As a small town resident in a small state, I see this us-vs-them attitude in play close up. The road I live on was paved for the first time with funds provided through a federal transportation grant made available during the Obama administration. A beautiful rail trail runs through town and was recently upgraded with bridges, paving and a dedicated bike lane on shared roads with funds from the state and private non-profits. Tax deductions for those non-profits were wiped out in the recent Republican tax overhaul. As was the deduction for non-business real estate taxes, the primary local government funding source. Our local police “force” is a solitary state trooper. Left to our own devices, our little hamlet would be broke, dreary and dangerous. Yet the trump supporters remain vocal, the town is a reliable Republican vote, and signs reading “No more bike trails” spring up on lawns along the main highway. I live here because I am happier living among nature. I can tolerate the lack of diversity because we are also close to the state university’s main campus and a reasonable trip to larger cities in state and just beyond our borders. But it continues to amaze me that so many fellow citizens do not understand where their self-interest lies. The Republican stranglehold on “rural” America is built on institutionalized ignorance and xenophobia. It will take a lot of work to reverse this trend. And it will take more than politicians to do it.
5
The struggle between urban and rural values was at the heart of the founding of our country - between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans - so it's not surprising it's still a problem today. However, due largely to outsourcing and automation, the rural economy is failing hard. We didn't choose it or create it, but metro regions are where the economy of the 21st century and beyond is. This economic resentment is going to have to be overcome in order for the country as a whole to make progress.
1
With WI et al the rural is very very rural and the urban very urban. The contrast is extreme. Our politicians need to be cognicant and empathetic and answerable to both. Piece of cake. Aren't we blessed not being politicians. Not even mentioning the spending of mega bucks running every fee years to represent "the people". It's a tough gig.
2
Perhaps cities should withhold tax money that goes to rural districts if they intend to take the attitude that urban votes should count for less.
If rural Wisconsin wants infrastructure, they can pay for it themselves. They're allowed to pay mostly nothing in local taxes because the big bad cities prop them up.
8
When Jefferson wrote on the subject, the vast majority of Americans were rural & made their living from farming. Now, a minute percentage are rural & make their living from the land. Unfortunately, that small percentage is way over-represented in the US Senate & to some extent in the House as well.
6
So what can be done?
First of all, overturn Citizen United and institute campaign finance reform with a strict cap on a donation by (real) people, and of course, require full transparency.
Second, institute automatic voter registration similar to Oregon's Motor Voter Act.
Third, make election day, election week and allow everyone to vote by mail if they choose.
Fourth, eliminate partisan gerrymandering by taking districting out of the bailiwick of politicians.
Fifth and finally, establish ranked choice voting. Read about it here: https://www.fairvote.org/rcv#how_rcv_works
5
@OldLiberal Don't forget the effect that voting vs. not voting are affected by more than gerrymandering & unfair voter I.D. laws. Many people don't vote because none of the candidates on offer adequately represent their values. The choice is between fake populism combined with racism & xenophobia on one hand & 'liberalism' combined with corporate greed & mindless support for the military/industrial complex on the other.
2
Around the 1980s, tiny Natrona County in Wyoming, with more cattle than people, was threatened with loss of its one state senator, which it had under an arrangement that allocated at least one to each county. Population dictated sharing a senator with a neighboring county. In the end, a federal judge decided that the state's minimum representation law didn't violate the Supreme Court's decision requiring equal representation. Score one for lopsided rural apportionment.
3
The answer lies in a credible third party. I firmly believe millions of Americans would abandon the Republican Party and the Democratic Party if we had a sane 3rd party option. Maybe not enough to win senate races or governorships but enough to disrupt the power structure of state and federal legislators. Over time, this would take the power away from the extremists within both parties. I firmly believe the majority of American are somewhere in the middle politically and just want the government to function in a mature manner.
4
Government is supposed to represent all of the citizens. GOP - government isn't a plantation. You make rules that keep segments of society down and when they voice their opinion (vote), you change the rules. Michigan's proposal to end gerrymandering (redistricting by the legislature) passed. Apparently there attempts to do an end run to the will of the people. The GOP isn't interested in democracy, they only want power.
4
@Scott Spencer There is no left wing party. Being 'liberal' is only part of that. The Democratic party of today is to the right of Nixon economically. It's too centrist, not too extreme.
7
Now I want to know what are the reasons for the urban/rural divide? I've often found rural residents fear all kinds of people they have never personally met, and all kinds of mythological dangers supposedly rampant in the evil city. Obviously I'm a city creature. But policy-wise—can you inspect the divide? I think that'd be helpful.
In ways French history has always been Paris against the suburbs—viz. the yellow vests, even now. I'm not sure where the basis for the opposition lies.
Wisconsin, Montana,—Wyoming, with its 500 thousand voters, do seem to have become Republican magnets. How much of this clash is natural and how much is being ginned up by operatives and apparatchiks.
4
The GOP professes to small government and local power, but they love punching down.
For example, the Alabama state government's attempt to prevent Birmingham raising the minimum wage within city limits. The state got all in a doodah and rushed in a law to block local governments from making local decisions like that. A judge called their hasty rule "rushed, reactionary, and racially polarized."
So the GOP is fine with tyranny from the top in the states they control.
As for tyranny from the federal level, the Republicans are happy to use the federal stick to beat states that don't match their current ideology.
Trying to remove California's long-standing ability to set its own pollution laws is one example, especially when you recall that Obama's Clean Power Plan, which allowed states to set their own mechanisms to reduce emissions, was seen as central government tyranny.
Yet Zinke has thrown open the Atlantic waters to oil exploration, which even GOP states are all against.
Another bad one is the Republican Party's decision to double-tax people's state and local tax payments by removing deduction for federal tax purposes.
If people heard "Congress just decided to end the state/local deduction that's been in place for the entire history of the income tax" they'd assume it was the big-tax Democrats who did it, but it was the Republican Party who made what can only be described as a big, central government grab.
3
@b fagan the tax law limits deductions for state and local taxes for individuals, but not for businesses. They can write off 100% as a business expense. Can you imagine what a benefit this is for real estate companies. Does anyone come to mind whose primary business is real estate?
5
Maybe the most frustrating thing about this story, is that no solution stands out.
Win election with majority support in Wisconsin and other Republican states, but gerrymandering means the legislature will remain Republican and will remove your ability to deliver on the promises that got you elected. It’s even unclear that the courts are up for fixing this problem. So what should happen if the main branch of government is no longer engaged in public service?
Taxpayers can rebel, the governor and public servants could commit to non-enforcement of state tax laws, cities could use home-rule (local ordinances, local taxes & fees) to fund services and refuse to fund the legislature. That would be extremely difficult and likely hurt major institutions, as well as voters.
If it was a concerted effort, being illegal might not be problematic -like Jackson refusing to enforce a Supreme Court decision, the AG and police could refuse to prosecute. But it’s unclear that the legislature would ever acquiesce to voters’ demands outside of their safe districts. They might even like the idea of reducing effective taxes that much.
Could the governor dissolve the legislature, evict them, and use his cabinet to run the state until enough Reps approve reforms? That kind of martial law scenario doesn’t sound like what many voters would want. If it’s politically unsustainable it would be very difficult to negotiate lasting reforms.
So what can be done (legally) when voting doesn’t work?
1
@NotanExpert
Democracy is all about "the ballot not the bullet". When the ballot is negated, suborned and subverted, guess what's left. The unfortunate fact is that this may be the only option left to urban Wisconsinites unless they are willing to accept permanent disempowerment and second class citizenship. The Talmud says that "a thousand wise men cannot remove the rock one malicious person threw into the well to destroy it". If the well cannot be fixed, the only option is to dig a new one, and if the same person who destroyed your well refuses to allow you to do so, to ensure you are dependent on them for your water, you have no choice but to get rid of them, whatever it takes.
4
Here in WA, where we don't have gerrymandering and both house and senate are proportional (two legislators and one senator from every district, things seem pretty fair between Puget Sound and the rest of the state. Not long ago the Senate was R and both chambers are usually pretty close. We've only had D governors lately but a couple of the elections were really close. Other statewide offices are split though mostly D, I think, and we have two D US Senators.
Here, without any rural bias, it's really about which way the suburbs go. One thing though is that to get elected to a state wide office you have to be from the Puget Sound area, whatever your party. Our current governor is actually from a small town near here in the central part of the state, but he moved to the west side of the mountains where he was a congressman for a few terms before he tried running for governor.
2
Re: Some of the disparities in Republican-controlled state legislatures simply reflect the geographic clustering of Democrats in cities, and are not a result of lines drawn in gerrymandering. Republicans are more evenly distributed across space, while Democrats tend to run up their votes in a smaller number of places. :
As the judicially drawn redistricting of Pennsylvania showed, this argument only appears sensible if you think of farmers as controlling more voting space. Rearrange your mental map and your redistricting map to give every voter the same voting space, and the rural:city vote imbalance disappears, just like it did in Pennsylvania.
1
Isn't it about time that those of us who live in cities, who believe in education, who respect drive & ambition & innovation & the promise of future, who generate most of the GDP of the country and most of the inventions, the books, the plays, the operas, the movies, the TV shows, the paintings, the sculptures, the music and the useful journalism stopped pretending that Thomas Jefferson's noble yeoman is anything but a fantasy and has been a fantasy for more than a century?
Jefferson owned a plantation (and the slaves to go with it) and was no more a genuine farmer than Col. Tom Parker was a genuine soldier. Jefferson his active life in politics, and his retirement writing letters. To accept his version of America is to accept a version that was outdated even before he died.
Jefferson hated cities and so he (like the Republicans who control state legislatures) never bothered to find out why people flocked to them. And If that means all the Republican oble yeomenwho resent & detest us will never come to our cities--please, please, please--stay home.
3
@camorrista Jefferson's livelihood was that industrial-sized agricultural enterprise at Monticello based on a large number of enslaved workers and I assume a fair number of employees, which he actively managed, at least when he was around.
Jefferson, from the peculiarly non-urban Virginia, may have hated cities, but he certainly didn't miss anything when in London and Paris.
2
Rural voters tend to be less educated, more bigoted and racist, and more dependent on government assistance than urban and city voters.
If this is the idea of a "real" voter I want nothing to do with it.
Rurals depend on selling agricultural products to people they despise without a trace of irony while transporting those products on infrastructure built by government.
3
The fascinating thing is that rural voters are perfectly happy to view urban voters as “real people” when it comes to paying a disproportionately large fraction of the nation’s taxes.
4
Republicans have turned dangerously hostile. We need to recognize that. Let's vote them all out in a huge blue wave, then adjust the constitution to more accurately reflect the realities of 21st century world.
2
I live in a small town in West central Wisconsin. My husband and I voted for Tony Evers. We’re not all small town hicks. Vos and Fitzgerald are not representative of us by any stretch of the imagination. They are small men trying to grab power and ignore the will of voters. We are beyond disgusted and angry.
11
@Cynthia- Ditto here. I also live in a small, Northern Wisconsin town that has tourism driven economy. I also voted for Tony Evers. Two terms of Scott Walker was more than enough.
The governor race was a statewide vote, which at last check, meant more people voted for the winner than the loser. Unless we’re talking about North Carolina.
How can anyone in Wisconsin accept this banana republic power grab no matter what side you’re on?
1
we get the argument all the time that if you took away california and new york, trump won by a landslide
1
Hot news flash---the vast majority of urban and suburban voters are of very modest means, and, surprise surprise, many work very physically demanding jobs and barely scrape by.
They are just as "American" as the hard-working people in the so-called "heartland."
It is time we stop fomenting the us vs. them story.
