics will raise their voices in agreement with him”.