The headline was simple: Wisconsin – Madison = ?
It’s part of the twisted new math contemplated by the new Republican authority in our state. And along with that, the realization that everything coming from conservatives these days is projection.
Remember when conservative media claimed Obama and FEMA were building detention camps for Republicans? Like many, I wondered where they got that crazy idea. We now have the answer; projection-an idea they came up. They’ve made no secret that they believe liberals are traitors, out to destroying the country. That’s why they have to “take the country back,” literally.
It’s the same reason why they gerrymandered districts, put in place strict ID requirements to suppress the vote, and have reframed public protesting as temper tantrums that waste taxpayer money due to sour grapes.
If only they didn’t have to deal with the more liberal counties in the state, Dane and Milwaukee. They see nothing wrong with one party rule and a one party statewide ideology. “Outsiders” would be threatened and intimidated, like recall Walker petitioners are now. Thanks for being so obvious.
The next attempt will be to isolate cities and counties that don’t fit in to their world view, as Steve Prestegard writes at his blog:
The Associated Press (via USA Today ): “The metropolis to the north may be Illinois’ cash cow, but it dominates the political scene … two central Illinois lawmakers are pitching a unique, if outlandish, solution to eliminating the state’s cultural divide: make the Chicago area the 51st state. Downstate families are tired of Chicago dictating its views to the rest of us,” said state Rep. Bill Mitchell as he and fellow Republican state Rep. Adam Brown announced their proposal with straight faces at a news conference. “The old adage is true: Just outside Chicago there’s a place called Illinois.”
So this sets up liberals as “outsiders,” and the criminalization of Democrats, liberals, progressives and greens. This isn’t anything new, but with the introduction of the tripped out conservative zealotry in the tea party, the notion is now a real one.
Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus, famously described Madison as “30 square miles surrounded by reality,” and the only thing that’s changed between then and now is that Madison is more than twice that size. It took my leaving Madison in 1988 (never to return as a resident, I guarantee you) to see not only that there is much, much more to Wisconsin than Madison, but also the institutionalized sense of superiority and arrogance found within Dane County (and the closer you get to Madison the worse it is).
Arrogance in Dane County? This is the seat of government after all, and right now the city is filled with arrogant authoritarians from the Republican side of the aisle. Oh well.
The only people who thought that a freeway-speed train between Madison and Milwaukee for more than $800 billion was a good idea was people in Madison and people in Milwaukee. The only people who seem to believe that hiring more government employees is the way to improve the economy are in Madison.
Hiring more public employees was never an idea pushed by the people in Madison.
The type of liberal who elsewhere in the state would be seen as wacky-lefty is pretty much mainstream in the People’s Republic of Madison. Madison is not going to be booted out of Wisconsin, of course, any more than Chicago is going to be booted out of Illinois. Unfortunately Wisconsin is stuck with both a city that generates dumb ideas with real implications for non-Madisonians as often as people breathe, and another city that sucks up an inordinate amount of resources to deal with its various big-city social pathologies. Come to think of it, a Madison-to-Milwaukee train might be appropriate after all to connect the two parts of the state that, in different ways, are dragging down the rest of us Wisconsinites.
Gee, how many times has Madison made the top ten best cities list as compared to...Waukesha? Yeh, it’s so horrible here?
And Wisconsin minus Waukesha County would be...
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