4
In Wisconsin, rural voters = white voters, city voters = black voters. It's really as simple as that. Wisconsin is the gerrymandering and voter suppression capital of the Midwest.
3
I heard one North Carolina State Rep. say dismissively that "Democrats tend to congregate in the cities"...as if a century of global urbanization, cultural, and technological development was entirely repugnant. Guns, and perhaps internment camps, were veiled threats in his heavily-accented contempt. He would likewise be dismissed as prejudiced, ignorant, even irrelevant by the urbane majority if not for his peers' recently successful anti-democratic, borderline-illegal grasping for power. Last gasps, or the once-and-future soul of our country?
1
In states like Wisconsin and NC the rural voters already have disproportionate power because of gerrymandering. Nationwide, rural voters are over-represented with the current president by way of the electoral college, the non-representative Senate (where rural voters are astoundingly valuable) and even in the house, because gerrymandering. As far as democracy goes, the will of the cities is the will of the majority in most cases. The romanticized “idea” of America may be in the small towns but at this point most of actual America takes place elsewhere. Rural voters should have a voice, but one rural voter should not have three times the voice of a city voter. If Wisconsin had no Milwaukee and Madison they would also lose much of their tax revenue. If the urban, progressive areas of NC ceased to exist the rural voters here would have to be happy with fighting for scraps of shrinking tobacco and textile industries which have already killed off many of the small towns. This whole idea that rural voters are more important is unchristian, undemocratic and racist. Spare me this nonsense. Absolutely disgusting what these cynical state reps are doing. They don’t care about the will of the people, just the will of a very select people.
2
The hubris behind this undemocratic act is entirely recognizable. Republican office holders, like Scott Fitzgerald and Robin Vos, are an emerging infestation in state legislatures - those who do the bidding of The Super Donors.
On 9 August 2017, Governor Scott Walker signed the Wisconsin Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act (WI REINS Act). Wisconsin Rep. Dianne Hesselbein, the Assembly Assistant Minority Leader PREDICTED “The so-called REINS Act will undoubtedly move Wisconsin towards a rule-making process that will become marred by industry lobbyists with political agendas working to undermine the enactment of legislation aimed at protecting the public good.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.desmogblog.com/2017/07/10/koch-reins-act-wisconsin-governor-scott-walker%3famp
At the federal level, this Koch Brothers' initiative aimed at reducing industry costs is advocated by Grover Norquist. The founder & president of Americans for Tax Reform was a main signatory of a letter to President Trump:
"Incorporating this (REINS) package into NAFTA would allow you to submit it to the Senate under fast-track Trade Promotion Authority, protected from filibuster".
"Conservatives spot new tactic to bypass Senate filibuster", Stephen Dinan, 5 April 2018, The Washington Times
The "polluter pays" tax that cleaned up Love Canal and other Superfund sites expired in 1995, Mr Norquist. Who do you think will pay for the Koch Brothers' pollution?
1
It would be more palatable that legislative districts really reflect geographic areas, rather than voters, if the rural voters were voting in the interests of the land and earth that they occupy. Yet these areas vote Republican, voting for less environmental protections and against the science of climate change. These voters are not good stewards of the land they represent.
2
The push and pull between urban and rural voters is as old as elections. Each group has their own priorities and believe the other doesn't understand - which is often close to the truth. The Founders tried to balance these disparate interests with the Electoral College, and dividing Congress into the House based upon population density, and the Senate, where every state is equal in representation, but we still have difficulty reconciling the differences. Gerrymandering and increased tribalism driven by unchecked political donations and partisan media outlets further widen the divide. I'm left wondering what, if anything, can bring Americans back to an understanding that we're all Americans?
9
Extremely well said.
1
They are just as real as those in large liberal states, and due to the constitution they might be more valuable.
Why does a "rural" voters' vote matter more that that of urban or suburban voters' vote? The way our political system is set up it seems that votes coming from cities are discounted. Is this really democracy?
10
@Jay It was set up that way. The anti urban bias is deep and reflected in our national mythology. Writers like Sinclair Lewis satirized the Small Towns are Virtuous! view that is so embedded in our Republic. That doesn't make it right, just long standing. Our cities need to have Senators to balance against the rural power bias.
11
It's true, the founders did hardwire a bias in favor of rural areas into our Constitution. the strength of our institutions did allow us to dodge the bullet for number of years. But technology and a global economy finally caught up with us.
It seems we are now at a moment very much like the dawn of the Civil War, with two societies committed to very different economies, values, and ways of life. We can envision the number of solutions, but all of them require a renewal of our politics.
This can happen if we find some way to restore common ownership of the airwaves so that the national dialogue might move towards rationality.
Any proposals how to make that happen?
11
@Bob T Not that I am serious but try your civil war and see a lot of progressives not survive. How about we respect the constitution and compromise?
@vulcanalex All in favor of that. National life has certainly tilted toward the so-called 'blue' states, which enjoy a higher and higher proportion of the economy, the national bureaucracy, an increasingly-influential entertainment and media industry, higher education, and so on. Many millions of Americans feel left behind by all of this, and in many ways they are right.
Much more can be done to include people in all parts of the country. My own family is from the Mississippi Delta, and I'm the first man in it to graduate from high school. I was lucky to get some special opportunities, but think we ought to go to a lot more trouble than we do to spread them around. For example, a decent education and a full belly should not depend on where you are born and who your parents are. Decision makers, I've learned, don't care as long as they can buy their own kids into the school systems of well-to-do coastal suburbs. That's a huge disservice, and we ought to fix it.
By the way, you put it as if I an advocating a new Civil War. Just a description of the moment we are at, take it or leave it. If so, it's no more 'my' Civil War than the last one belonged to the Confederacy.
2
@vulcanalex
A theoretical civil war in the US would not be the Ds vs the Rs.
It would be a war between those who attempt to disobey our laws because of their contempt of those with whom they disagree and the US military.
If true, it would be the rural gun toting types ending up on the short end of the stick
1
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority." Clearly no. State Republican leaders, Walker, Vos, Fitzgerald (and Ryan at the federal level) can't seem to tell the truth. Republicans with the help of Koch Bros money have gerrymandered WI in an outrageous manner where Republicans won 46% of the votes but claimed 64% of the seats. Wisconsinites play fair and they want politicians to do so as well and 2020 will be the tipping point.
18
If a tyranny of the majority is bad, a tyranny of the minority is certainly worse. And if it's undesirable for the majority in the cities to dominate the minority in the country, it's even less desirable to have have the minority in the country dominate the majority in the city. While a good government should not enact policy that advantages the majority at the expense of minorities, it should also not do the opposite. If the way to do this is to give minority groups disproportionate representation to balance their power with that of the majority, then in addition to giving rural people greater representation than urban people, we should give Black people greater representation than White People, Jews greater representation than Christians, and Muslims the greatest representation of all.
I'll stop there and just sit back and await the flood of Republicans rushing to embrace such balanced representation of all interest groups . . .
11
@617to416 If you allow states more freedom there is no ternary of the minority. Just return power to the states.
@vulcanalex great. so you agree trump shouldn't be able to cancel california's stringent emission standards, and sanctuary cities are right not to co-operate with federal officials
4
New Wisconsin Republican slogan for 2020: “Cows are people too.”
9
@AndyW 3/5 persons for purposes of apportionment in Congress (even though the cows could not, of course, vote)
Who pays the taxes? I bet that the state is funded by the cities, as is the case in most rural/ urban states
13
we are coming to steal your chickens, stock up you who merely survive and quit complaining about globalism.
2
We truly have become a banana republic!
5
Well, yes, you certainly can win 100% of voters, if you simply pretend the people who voted against you don't exist.
A powerful minority exercising absolute power over a uncovering majority is a very old recipe for civic disaster. I seem to recall a certain nearby country being founded on that premise...
6
Why don't the urban voters simply quit buying goods from the Rural growers? Let's see how long the rural farmers wd last w/o the support of the Urbannites. There is no doubt in my mind that Urban folks can do just fine purchasing clothes and food online that are not produced in Wisconsin.
6
@Dolly Patterson - each depends on the other, though that's often forgotten.
1
In the end, such political tactics undermine the legitimacy of the government, and people who do not think the government is legitimate are less apt to obey the laws made by that government and more apt to avoid paying their taxes. They would be fools not to adopt such attitudes.
If we're not all in this together, then many have no reason to feel like they're part of anything at all. A country whose citizens feel alienated from the country is not much of a country. It's just a place that people happen to live. This is a ridiculously high price to pay so that the Republicans can hold onto power as a white and rural minority.
29
Thomas Jefferson believed…“the mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government,” he wrote, “as sores do to the strength of the human body.”
Jefferson was wrong—and Hamilton was right. If the US had adopted Jefferson’s program of perpetuating a slave-holding, semi-feudal, agrarian society the US would be a Third World country—as the South was until the Civil Rights Movement, urbanization, and ubiquitous air conditioning.
27
When dirt votes, republicans win.
I grew up on a farm and know this to be true.
14
Urban voters tend to dislike their own nation so should not have as great a say in its affairs.
Rural voters, on the other hand, tend to be patriots who regularly volunteer to serve their nation. They should be rewarded with greater impact in the government.
1
@Rolf, this is nonsense. This kind of attitude by rural voters is why the feel disrespected by urban voters.
11
@Rolf
You need a /sarc tag. Almost fooled me.
8
@Rolf
Funny, when it seems to be the rural, as seen here, who don't believe in a democracy, don't believe in the principles our country was founded on. When all citizens don't have an equal vote, we aren't a democracy.
1
Pretty sure this was at the origin of the Cambodian genocide led by Pol Pot and his ignorant rural herds.
20
Strip the powers from incoming Dem Gov. For 4 years complain he isn't accomplishing anything. Start measuring the drapes for the newly elected Rep Gov. It's a plan and don't be surprised when it works in four years.
10
If the Wisconsin Republicans have some sort of valid argument about the value of urban vs rural voters and balance of power between the legislative and executive branches, why did they only attempt to "solve" this problem AFTER they lost control of the executive branch? This shows that their only motivation is maintaining power, not democracy.
Gerrymandering has got to be stopped and reversed.
39
@Steve Can the rest of us IMPEACH Wisconsin.
One acre, one vote!
That's the new Republican rallying cry.
20
..."we’ve designed systems that give rural voters disproportionate power as a feature, not a flaw." - I think the "we" you are referring to are the "Founding Fathers", not "We The People.":
"When we think about the federal government and the U.S. Senate, it’s clearly a feature." The feature is a fatal flaw.
There are many times more such wise rural voters in California than rural voters in Wyoming. But with the Senate, those in Wyoming have nearly 69 times the "power to declare war" - a "feature" of the Constitution.
I'm still waiting for someone to provide even a single irrefutable argument supporting the rural voters of Wyoming to have 69 times the power to declare war as do voters of the same demographics in California.
Because of this dangerous concentration of power amongst a few in declaring war, "fatally flawed" is a most appropriate description of this "feature" for the Senate.
18
@NeverSurrender Here is the only one, it is in the constitution. If it is so bad get the constitution changed, it is possible. If you don't like it you have some options. First is to return power to the states thus allowing your progressive states to have those policies they desire. Next is move somewhere else, have fun with that.
1
@vulcanalexi
So it’s ok if we keep our tax money instead of sending it to you?
1
Compared to China, the US is a rural country and our cities are mostly towns. Does this budding technological giant cause us any anxiety about our future? When educated and powerful foreigners effectively compete for sophisticated jobs that would effectively displace our urban dwellers, then you will have some sense of the fear that is felt by U. S. rural populations. Please be compassionate and help all of us to become more competitive.
2
@Dave Urban dwellers welcome diversity and immigration. It is the rural people which are least exposed to foreigners are the ones against immigration, while happily using illegal immigrants on farms. Brexit also happened due to rural voters. The educated and those in urban areas voted against Brexit.
@Dave
I'd have more sympathy if they voted for people offering to help them navigate the future, not those who make magical promises to roll back time .
What part of every vote should count equally is so hard to grasp? “All men (and women after 130 years) are created equal” is not obscure language. It is not a particularly daunting task to create legislative districts with relatively equal numbers of citizens in each district. This is a grotesque privileging of geography over population.
14
@Mike Z. The grand language is now only for slogans and plays.
2
@Tamza And is in the declaration of independence, not the constitution. This and those rights in it mean nothing in a legal way, they are just lofty goals, not laws. And consider the Articles of Confederation, few if any even know or understand that it was our first law of the country. Why it was and why it was replaced is instructive, but few know that.
1
@vulcanalex yes, vulcan, the articles gave too much power to the states. yet here you are, wanting more power devolved to the states.
Has there ever been a bigger group of self-serving, morally bankrupt, know-nothing-know-it-all, trouble makers with double digit IQ's than middle American Republican voters?
A box of rocks analogy doesn't do it justice.
And, the lower their intelligence, the more they insist on telling everyone else what to do. And it's always in regards to things they know nothing about and can barely understand. All in the service of their own idiotic beliefs, their bottom lines, or both.
If only closed minds, came with closed mouths.
Want to save the country? Never vote GOP. Ever!
23
Sure Wisconsin, Illinois will take your great cities of Milwaukee and Madison with their excellent Universities and local manufacturing prowess and add them to our own great and global cities, world class universities and strong labor pool. I’m sure that will make Wisconsin a better state - one that will always look enviously to the south. Sorry for the sarcasm, but its a sad time when you see so-called “leaders” extoll a small-minded, “I’ve got mine” mentality.
18
I remember that not too long ago Republicans were making the same sort of argument about women voters. In a democracy EVERY vote must count equally. Any argument to the contrary is just plain ignorant.
13
Wisconsin brand is becoming toxic. Don’t think the rest of us unreal voters in big blue cities are gonna spend the little income we make on your products now, do ya?
12
Republican's stupidity, however selective by incriminating urban space as 'perverse' for not voting for them is so lame an excuse...when the electorate wakes up to the incompetence and corruption of the 'Scott Walker's of this world, and demands a new leader to redeem their losses.
More defense of the indefensible. Those of us who moved to where the jobs are (California, now home to more than 1 in 8 Americans) know this particular corruption all too well.
3
@M. Yet we have in my town people who left California because they could not afford to live there, we have some from Canada that left their great health care system, they are doctors.
"'If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority', Vos said.
So if we get to pick over one-quarter of our state voters and say that we'll ignore their votes, then we're the majority.
I'm part of the nearly three-quarters that Vos would apparently count as voters in our state. I am sickened that the leader of our state's ridiculously gerrymandered lower house doesn't believe over one-fourth of our state citizens are worthy of consideration.
After eight years of adopting a myriad of voter suppression laws--they added one more as their dominance of state government comes to an end this month, reducing early voting (which, of course, disproportionately affects our two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison)--Robin Vos is telling us that they still need more suppression.
No wonder that the voters of our state picked Democrats in EACH OF THE SIX statewide races this year. The people of our state want to be heard--all of them--and the GOP refuses to listen.
27
At the time of Jefferson, yeomen farmers and land owners were the population of the US for the most part. The argument made perfect sense. But that world is long gone. Unfortunately, the US has retained may aspects of Jefferson's governance model so that even though urban dwellers represent the bulk of US the US population and tax base, rural dwellers still control Congress. This is a fundamental flaw that is tearing the country apart. Ignoring the governance needs of the majority of the population while allowing them to carry the cost burden and provide subsidies for rural enterprises will not end well. Clearly we have a redefinition of 'ALL' that if not addressed will prove fatal.
13
Many people who live in cities (or in blue states, for that matter) grew up in rural or red areas. They moved away from those rural areas for a variety of reasons: better opportunities for education and jobs, more open and less restrictive social norms, a more varied and cultural landscape, more social benefits. The fact that "voting with your feet" in the U.S. usually means a loss of voting power in government is a sad state of affairs that may be the root of many ills.
16
@rb I travel for work to rural areas and once a lady who lived most of her life in the city told me as a single mother she feels really claustrophobic in the 300 people town. No one is "allowed" to start lawn mower until Church service is done at 11.00 AM. If her boyfriend from the city visits and his car is parked her neighbor recommends she keep his car in the garage. Living in a large city, I was not aware that in this day and age, there could so much different in social attitudes in the US.
A similar phenomenon holds true I suspect when one state is compared to the other. Some states seem to think of themselves as more worthy of holding power in our government than others. Specifically I’m thinking about sparsely populated central and northern states that think that the most populous states in the country don’t deserve to have representation equal to theirs. Yet ironically these largely rural Republican states depend on the tax revenues that flow from the most populous states to the least populous states. My sense is that the general population is wising up to this sense of entitlement that the Republicans have cultivated and it’s days are numbered.
18
Once again, the old adage that "country folks have more common sense than their city-slicker counterparts."
We've heard it before, such as the myth of the "noble peasant" by Adolph Hitler.
It those rural voters are so smart, why are they now broke and out of a job?
Why do they stay in their dying towns and demand help?
Even animals know to migrate when the food runs out.
I don't get it.
33
This is such a naked power grab. The Republicans are pretty sure the voters won't punish them, that it's inside baseball and two years is an eternity in politics. That often works, but not always. Between the nakedness of this cynical ploy and the melt-down of Trump we could see a decisive repudiation of the utterly corrupt Republican party.
Good folk of Wisconsin, don't forget! Overcome the gerrymandering and send these Republicans into the dumpster.
18
Time to boycott Wisconsin cheese.
18
Check.
4
Ah, as a fellow North Carolinian let’s not forget that we published the playbook for this move 2 years ago. As a whole our state govt is probably even worse, we’ve got elected officials who think Lincoln a tyrant and still act like slavery is justifiably Christian. I guess what I’m saying is I’m not sure we’re the one to throw stones here.
1
Urban America is the real America -- a diverse population, with many hard working immigrants, who are the backbone of our economy.
29
Republicans represent land. They would prefer to not be bothered with people.
11
The ancient, always-just-under-the-surface, animosity of rural dwellers to cities and city dwellers has had catastrophic consequences in the RECENT past.
Few people now remember that in the state and local German elections in 1928-1930, the Nazis saw a huge and disproportionate surge in support from rural voters, especially small family farmers and local small businesspeople. In the March 1933 election, the Nazis won rural voters by a huge margin, while they lost city voters by sizable, but insufficient margins.
Those amazed that rural voters who had voted for Barack Obama turned on the Democrats and voted for Donald Trump should understand that this is not so unusual, The rural voters who ended up supporting the Nazis were typically those who had earlier supported the Social Democrats and other liberal parties.
We can see the same intense cultural hostility to cities and what they represent - educated elites and social diversity - in the war of the Bosnian Serbs against Sarajevo, the Khmer Rouge genocide of Cambodia's educated city dwellers and other recent horrors.
With all that as prologue, I am VERY concerned that, as our Cold Civil War becomes more and more intense and bitter, rural voters will once again demonstrate the depths to which they are willing to sink in acting out their hatred for the rest of us.
26
How ironic. The Republicans talk about 'takers', yet their base is rural voters who are the ultimate takers.
Without tax revenue from the cities how would rural areas maintain their roads? How would they get postal service? Who would pay for the agricultural subsidies and croo insurance they depend on? Who would pay the subsidies required to deliver them medical care. Who will pay into Medicare and social security so that there are funds to o support them in their old age?
I was sympathetic to rural attitudes in the past. They are welcome to live as they wish. Since they voted in a narcissist moron as president and continue to support him I no longer have any interest in subsidizing them.
50
"Real voters" is a code for undereducated Blue collar white people terrified of change and their declining ranks. Adopting this stratagem: "by any means necessary" they will lie, cheat and steal to preserve their perceived racial dominance.
19
Less than 15% of the US population is rural, and even the rural states aren't rural. It's the GOP that's rural, because it's sought refuge in a bigoted fantasy of yesteryear that can survive only outside cities. All the gerrymandering is a last-ditch effort at making that work, and even that fails in a few years because the demographics of everywhere, even Steve King's hometown, have changed so radically.
When we look back, we're going to be astonished at how much effort the GOP put into these doomed attempts, and how much they bet on it. We're set up as as a two-party game, though, so look for the rebirth of the GOP in the hands of 40-somethings as a centrist, suburban, semicosmopolitan, semilibertarian broski party that's used to darker complexions around and still thinks it's dumb to let girls in, unless you can use them somehow.
10
Madison is a code word or dog whistle for non-white parts of the state???? How is that? Madison is 75% white.
6
Which, by comparison to the rest of state, includes an incredibly high number of minorities. Everything is relative, especially in the snowy white regions of the country.
8
@Rich Only dogs can hear a dog whistle, and code words need some translation system. Neither exist for me, perhaps some are just making them up?
Great article that does a good job of destroying this ludicrous Republican argument. Of course, at its heart, it’s what Scott Walker called “divide and conquer.” It also plays into a fear in rural areas of those “city folk” who often have dark skin. I know what I’m talking about. I grew up in Milwaukee, lived for a time in the far right, outer suburban areas, and for a long time, in a small town in Wisconsin. The fear of urban areas is palpable. It’s also not a long term strategy. The flight from rural areas to cities is accelerating, and the fearful are dying out.
15
I am aggrieved!
I am a middle-aged white man (MAWM) and feel that the votes of women, the young, and minorities (in other words, not TRUE Americans) make it difficult for MAWM to have political power disproportionate to our numbers!!
I demand that the current Congress (Hurry! Before those darn Democrats take control of the House) approve a constitutional amendment repealing the following amendments:
15th (right to vote for minorities)
19th (women's suffrage)
26th (gives 18 year-olds the right to vote)
Why not? The original constitution only allowed voting for white men!
(This is a more blatant version of the GOP argument. It is a powerful sign that the GOP is creeping towards authoritarianism.)
7
I'm from Wisconsin, and I oughta know! My rural district (NW part of state) was represented by Democratic Congressman Dave Obey for about 20 years. My assembly representatives were Democrats Pat Smith and then Mary Hubler. It was gerrymandering that took away my & other Democrats' votes from counting.
23
I wonder which locations contribute the most tax revenue in Wisconsin?
10
I remember an early visit to the Midwest before I moved to Chicago. I went to help with a small company that was doing a show to demonstrate products they sold into county governments (I worked for the software vendor).
There we were in Springfield IL the night before the start of the show, and the head of the firm emphatically told his people that they were NOT to dare mention their installation in Cook County as a reference site, because, in his words, that was Sodom and Gomorrah to the Southern Illinois folks.
It never ends.
9
This divide is true in many states. NY would not be overwhelmingly democratic if NYC was its own state; Colorado is increasingly blue because most of the population gains have been Democrats. If you didn't count Denver, Boulder, and some of the mountain towns, the Republicans would have won the last election, but because more people live in those areas, Democrats swept the state wide races, and both houses of the legislature. I hope they realize how ridiculous they sound.
1
Rural scorn for "the big city" goes back as far as Aesop's fable of the city mouse and the country mouse.
Rural people are more virtuous, the myth says.
However, I spent seven years living in a small town on the West Coast, and I saw lots of pregnant teenagers, drug use, crime, and racism against the local Latinos and Native Americans.
That is, rural people are part of American society, even if they don't think they are.
13
Boycott Wisconsin products and do not visit the State for vacations, conferences, sporting events, etc. Maybe Republicans will wake up when no one cares about Wisconsin.
11
This argument may find some, albeit questionable, proponents in a state whose largest city, Milwaukee, has a population of less than 600,000. But it totally falls apart in states with major metropolises. Get rid of NYC and you have the "true" residents of the Empire State? Exclude the Los Angeles and Bay Areas so the "real" Californians can govern? It also, unfortunately, has echoes of the pre-Civil War planter propaganda that contrasted Northern city slums with Southern agrarian life enabled by their "peculiar institution".
12
As commented elsewhere, why is it that these fine, upstanding , Republicans upject to "govinmnt" subsidies but happily accept all manner of "benefits" financed by the cities?
Can these Republicans finance their own roads, medical care, agriculture, even police?
In Ms Antoinette's famous words, let them eat cake.
14
City dwellers don't necessarily "own" property. Paul Ryan and Scott Walker and their supporters believe to the core "lIfe, liberty, and the pursuit of property". Whether small business owner, farmer, or wealthy land owner- only their vote is a "true" vote. Property owners and the investor class can vote - everyone else do not matter. Just like the beginning of our representative republic - only certain people ( white male property owners and those with great wealth) should dictate how this country will be run.
3
For too long the Blue States and productive urban centers have been subsidizing the retrograde politics and bigotry of the rural Red State areas. We need welfare reform and tough love to teach them to earn their own way.
13
Go ahead and argue that the Wisconson Legislature better represents the will of the people....but then don't forget that the Democrats won 54 percent of the vote for the state Legislature as well....roughly the same percentage that the incoming Democratic governor won.
9
The only "constituents" who matter to the Republicans are the ones who sign big campaign contribution checks. When the Republicans in D.C. passed the obscene tax cut for the rich it was because their donors told them they would not get another penny from them if they didn't pass that windfall for them.
11
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” Vos said.
What Mr. Vos is saying is that his party doesn't actually have a Wisconsin majority, while he conveniently overlooks the fact that without its cities, there would be no Wisconsin economy, either.
21
Beginning with Newt Gingrich, followed up by Rush Limbaugh, other right wing radio hosts, and of course, Fox News, the American people have repeatedly been told that that Liberals and Democrats are godless, immoral scourges. That message has not wavered one iota over the last 25 years.
So now we have Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina trying to 'protect' their real constituents from these liberal, city dwelling hoards.
The divide and conquer ploy implemented by the Republicans and moreover, by their Donor Class, on every facet of our society has been masterfully executed.
Now, how do we fix this?
17
I will never vote republican again.
After his win, Tony Evers stayed he wanted to reach across the aisle and understand the needs of Wisconsin’s citizens. It was a sincere and refreshing message. The Koch money put Scott Walker into office to continue their privatization mission and the schools and children suffer with the loss of a decent education.
I am sickened by this recent blow to democracy.
19
To me this is just evidence of the flourishing inferiority complex of much of the rural citizenry. The more political power they gain, the more they complain about us darned city folks. It's in everyone's interest to fix this but the actual power to do so resides with "them".
9
It's unsurprising that WI Republicans are behaving in lockstep with their corporate masters, putting short-term return ahead of long-term strategy. What we're seeing here is a political version of the same rush to deregulation that is leading to long-term destruction of both the environment and the economy.
7
I live in one of the least-populated counties in my state; more cows than people. I live in a small village of 1800 people, with no traffic lights. Much of my food is grown by my own family or our local farms. I don't hunt, but many of my friends do. I'm an active member of my church. Does that make me "rural" enough to count as a "real" voter to those legislators?
If so, then I'd also like to add that I have a doctorate, I teach college, I come from a privileged suburban upbringing, I'm an activist for social justice issues (like universal healthcare), I don't own a gun (and I support sensible gun-control laws), I go to a Unitarian-Universalist church, and I have NEVER voted for a Republican in my entire life (and probably never will). Does that now negate the value of my vote in the minds of those legislators?
I will NEVER vote Republican because they're a bunch of close-minded, disdainful hypocrites. If they refuse to consider me a "real" voter, then they don't ever need (nor deserve) my vote!
18
I am so tired of everyone and everything having to cater to rural voters, especially when conservatives among them are only too happy to feed at the federal trough even as, between mouthfuls, they accuse the donor states of socialism, Marxism, and any other -ism characterized by Fox Noise and f/right wing radio as villainous.
Meanwhile, rural voters can do and say whatever they want, while the rest of us have to be "civil."
Maybe it's time for rural voters in taker states to go see the "big, bad" world, for once, and stop complaining - for once.
It is time for us all to be free of conservative rural oppression.
19
The total raw agricultural production of the US was I believe 200 billion dollars. We are a 20 Trillion dollar economy. Without Urban America we would be Ukraine. Argentina or Brazil.
14
I’m not sure what it means to be a “rural” voter in a state like Wisconsin. There can’t be that many actual farmers, plowing fields and milking cows any more. I guess it’s anybody who lives outside Madison and Milwaukee. What about Green Bay? The Democrats won 54% of the vote, but got only 36.3% of the seats. That’s just not right or fair.
14
Having spent time in rural Wisconsin I was appalled by how openly racist views are expressed. It felt like Mississippi in the '50's.
12
I grew up in northern NY state, in a rural area. I was sharing a table with a random fellow at a wedding on a visit home and shared that I (at the time) lived in Brooklyn. The man described himself as Christian and as a social worker. Upon hearing where I was living, he said:
“I’ll be honest with you, I think we should bomb NY city and everyone who lives there off the map. I mean, I’ve never been there, but its a useless, awful place. I suppose they do provide us with tax revenue for our roads up here, I admit, but that’s all they’re good for.”
I usually am able to respond to odd statements but I could not think of a single thing to say in response.
20
@George, It's fascinating to me how "real Americans" engage in their own form of identity politics whenever they want to denigrate us "liberals." They are "rural, real, people-of-faith, christian, god-fearing, flyover." It's all code for "we're white" and privileged.
It's all the more reason for those who are paying the bills to turn the spigot off and let them suffer for their arrogance.
1
"No taxation without representation"
This is what Madison, Milwaukee, and all of urban America should say.
8
Why can’t we remove Madison and Milwaukee from Wisconsin? Why can’t we remove Detroit and Ann Arbor from Michigan? Why can’t we remove Cleveland and Oberlin from Ohio? If the election of Donald Trump has taught us anything it is that everything is now on the table. If current political boundaries disenfranchise and disrespect urban voters, then it is the right of those people “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”
3
Basically, Republicans believe if Democrats were eliminated, the Republicans would have won!
11
We have an entrenched history of federal disenfranchisement: it is called the Electoral College. We have seen it work twice now in less than 18 years. Each time it will favor “the real voters” in rural areas. Their voices are seemingly worth more than city voices.
Thus, the extremist elements of the GOP win out. It’s amazing that Dems can gather nearly ten million more votes than GOP candidates in the midterms only to lose a senate seat or two and watch as extremist judges are stuffed into bench seats by GOP cowards.
Our republic has been hi-jacked by dirty politicians backed by secret financiers.
8
What sickens me nearly as much as reading about Republican efforts to devalue the vote of anybody who doesn't support them is seeing all of the helpless, ineffectual responses to it. Whenever Republicans attempt to do something like this in Wisconsin, or Michigan, or North Carolina, I see a flurry of editorials talking about how "unfair" it is, and a bunch of reader comments parroting the same sentiment. In today's political environment talking about how unfair something is means about as much to Republicans as cries for mercy do to a crocodile about to chow down on its lunch. The question of the hour isn't how unfair it is, the question is what you are going to DO about it?
If my party won 54% of the vote in an election and yet received a mere 36% of the votes in the legislature, that would be the first fact I'd bring up when talking about anything said legislature did. Why is it Republicans have zero problem questioning the legitimacy of a Democratic President who wins by an overwhelming margin, yet Democrats won't do the same when Republicans win in such an obviously rigged system?
Beyond that, why don't we see any efforts at amending the constitutions in these states, either by popular initiative or convention? This I see almost as much as a failure of the people themselves as of their leaders. Whenever someone seeks to deny the people what is rightfully theirs, it is the people's responsibility to demand it back.
8
@TGF, Wisconsin Democrats have attempted to address the partisan gerrymandering in federal courts. In fact, they went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the Democratic Party didn't have standing and sent the case back to the lower court, with GOP gerrymandering still in place. The case is ongoing and may still be in the federal court system after the 2021 redistricting.
If Walker signs these measures, Democrats will also challenge their constitutionality in court, as they did in North Carolina. There's a good chance they'll win, but it will take years. I think the plan (brainchild of ALEC) was to hobble any Democratic administration for several years to render it ineffectual, all the while ensuring a GOP legislature.
8
@TGF I agree. We need to tear a page out of the French Yellow Jackets Guide to Civil Disobedience and agitate until we get the change we deserve.
4
@SandraH "Wisconsin Democrats have attempted to address the partisan gerrymandering in federal courts..."
Therein lies a big part of the problem. There's been too much reliance on asking Federal Court's to step in and solve everything. When Kennedy left, that era ended. Time to push for state ballot initiatives and even constitutional conventions.
At the rate the GOP is going in both federal and state government and elections they are the most corrupt political party in the history of the USA.
8
It's a terrible thing that is happening in WI. I don't even recognize this state of my birth and where I've lived all my life. Awful and infuriating.
Not sure when the madness will end, or if I'll be around (breathing) when it's done. Just terrible.
8
One question I think the Democratic party should investigate is, why aren't there more Democrat voters in rural areas?
@KG
I happen to be a Democrat who lives in a very rural area. I'm fortunate that this area has a healthy balance of political ideologies, running about 55% R versus 45% D. Sure, there are strong disagreements and occasional displays of overt intolerance for "other people," but on the whole we mostly live and let live.
However, I've also lived in rural areas in other states, where difference is tolerated a lot less, and where overt displays of disdain, bigotry, and even hatred towards anyone who's "different" are more common. The balance of party affiliation in those places is closer to 65% R versus 35% D.
So, which causes which? Are places more tolerant because there are more Dems? Or do Dems tend to choose to live in more tolerant places, and tend to flee from places that are intolerant?
There have been studies that have shown that conservative voters do ineed prefer conformity, allegiance, a sense of connection to a "tribe," and negative feelings against people who don't "fit in."
Throw that into the mix, and it seems that there's likely a breaking point when a positive-feedback loop kicks in: when a rural area loses Dems, it becomes more insular and intolerant, which then forces more Dems to leave or avoid moving there.
Sure, the Dem Party can change their policies just to attract conservative rural voters; but at what point does that become selling out our own values?
Maybe the Rep Party needs to ask itself why it's base are mostly intolerant conservatives?
4
The Repubs would like to restrict voting to those with an IQ score of less than 80, but they're concerned that that would be a bit too obvious.
5
Translated freely: Only white conservatives are humans who should be able to vote. Call in the courts--while it's still possible.
2
Well then, I don't see why taxpayers in Madison or Milwaukee should have to subsidize non-representative government and I urge them to give up paying state taxes unanimously. If these thieving power-grabbers want to be the flies that conquer the flypaper let them. Pretending to love democracy while you strangle it does not look or sound good tp real Americans. .
8
It’s as though Republicans want to return to a version of the 3/5 rule, that some people’s votes (i.e., those likely to vote for Democrats) should count less than those of “real Americans”, i.e., Republicans. In some ways, they’ve been accomplishing this. Rural red states are vastly over-represented in the Senate. Gerrymandering significantly over-represents Republican voters in many states. Suppression tactics similarly impact the turnout visas towards the right wing. Can the nation persist as we wish it to without amending the Constitution?
16
Are these rural legislatures willing to return the taxes they collect from city voters so the amount of taxes every 4-5 city voters pay is equal to that of one rural voter? That's only fair if city voters are not being represented by the legislatures who determine what the state tax should be.
What many of these legislatures ignore is that even in the rural areas they win through gerrymandering, there is a high percentage of rural voters who voted for the other party and are not being represented.
19
If Madison and Milwaukee (as well as the four lower counties on the Mississippi River that vote Deomcratic0 are excluded from the income tax base the Republicans would have no money to spend.
18
The root cause of a disenfranchised group of Americans is because in many states the urban centers form the bulk of a state population. But the way the house districts were set up, rural voters were given much more weightage. A single urban house district can easily total the number of people 4-5 rural house of representative districts. That is why even though the Democrats may win the majority of votes in the state election for the house of representatives, they may still not control the house. This is because of the large number of sparsely populate rural districts.
3
@Ben, but it doesn't have to be that way. Gerrymandering explains more of the population imbalance than where populations concentrate.
IMO districts should be drawn so that we respect the one-person one-vote principle. That may mean that urban areas are divided up into many more districts, and rural districts are consolidated. I think the fairest way to draw state and congressional districts is through an independent, non-partisan voting commission, as many states already do. Voters should choose their politicians, not the reverse.
3
There is quick fix for all that. Let the rural areas have the freedom from City dwellers they so crave in trade for a cutoff of shared revenue. Tunes will change.
34
The average New York City Democratic politician does not particularly care whether or not commuters in Syracuse or Oswego have adequate public transportation. Of course, neither do the Republicans.
8
Technically, hallucinations are completely real, to the individual that sees them.
I don’t see Wisconsin, but I don’t doubt that its residents are real voters. Maybe I’m missing something.
9
The GOP will say anything and make any claims to seize or hold power. The care about rural voters because in most states that’s all they have. But unlike the Constitution, which grants disproportionate political power to small states, state constitutions do not grant power disproportionately to rural voters, so the GOP does what it needs to do - it steals it. It gerrymanders. It limits voting rights in ways that affect urban citizens, the poor, minorities, college students and any other group it fears.
We keep hearing that we are supposed to reach out to those who don’t think like us, vote like us, believe the same things. The GOP puts the lie to all of that, don’t they? So the next time you hear such platitudes, tell the speaker to get real. It’s about power and nothing else, the power of the minority to rule.
But meanwhile, back in the real world, if you want technological and scientific progress, if you want economic vitality, if you want social progress, if you want America to continue to look forward to the future, look to the urban areas, look to the colleges and universities, look to places where Republicans are less often found. The greatness of our country couldn’t exist without our rural areas and our wide open spaces, but it won’t survive if they call the shots.
32
@Mike Ikerit Yes agreed. It is about the power of the richest 300 families in the united states, now in possession of 45 per cent of the wealth of the US and 90 per cent of the power in the US continuing their massively corrupt and criminal acqisition. Democracy? Republic? Not even an oligarchy. More a legislatively-sanctioned Mafia family. Keep on shooting yourselves in the foot Trump supporters, safe in the knowledge you have the remnants of a formerly great country in your thoughtlessly pointed rifle sights.
4
I have a conservative cousin who happens to live in Wisconsin. During political discussions, she’ll often flippantly say something like “well that’s just what people in the cities think”. I constantly have to remind her that the vast majority of the population, the economic base and many other things that are at the core of modern America are concentrated in and around our cities. She never seems to take this into account when gauging what the public needs from government. Her parent’s place is in a town that barely has a few hundred people, some goats and a few cows. That said, Washington has done a very poor job of taking care of rural America, to all of our detriment. It used to be America believed that every nook and cranny needed equally good roads, rail and air service, schools and infrastructure. They still do produce all of our food and many other resources out there in America’s vast open spaces. Just ask any farmer if there are any reasonably priced, regularly scheduled flights running out of the local airport, decent local health clinics or if they can reliably attach to the internet. You’ll get back a hardy rural laugh.
21
@AndyW Yes, and ask those same farmers how much are they willing to pay for regularly scheduled flights from their local airport (and how often would they fly them), or how much they're willing to pay for reliable internet services. This comes down to capitalism (which those same farmers surely tout as the best thing since sliced bread) and economics. When it's economically viable for airlines to run regularly scheduled flights out of local, semi-rural airports, then they will get them.
24
We need to supplement rural transportation and infrastructure as much as we did while building modern America in the 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. It’s not just for the good of rural areas, it helps the entire nation prosper. We used to understand that. Pure capitalism doesn’t always work with infrastructure, that’s why we have always allowed the government or heavily regulated monopolies to deliver gas, water, power and public transportation.
15
Extend that to healthcare: Healthcare facilities are fleeing rural areas due to not being sustainable profit-wise. People have to drive sometimes over a hundred miles to get a doctor, especially a specialist. Hospitals are sometimes farther away. Medical care has gotten worse since foreigners are not as welcome, they were more likely to take less profitable jobs as doctors, nurses, and so on. Should we view that it is okay to not have medical care available for rural areas because of the economics? Or should citizens have access to healthcare less than a hundred miles away?
12
In the 2016 presidential election, the counties won by HRC represented 65% of the GDP of America. Is the ‘majority’ defined by the land mass inhabited by the voter, $GDP, total votes or some other measurement? Rep Robin Vos received <20,000 votes when he last ran for re-election. About 2.6 million WI voters just decided who should be governor. He’s making the decision on how the next Gov should lead the state?
30
Without the peaceful transfer of power democracy dies. David Frum is right: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
54
@Mary Woodring They already have abandoned democracy, That has been shown in their actions since the last few elections in NC, MI, and WI.
4
Actually some suburban counties surrounding Milwaukee and Madison are heavily republican. Suburban is not rural. False argument. Those are the counties we watch during election night to see which way it will go. Waukesha, Washington & Ozaukee Counties are really just bedroom communities to Milwaukee. If it weren't for these suburban voters we'd be a completely democratic state. And besides that, several rural counties did go to Evers, including the one I live in.
20
But up to about 10 years ago, things were somewhat different in Wisconsin. Whatever the election results (as hard a number as exists) in most parts of the state we didn't really know or care that much about how individuals around us voted.
The best evidence for the change might be Cong. David Obey's 2010 decision to retire, citing specifically his belief that his far north district would elect a Democratic successor. (So instead of running for almost certain re-election, he could hit the road as a folk singer. )
Several of the Lake Superior counties in his district had been bluer than all but Madison and part of Milwaukee in 2004-2008.
Big surprise: a Tea Party Republican ran and won Mr. Obey's former seat in the election that brought in Scott Walker. Since then, nothing has been straightforward, predictable or amiable about Wisconsin politics.
The suburban/urban split that separates the municaplities around Milwaukee is probably more significant than classic rural/urban.
10
Some of the disparities in Republican-controlled state legislatures simply reflect the geographic clustering of Democrats in cities, and are not a result of lines drawn in gerrymandering.
That is nonsense. If districts were drawn, as they ought to be, to divide the proportions of registered voters as evenly as possible among identifiable partisans—however that would have to be done to encompass urban and rural areas alike—politically competitive races would result. And both representation and policy would more closely follow voters' numerically expressed intent.
A more radical, and yet more efficient, alternative would assign voters at random to virtual districts, without geographic boundaries at all. Every district in the state would be within a person or two of being the same size as every other. Each district would equally reflect voters' prejudices and preferences. With regard to partisan outcomes, each race would be maximally competitive, but outcomes would tend to be lopsidedly in favor of majority sentiment. That tendency would push party positions very sharply to the center, to assure continued representation for all involved. There would be no gerrymandering at all.
22
A classic, Facist, argument: the cities have been polluted and one the rural areas are pure.
42
@Don
It worked for the Nazi party of Germany. Farmers were a core support group of the Nazi party.
2
The idea that the land itself has some share of the vote is not without precedent - it is in some sense how a presidential election works. It is also not entirely without merit - we do not need to bring back the term "serf". The problem is that, in a functioning democracy, a modest bias in the system needs to be an unofficial agreement that all parties buy in to. "It's fine as long as my side is winning" is nothing more than myopic political greed.
For government to meaningfully promote roads, schools, clean energy and other (mostly) needed long term investments, political support has to survive multiple elections. It is much better to govern with that reality in mind than to gamble on keeping a majority of seats forever and then cheating when than gamble fails.
15
@Alan It is ‘not entirely without merit’ in what possible world?
The share of economic activity and taxes provided by urban areas really makes the case for their importance. If urban areas could keep all the taxes generated by their residents and businesses for their own use only, where would the rural areas be? An example is in states that expanded Medicaid, one of the benefits has been keeping rural hospitals and clinics open.
36
@Alicia LloydThat's a great argument until those urban areas need food or water....
"Some of the disparities in Republican-controlled state legislatures simply reflect the geographic clustering of Democrats in cities, and are not a result of lines drawn in gerrymandering."
That clustering makes gerrymandering easier. It allows gerrymanderers to create geographically small, densely populated districts full of Democrats.
Traditional criteria for districts like "compactness" encourage districts like these. So, too, has the enthusiasm for "majority-minority" districts. They were first seen as a reasonable solution to "cracking," where precincts containing minority populations were spread across a number of majority white districts. Today, in the hands of determined gerrymanderers, they provide a rationale for creating districts with an excess of Democratic voters that limit their voting power.
11
OK: let's have all urban districts keep their own tax revenues, in exchange for not receiving any money from the Fed... and see how so-called "real" Americans in the heartland like that.
112
@truth Reverse that and you would give rural America a serious wake up call.
Urban voters not part of Wisconsin? Not part of Michigan? Stop send them your taxes.
20
If urban dwellers aren’t “real” citizens, how about we stop paying taxes to support the rural populations? Those real citizens can support themselves, and the cities can take all the tax money they generate and support urban dwellers and infrastructure. How does that sound?
97
I’ve heard and read a lot of silly arguments over the years extolling the virtues of rural voters over urban voters, but some of the claims in Wisconsin are astounding. Scott Walker thinks that his loss wasn’t so much a rejection by the voters so much as the result of unusually high turnout among people who weren’t part of the voting population in his previous victories. Is he ready to admit that he did NOT have a mandate from the people of Wisconsin in 2010 or 2014, or maybe he thinks that the people in Wisconsin’s urban areas are second class citizens.
The one-man, one-vote cases of the 1960s are all about eliminating the electoral privileges of rural areas over urban areas. They need to be applied no to gerrymandered legislatures such as Wisconsin’s.
35
Wisconsin Speaker Robin Vos is probably correct about voter outcomes when you remove Milwaukee and Madison from the equation.
Latest GDP figures for Wisconsin (2017 per FRB of St Louis) are about 321,000 millions. Milwaukee's portion is about 92,000 millions, and Madison's is about 50,000 millions. This would mean that those two areas represent 45% of the entire state economic output.
When one adds in output from other population clusters as LaCrosse, Appleton and Green Bay, cities account for a majority portion of Wisconsin output.
Is Speaker Vos implying that Urban areas do not contribute to the prosperity of Wisconsin?
Perhaps she should return her campaign contributions.
45
@BJ Kapler (For the record, Robin is a he.)
@BJ Kapler
Agree with what you wrote but Robin Vos is a (despicable, self-serving) male.
2
And don't forget the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin over in the western part of the state. There's a sizeable population there. Voters from there helped oust Scott Walker and like Madison and Milwaukee, voted for Tony Evers.
The idea of clustering is a red harring, if half of all districts are urban, so should half the seats. It makes it easier to gerrymander people into one district, but that does not legitimize doing so.
5
@Paronis "if half of all districts are urban, so should half the seats." That's actually the case. Problem is you have Democrats getting 80% in some urban districts while Republicans are getting 55% in suburban and rural districts.
Less than half of the districts are urban in Wisconsin. We do have to win a substantial number of suburban districts. The Republican scaremongering about taxes definitely helps them in those districts. But it can be overcome.
The rural folk are going to be fine with the Republicans' ploy but suburbanites may recoil.
10
If I am taxed and of voting age, then my vote counts the same as a person who lives in a rural area. Haven't they ever heard about taxation without representation? Perhaps civics is no longer taught in schools and by parents, creating the most serious damage to our democracy that we no longer have an informed citizenry (and I not mean informed by Fox News).
26
@Rebecca
You are definitely correct about informed citizens. Politics has eroded the Constitution and Democracy by trying to spin history--civics is now a partisan issue
10
Except for the truly civic leaning farmers here, most rural Wisconsinites don't understand the long term adverse effect of the high capacity wells and single pivot irrigation systems which have overtaken the landscape in Northwest Wisconsin.
Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources has had its environmental regulatory powers curtailed under Walker's Republican administration allowing agribusiness to produce crops at lower and lower cost...hey, those 'city folk' can just 'get a life' ...and whose feeding them anyway?...oh yeah, I forgot... most of that corn crop feeds the cattle around here. Hope there is enough water in the aquifers in a few years to water my little garden.
22
@Promethean
Well said. Ann Groves Lloyd ran fabulous commercials about the effects on farms if we don't have water to feed cattle and raise crops. She lost! These voters also don't understand the long term effects, environmental destruction and loss of visitor revenue because of mining, pesticide use. People are very short sighted--I could go on but will stop.
14
Again and again,those of us who live in cities are told we have to show respect to those living in rural areas aka the "real America."
Why should we do that when none is shown in return?
136
@Zack
Their television shows, movies, books, and magazines come from the cities. Their products are designed in the cities and sold to them by marketing firms in the cities. 90% of the memes they absorb and live by are from the city. They show respect every day just living. They value and want to hold on to that other 10% and get fractious when it is treated contemptuously.
2
@KBronson
Exposure and using products marketed and created in the cities has nothing to do with respect. Respect is willingness to listen to what others have to say and trying to understand why they feel that way. Getting one's back up rather than listening is part of the problem. Insofar as contemptuous treatment is concerned, reread your comment. You have forgotten "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone."
8
Well, WI Republicans, here's a conundrum for you: If rural voters are the "real" voters, how are you going to explain away a very BLUE state like New Mexico, which can't get much more rural without being depopulated?
Wisconsin has over two and one half times the population that New Mexico does (WI has 5.8 million people; NM barely 2 million). New Mexico, though, is nearly twice as big as Wisconsin, so the population density is - well - NOT dense! Still, for all that rural land, most of it not even populated by cows, New Mexico managed to vote for ONE Democrat for Governor, TWO for the US Senate, and THREE for the US House of Representatives.
Perhaps it might be better if the WI GOP were to think of what might happen if the very same voters who rejected the GOP candidate for governor were to do the same when the next election for legislative seats comes up.
Whether the voter is rural or urban, "real voters" vote for people who work for them,
23
@Elizabeth i’m Guessing it is the Indian and Hispanic population in New Mexico that accounts for its Democratic Party leaning.
People here in Vermont tell a joke about our one urban area, Burlington. "What is the best thing about Burlington? It is so close to Vermont!"
What is great is that this joke is told by both Republicans and Democrats. It is not a partisan thing but just a recognition that Burlington is a little different than the rest of the state. For example, in Burlington there are lots of traffic lights where you might have to stop and wait. The county that I live in, which includes Stowe Vermont, has just 4 traffic lights!
This is why I chose to live in New England and specifically Vermont. I wanted a more rural life (and Vermont is the most rural of all 50 states based on % of population living in small towns). But I did not want the ignorance, bigotry, chauvinism, religiosity, and just plain meanness that characterizes small towns in the South and Midwest. Nor did I want the outrageous cost of small towns in the Rockies and West Coast.
30
Yep... And you can extend this to California versus the rest of the country also (unless you are from California of course). Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 3 million votes. When I point this out to my otherwise perfectly intelligent brother, his response is "But she won California by 4 million" as though Californians vote should note count so darn much. In his view, the electoral college is justified to protect "America" from all those Californians.
20
The Republicans realized a long time ago that there are brand, if you will, was in danger of dying. So they gerrymandered all these districts to give them a disproportionate share of power. They made it a Frankenstein democracy
13
@James Panico A dying brand, kind of like Big Tobacco...
7
I guess in Wisconsin the rural dwellers would like each urban dweller to be counted as three-fifths of a person. Especially since a higher proportion of urban dwellers are people of color, or white liberals. That's how the Electoral College seems to work. Where it's one voter, one vote, devalue the office and reduce the power of the Democratic officials the urban dwellers helped to elect.
21
@Barbara Pines I just have to jump in about the three-fifths rule. There's a widespread misconception that this represented a racist devaluing of blacks. Actually, the question was how slaves should be counted in allocating Congressional seats. So slaveowners wanted to count each slave as 1, and abolitionists wanted to count them as zero. The compromise of 3/5 still left the slave states overrepresenred.
I find these lame duck power grabs offensive but lets not pretend only Republicans pull these tricks. I recall Massachusetts Democrats took away the power of the governor to appoint a US senator when Mitt Romney was holding that seat. It was awfully convenient for them since they were worried JohnKerry would win the presidency and give Mitt a chance to put a Republican in his senate seat. Instead, when Mitt had moved on and Sen Kennedy died, they were forced into an election that went to an upstart Republican, Scott Brown.
6
@Chris R Allowing people to have a voice in the replacement of a very important part of their government is EXACTLY the same as preventing the voice of the people from having any effect on the governing of their state. Good work!
6
@Chris R, Remind me, how many wrongs make a right.
Tom Jefferson didn't like cities, didn't like manufacturing, didn't like industries, didn't like the US Constitution. He envisioned the future of America to be citizen farmers of states under the original Articles of Confederation where each state was an autonomous political and economic body united only by a weak union for the common defense against European belligerence.
Wisconsin Republicans may hate cities as much as Jefferson which would make them just as foolish as his vision of an America of citizen farmers. Had Washington, Adams, Hamilton and other Founding Fathers not countered Jefferson's vision for America we would not have the US Constitution, we would not have developed into the greatest economic power on earth, we would have remained economically weak and likely have splintered into small regional nations: the New England Confederation, the Mid-Atlantic Confederation, the Virginia (Slave States) Confederation.
Wisconsin Republicans should be careful how they try to portray and disguise their hypocrisy and brute power grab. They show disdain for the democratic principles which even Jefferson believed in. Seeking to elevate the legislature over the executive on the pretext that that is closer to representative government is ultimate hypocrisy and thinly veiled deceit. They know everyone knows they drew their districts to disenfranchise all non-Republican voters. They want it both ways pure democracy with no democracy.
The bare truth is Republicans are despots.
35
“If you took away everything BUT Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” “We would have all five constitutional officers and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature.” Republican logic turned on its head!
5
@LeoL If you took Milwaukee out of the equation you would be North Dakota. Without Milwaukee revenues you wold be a cold dark Mississippi,
4
The headline should have read "Are White Voters the ‘Real’ Voters? Wisconsin Republicans Seem to Think So".
17
@CWB
Missed a chance to racially polarize politics. Getting sloppy!
So, if you take out the cities, then Walker has no cause to redo a place for the Bucks; no place to produce his Foxconn; no mansion to live off taxpayers; no previous job, also paid for by taxpayers - Milwaukee County Executive; no place for his kids to go to college; like UW, no place for his secret corporate elite business group to meet, the WEDC pals, who supposedly represent Wisconsin Economy concerns; no headquarters for our Department of Natural Resources to let our environment go to the dogs. Ah, those terrible city folk!
But those Republican friends in rural Wisconsin, they’ll keep getting subsidies from the state for their farms, they’ll keep destroying our water resources because of all the cow manure from their mega farms; they’ll keep divesting their land and assets so they can get Medicaid in old age, paid by taxpayers; they’ll reap vouchers for their religious schools also paid by taxpayers: and use every tax break they can, because they don’t believe in helping out those awful Democratic City folk!
Wisconsin, under Scott Walker has become a divisive, unfriendly, disjointed, bitter experience. The Republicans seem to rejoice at that - our grandparents wouldn’t even recognize Wisconsin. Whether Walker likes it or not, Tony Evers can’t take his oath soon enough! Away with Scott Walker - finally.
36
I've seen children who were better losers. These folks are all about greed and power, not rule of law. Rural voters should remember that. The richest nation in the world isn't being hurt by foreigners, but by Republicans.
22
So Madison is a code word for the part of Wisconsin that's non-white, according to Miss Badger? Is she aware that Madison is overwhelmingly white — 78.9% White and only 7.3% African American? I didn't think so.
8
@Douglas Levene
It's what the rural people think, that all highly populated areas are fill with only non-white people.
One Acre, One Vote: It's the Republican American Way!
5
@Richard Schumacher
Then give everyone an acre in the urban areas. Of course that means people of color moving to their regions. Either way, they won't be happy.
What horrible Republicans to think that they are the majority if only they could limit the people who vote against them.
8
Racism plays a huge role in this. The attitude is not so much that urban votes shouldn't count, but that black votes shouldn't count. (Oh yeah, nor should the votes of those white liberals who care about black people.)
14
@Mark
What a novel argument! And so well supported by facts too.
Three words for you.....O, HI, O
The GOP coup is complete in Ohio. Out of the gate, the GOP is purging voter rolls, writing up "Stand Your Ground" and restrictive "Heartbeat" abortion laws.
It's city mouse v. country mouse and "Home Rule", which used to be sacred to Republicans, is gone. Now the rural leaders want to dictate to the cities because they must obey the tyrannical GOP.
Next stop? Look at Kansas or Oklahoma.....that will be Ohio in a few years.
16
These rural populations are the welfare queens of the 21st century, sucking up ever greater transfers of tax dollars for their farm subsidies, military bases, rural mail delivery, and now relief from a tariff war that THEY support. But they want to disguise the way they receive their dole so that they don't have to feel like "those people."
29
Can there be any more justification for the courts to overturn gerrymandering than the words of these republican politicians?
11
There are few things more offensive about the Republican Party than the trope that rural Republican voters are the real Americans. Those "real Americans" in the rural areas who are told they are self-sufficient wouldn't like losing all of the state level infrastructure and services paid for by the taxes paid by the suburban and urban citizens the Republican Party denigrates. In Wisconsin and across the Nation, 2/3 of the economic activity is generated in the Blue counties while only 1/3 is generated in the vast number of Red counties. And since much of the 1/3 of the economic activity is generated by extractive industries not much of the money stays in those Red counties. It's a lot easier to be self-sufficient and independent when others with whom you don't agree politically subsidize your existence.
29
Poor, poor rural, red voters. The cities and their welfare sucking constituents are ruining the economy. Well folks, take a gander at this data. Wisconsin farmers received $8.65 BILLION dollars in farm subsidies from 1995 - 2017. Check out this database for your State or County. No food stamps for you city mice.
https://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=55000&statename=Wisconsin
15
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” Vos said.
Yeah, and if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a buggy. What kind of logic is that? Robin Vos is so crooked, he'll need to be buried standing up so he can be screwed into the ground.
26
If only rural citizens are "real American voters" , then they should be the only ones paying taxes. If I pay taxes (and I pay a lot of taxes)from my home in the suburbs, my vote should count as much as the next guy's.
13
Born and raised in rural Wisconsin, I couldn't wait to get out of the state. I wanted to meet minorities, go to college, experience life and viewpoints that were not blue-collar, white-male opinions. I wanted a life away from those who only thought about beer-drinking, hunting and sports.
When I went back to visit relatives in rural Wisconsin, I'd hear "you think you're better than us", "I bet you can't wait to get out of the city so you can retire here", "people behind desks don't do real work for a living" . . . on and on and on.
I remember the "pride" of a 16-year old male who refused to finish his high-school education because he wanted to work in the lumber industry. In his eyes, he was a "man".
My spouse and I agree that life in rural Wisconsin was stifling for us.
Thirty years later, we're still extremely content living in Los Angeles, with no regrets. And no, we're not retiring back in rural Wisconsin!
27
I'm a Wisc resident. Born and raised here I've lived in other states but raised my children here. I'm in Milwaukee. I have educated and talented young family members that are actively pursuing alternative states to live in because of the dysfunctional politics in this state. I grew up in very small town Wisconsin and there are big cultural difference between city and rural living. Probably the same across the country. To put it kindly and succinctly, the most talented and ambitious youth of these rural areas generally migrate to Madison or Milwaukee (or smaller second tier cities)where there is more stimulation and better job opportunities. Those left behind juggle lives where diminished job prospects, beer drinking, deer hunting and truck payments dominate the day-to-day reality. Many in the rural areas think the government is too intrusive in their lives, unless of course they receive a government check which they feel they so richly deserve. The Packers are a state religion.
After seeing the state gov't largess for foreign corporation, Fox Con, other large corps like Kimberly Clark are in Madison looking for their government handout. Socialism for the rich and a cold seat at Lambeau, for the peasants, where they can watch the declining fortunes of the Packers.
20
Very interesting.
I've long held the theory that the Midwest went red because many of the people who obtained excellent educations at thier well funded state schools, moved to where the good paying jobs are. Those jobs are not on the farm. The places where all the educated people are excelling are referred to as "liberal" areas. The people of low and no education are left in the rural areas and vote republican. Just saying.
19
Clearly the drawing of electoral districts is too important to be left to self-serving hack politicians. The courts need to enforce the constitutional right to equal representation by requiring electoral commissions to either be drawn through some kind of non-political process or elected by popular vote.
11
@Green Tea
If we need the courts to structure our government, then we aren’t able to govern ourselves and shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all m.
So much thought goes into these power grabs.
What if the GOP put as much thought into improving the lives of their constituents?
Of course, the way they do this is Trickle Down Economics, which has never worked.
22
Missing data alert: Look at the rural counties that border lake superior and minnesota. The counties on lake superior voted 60% or more for Evers and a number of counties on the minnesota border that voted for trump flipped in 2018 for evers. Wisconsin still has a massive gerrymander problem that has to be fixed. Even excluding the two biggest cities, the gerry mander problem still exists.
19
Ms Badger is not thinking clearly (too much Wisconsin beer?) when she writes: "Some of the disparities in Republican-controlled state legislatures simply reflect the geographic clustering of Democrats in cities, and are not a result of lines drawn in gerrymandering. Republicans are more evenly distributed across space, while Democrats tend to run up their votes in a smaller number of places."
This familiar Republican argument ignores that districts are based on population and not density! More people clustered in a small space? Draw smaller districts! People spread out evenly over a large space? Draw larger districts!
With the widespread availability of sophisticated computer programs (which were also used by our Republican legislature in 2011 to cleverly gerrymand Wisconsin's state districts) geography is simply not an excuse.
Otherwise, this is a fascinating and confirmatory article describing the rural/urban divide in Wisconsin.
17
@Elizabeth They do that. The problem is, there are spots in Milwaukee that go 90% for Democrats. There are essentially no spots anywhere that go 90% for Republicans. Democrats pack their own districts naturally, whereas Republicans spread out their votes naturally. That means that a Democrat will get 75% of his 100,000 people, and two Republicans will get 55% of theirs, and there will be 2/3 Republican representation despite less than 50% Republican voters. It is a natural result of population centers, and it’s tough to do anything about.
1
@Fred Fnord Thanks for the response. When you say that the "Republicans spread out their votes naturally" does that mean that they are naturally mixed with Democrats such that you can't really create a "packed" Republican district? That's not my understanding of Wisconsin's demographics, nor of what the Republicans were able to do when they gerrymandered our districts in 2011.
3
@Elizabeth
Democrats live the same way they think, clustered up in hives and herds. Farmers know how to manage both.
Yes, and if we just lop off the east coast (along with a few urban centers like Chicago) the country would likely be more red. The ridiculous argument is on the same path with Palin's talk about "real Americans." That category, for the right, does not include urban dwellers, Democrats, liberals, and so-called "elites" (a category which seems to include anyone from more progressive coastal areas along with those of us who are more educated. Well, guess what - we are real Americans just as much as the folks in small towns in the farm belt.
As to Illinois - yeah, likely gerrymandered in favor of Democrats. That said, when a Republican was elected governor 4 years ago, the Democrat controlled legislature did not move to take away his power or duties. That move is despicable. It is the power-play of a desperate party whose base is shrinking.
43
The Rs are just plain poor loser cry babies who want to pretend in their alternate universe that majorities won by the opposition are illegitimate. As long as these rubes who control the state legislature due to gerrymandering want to keep pretending they run the show they embarrass their state, which was once called a laboratory for democracy Now we see a show of right wing malice against the majority of WI voters.
25
In all the brouhaha, not one of these claimants have stated what it is that the urban dwellers have taken from them. It is the taxes paid by the wealthier cities that pay for the rural roads, schools and police. Without those supports, they would have nothing. They may BELIEVE they are independent but that is a claim that DOESN'T survive close scrutiny.
113
"In North Carolina, Democrats won 51 percent of the popular vote for the lower chamber in the statehouse but just 45 percent of the seats. In Michigan, where a lame-duck session fight similar to Wisconsin’s is playing out, Democrats won 53 percent of the vote but just 47 percent of those seats. (In states like Illinois and Maryland, where Democrats drew the gerrymanders, they won a disproportionate share of seats.)"
These statistics do not alone prove gerrymandering. In short, this is because of single representative districts. People vote for candidates, not political parties. Pick any state and look at how many voters will "split their vote" between different parties in one election. Many citizens vote for candidates, not parties.
2
The Republicans are the party of intellectual dishonesty, disregard for democracy and voting, and apparently the über hypocrites of politics. Would their argument be acceptable to them if Democrats imposed the same subversion of democracy? Of course not.
Just to keep dimwitted conservatives in the loop, eighty percent of citizens live in 125 metropolitan regions in the US. The other twenty percent do not have the right to determine what the eighty percent want. You know, representative democracy.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
22
@Eduardo B
Yet the difference between urban and rural interests remains critical to whether we can integrate our neighborhoods as easily as the farms could ignore what cities were enduring. And as the farms became fewer in number, so did the cities become more concentrated with migrants and refugees from this process based on profit, to the exclusion of human rights. The crisis is scheduled between producers and brokers, it follows; where starvation is the problem for those who didn't agree. You can't resolve homelessness by driving the homeless away from "urban renewal" (nor justify it in terms of various tax breaks). If that's not a problem on a farm, it doesn't make wages irrelevant for the values in a republic nor the borders which make farming possible within it.
@Bruce Mincks I've read your comment five times, and it still doesn't make any sense.
7
@Bruce Mincks
The rural areas are already subsidized with tax money from the urban areas.
There are real problems in both areas that need to be fixed.
Instead we get rural people complaining about the places they get their subsidies from.
We need both areas to be healthy. This bigotry from rural areas towards urban people doesn't help us at all, they keep voting against their best interests with republican dog whistles of bigotry against urban folk.
"Some of the disparities in Republican-controlled state legislatures simply reflect the geographic clustering of Democrats in cities, and are not a result of lines drawn in gerrymandering."
No, no, no, no, no. It's all gerrymandering.
Imagine a state of 1 million people. 600,000 live in the city. 400,000 live in the country. Imagine ten voting districts taking in 100,000 people each. Imagine they slice the city like a pie with 10 slices that expand from the city center to the outer boundaries of the state. Every district has 60,000 city people and 40,000 country people.
Total urban dominance.
7
@Hal Blackfin
Not really. The plan you describe is exactly a gerrymander that would escalate the power of the rural area. The rural areas tend to "block vote." If one side wins even 35,000 votes in the urban area, a larger proportionate bias, giving the other side 36,000 out of 40,000 in the rural area wins the election. Its an extreme example but its how gerrymandering works.
1
What about rural Wisconsinites who voted for Tony Evers, such as in southwestern and northern Wisconsin? Are they not real Wisconsinites, either? Or are they somehow under the sway of Madison and Milwaukee despite living far from either city?
17
@Mark Lebow Why do you want to reduce "nationalism" to the level of "states' rights" when both concepts are betrayed by multinational powers? How did Wisconsin manage the end of collective bargaining in its own bureaucracy without becoming subject to foreign interests, so far as the farmers are concerned? What does Scott Walker have to do with Martina, for example?
1
@Mark Lebow We know what's going on here, don't we?
"Madison" equals educated, successful, white liberals.
"Milwaukee" equals blacks and immigrants, period.
5
"In states like Illinois and Maryland, where Democrats drew the gerrymanders, they won a disproportionate share of seats"
But they won a disproportionate share of this article. Why is gerrymandering criticized only when it favors the Republicans?
2
@Erwan. Good point.
Perhaps because it’s less extreme in those states and because the article is about Republican’s changing the rules to maintain power despite the vote. Which doesn’t have Allen in D states.
13
@Erwan
Gerrymandering is wrong whoever does it -- IF we are a democracy. Losing is painful. What's different here is that Republican legislatures (not their constituents -- but we don't hear their constituents objecting) in UT, WI, MI, and NC don't show any interest in democracy -- they just want to hold onto power at any cost. They are plowing forward on a power grab despite the electorate not wanting what they are selling. If you are a republican who is feeling picked-on by the media about your party's activities, think about it. Is your beef with your party being 'picked on' or is your beef with your own party? If it's with your party, please let them know. They need a moral compass right now.
55
Maryland gets criticized all the time. Congressional gerrymandering problem needs a national solution, though: if only Republicans gerrymander, disproportionate representation of Republicans in Congress will only get worse. Of course, state legislatures are another matter.
Illinois is a bit different. There is certainly gerrymandering, in the sense of strange shapes. However, it does not produce the same kind of disproportionate representation discussed here.
6
"To Republicans in Wisconsin, the legislature is more representative precisely because it reflects that geography, to their advantage."
----------------------------------------------------
I think that Wisconsin's GOP controlled legislature would contravene the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, if it tries to give more (unequal) voting rights to a separate class of voters.
The Republican dominated legislature sponsored bills to constrain the powers of the newly elected Democratic Governor. The substance of the proposed laws is to deny equal voting rights to Democrats that live in high-density cities - Madison and Milwaukee.
Substance over form usually rules. I would think the Supreme Court of Wisconsin would not be fooled by an alternative method to achieve similar results of district gerrymandering: giving low-density area (GOP) voters, greater voting results than high-density city-dwellers.
Constitutional Amendment 17 (1913) places electoral authority for senators, first to voters and second, to the Governor of the state, in the case of a senator’s resignation or death between elections.
I think the early 20th century amendment is instructive. It removes the state legislature's right to appoint senators and recognizes the people's voting rights and the authority of the governor to appoint a senator only in case of a vacancy.
It would be difficult for a state legislature to pass laws to over-ride voter rights.
3
I live in a very rural part of northern WI and voted for the entire Democratic ticket. It's frustrating to see this go down like this. Paul Ryan's smug (two) face doesn't help... Yes, I live and am taxed in a state that gives me no representation....
39
@Chuck Williams . . . and Ryan, by retiring from liability for his about-face on taxes in deference to Trump, joins Gowdy reminding us that Hillary needs another look. A "tax reform" that expires with midterm election results? A trade war based on the principle of cheap money from the Central bank? Celebrity or apprentice? Republican? What?
3
Can’t we just take the Democrats out of the state too while we’re getting rid of Madison and Milwaukee? Then the Republicans will win for sure without anyone getting in their path. Let’s make it really easy for them, just hand them the prize without any struggle, debate, or method of accomplishment. And certainly not hold them accountable for any of their actions, let them do whatever they want with their power. That’s better. This party isnt trying to represent the people of the state anyway, just their own self interest.
36
@R. Pasricha and after all of the educated and productive people leave the state along with the industries they power the real Americans in the rural areas will discover that the economy will plunge and they will just be Republican peasants in thrall to their Republican masters.
4
@R. Pasricha
But isn't that like giving every kid on a soccer team a trophy for participating? I thought Republicans were against such things.
6
When this country was founded most states restricted the right to vote to free white men who also owned real estate, thereby excluding not only people of color and women but also the "mechanics" and "tradesmen" who worked in the cities.
I think that the GOP would like to take us back to that time, so they could "win" the elections.
71
@John Graubard Oh, absolutely... If the originalists get their way, we'll be back-pedaling like crazy to "un-recognize" all kinds of rights that are implied by our Constitution, by its logical interpretation, and by its extension as required by modernization with its complications. To those on the far right, the Constitution was never intended to mean anything other than what is written on the page - Founders' intent matters not one whit except when it is appears in the document, clearly expressed; modernization is a problem to be dealt with through amendment. (Yeah... right. Remember the ERA? Good luck with THAT!) If their arguments have any validity whatsoever - and I don't think they do - one has to wonder why such scrupulous records of the constitutional conventions were kept, and why the Founders went to such lengths to craft a flexible, non-specific document that would evolve into the future for our nascent government.
There's no doubt that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison are rolling in their graves for reasons that have NOTHING to do with Trump's somewhat un-presidential behavior during Geo. H.W. Bush's funeral services!
10
@John Graubard: I have actually seen online essays by right-wingers who claim that people who make too little money to pay federal income tax should be disqualified from voting because "they'll only vote for Democrats, who win only because they promise 'free stuff' to illegal immigrants and welfare mothers." (No coded racism there, huh?)
Yes, they're trying to take us all back to about 200 years ago, which is when states began removing property ownership as a qualification for voting.
I see many comments on why it is a good thing to do, but if it is such a good thing, why did Scott Walker and the legislature wait until the last minute to do it?
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@Bill
Because they lost unexpectedly.
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Gov.Elect Evers visited every single one of the 72 counties throughout the state during his campaign, listening to voters. He has been the statewide Superintendent of schools for all counties, and all public schools. The Legislative Republicans' argument that they alone can divine the will of the people is delusional in this case. Nevertheless, the dog-whistles of "Madison, Dane County, and Milwaukee" are effective with some provincial rural voters. The Republicans are entrenched, and try the tactics that have worked for them in the past.
Gov. Elect Evers has a reasoned approach to compromise, and a track record of working with diverse people statewide. That creates fear in the minority party (R) that nevertheless has majority control in the legislature due to gerrymandering.
The current Republican Legislators view themselves in direct opposition to public employees (unions), especially teachers in the public system, who protested "Act 10" limitations in the Gov. Scott Walker administration. Walker's administrating has done much to diminish the public schools. Therefore, Mr. Evers is viewed as their foe.
The Rural/Urban divide is a factor here, as documented in the book: The Politics of Resentment by Katherine J. Cramer, but the details go deeper.
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"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." (David Frum, Jan/18)
Truth.
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It's an unfortunate reality that Jefferson and other founders subscribed to and enshrined the notion that some votes are premium, while others are to be discounted or ignored - slaves and women, for example. This electoral preference for white male landholders still clearly animates the GOP vision of "democracy", and their determined efforts to preserve First Class privilege and it's outsized influence.
Today, in deference to law, the boundaries are technically determined by which zip code one is born into, but the underlying animus is just as visceral and deep rooted. At least today the Party's veneer of concern for true democracy in the world has been stripped bare.
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@Neander It's ironic that Republicans would define democracy that way when we recall their aristocratic leanings. The privilege prefers its own while the public gets ignored.
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@Bruce Mincks
But the rural people do get ignored. The politics of the republicans are not in the best interest of rural people.
Republican party-Education, the party votes against it. Wages, the party keeps them as low as possible, jobs, as low wage as possible. Welfare, do away with it. Healthcare, no medical care unless you have money. There is no category where the republican party helps it's votes
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I want our friends in Wisconsin to rest assured that they do not, in fact, have a lock on anti-democratic nincompoops. Here in my great state of Georgia, "we" just elected a Governor who previously was the Secretary of State. The latter office controls and manages elections in the state. Had a bit of, um, controversy in the recent elections. Just sayin'.
Georgia enjoys long and faithful service from legislators from the hinterland counties (read: those not clustered around Atlanta, Athens, and maybe Savannah) who are returned to office time and again. I ascribe their remarkable staying power to their promises to 'hurt' Atlanta, to punish it for being effete, liberal and heavily populated by melanin-rich citizens. They proudly vote down state support for Atlanta's transit system and efforts to unify the region around common policy and funding. Atlanta is THE economic engine for the state, of course they want to keep it (and themselves) from being successful. Fools.
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@George I was thinking that my original home - Wisconsin - is now dislocated geographically. Shoe-horned somewhere in the old South would be more appropriate.
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@Mike O
My own interactions with Wisconsinites have been 100% positive. Nice people but I don’t think that would work. They get too nervous around black people.
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How is it not a repudiation by the voters?
It's called "magical thinking."
It is something the Republican base does with enthusiasm, and will continue to use all means, including cheating, in attempts to insure the continuation of their ability to believe they are superior.
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There were also rich ancient Romans did not consider city dwellers real citizens. These forerunners of today's Republicans did away with the Roman Republic and replaced it with an empire that declined and fell.
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@Marvant Duhon
Back to Ancient Roman History Class.
The Republic was so corrupt in its last decades
that Augustus was a blessing.
The empire last 500 years in the West and
1500 in the East. Not bad as Empires go.
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@Marvant Duhon It's also significant that after their Republic, the Romans based their Empire in a manner of rewarding "veterans" with plots of the land their army had secured. The "barbarians" were also chickens coming home to roost in this sense, as that business model survived among wars against Communism, the War Against Drugs, the War Against Terror, and now the war against witch hunts finding no proxies in the fate of Yemen.
Wow, this really opened up my mind!
Here in California, if we only counted the votes of the rural inhabitants of California we'd have, yeah, exactly 6 Republican Congressmen. No Democrats.
But, drat, people is people too, so we do have to count the urban/suburban votes also. Guess we'll have to live with our 6 Republican Congressman, and , oh yeah, those other 47 Congressmen and Congresswoman...
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@Matthew O'Brien And what would those fine, rural folks due without our money? Isn't it a fact that a majority of California's revenue comes from parts of the South Bay? We never hear or see them waving their pitchforks demanding we keep our hard earned money do we? LOL
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@Mr.Klein CA is a MAJOR agricultural state.
@Marvin that may be the case, but the real money comes from industries that happen to be located in areas that are Blue because of the diversity and education level of the people those industries attract.
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Never thought we would see these outrageous shenanigans in the state known for Fighting Bob LaFollette! The Walker administration's period in office has become famous for all night sessions, secrecy about laws that are going to be passed in the wee small hours and attempts to become the only party to hold all the power in all branches. The ends justify the means, they have no shame, no ethics and no "sportsmanship". They are sore losers and fight back viciously. This shows in their current actions to limit powers of Gov.Evers and AG Josh Kaul. HELP!!!
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@JCT - True, WI is indeed the state of Fighting Bob LaFollette. It’s also the state of “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy!! I lived in four other states before moving to Wisconsin. Every one of them demonstrated the same urban vs. rural dichotomy. It’s particularly strong in Wisconsin, but the issue is a lot deeper than simple geography.
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This article reminds me of the ironic mantra of Walker's when he rushed through Act 10 in the middle of the night year ago. He stated: "I am not listening to the unions, I am listening to the tax payer." And this was said to spite us "freeloaders" --the teachers, iron workers, electricians, nurses, and firefighters!
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@Emily Adah-Walker and his Republican peers have been emboldened by the money poured into the state under nine Koch Brother PACs--pushing for onerous legislation to favor their corporate interests. Sadly they have largely succeeded.
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Land doesn't vote people do. In a state like mine which 80%+ of the people live on about 1% of the land means that we are a very urban state. Which frankly; is against what most people think, including here in Utah. Yet the way our congressional district are drawn they give most of the power to rural areas. Yes, most people here do vote republican. But it is actually closer to half the population than an overwhelming majority. Yet due to gerrymandering democrats don't have a single representative in congress. Fortunately that changes early next year. The Republicans can only hold back the changing demographics of our nation for so long. Without gerrymandering and voter suppression, they would have already become largely irrelevant in most places. Without those things Utah would be purple instead of deep red.
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@Still Waiting for a NBA Title Yes to what you say about GOP tactics, including, if I recall correctly, slicing Salt Lake City, a mostly Democratic, modern, secular city, into congressional-district pie slices, each one attached to far-spreading Republican/Mormon suburbs and rural hinterlands, in order to prevent more Democratic candidates from winning elections.
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They are limiting the power of a governor who happens to be a Democrat. These limitations will apply to any future governor, Dem or GOP. Akin to Harry Reid changing judicial approvals to a 51 votes simple majority. Sure, Helped Obama, but now it helps Trump.
Removing powers from individual (e.g Gov, President, AGs) is a GOOD thing. Major policy decisions and such should be done by legislatures and NOT individuals.
Is the move itself partisan? Sure, just as Reid's was. However, to anyone that is against authoritarianism and putting too much power in the hands of one person should view this as a long term GOOD thing.
The powers granted to guvs are by the state constitutions and laws, and the states constitutions and laws are the purvey of the legislature.
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@Marvin The problem is "In Wisconsin, Democratic candidates for the State Assembly won 54 percent of the vote statewide. But they will hold only 36 of 99 seats." That is NOT the purvey of the legislature but of the gerrymandering.
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@Marvin
The powers were "granted" to the Wisconsin governor by the majority of the state's voters. That's how elections are supposed to work. Where in the state those voters happen to live is irrelevant, a red herring, a transparent power grab by sore losers.
Your "argument" is specious.
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" legislators and NOT individuals” In both instances it is an individual, one or more, with an agenda, who is or isn't, personally accountable for the implications and consequences of their words and actions. Temporary as well as more permanent ones. How do you suggest this be factored into your view about an implied "greater good" vs. a greater, or even lesser evil?
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Our country was designed to be a representative democracy. When 54% of the vote gets 36% of the representation the system has clearly failed. When this happens, perhaps a reasonable remedy would be a court order which would require that 18% of the representatives (the differential) run "at large" in the next election.
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@W.A. Spitzer States are free to create such systems.
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@Marvin
The point of the whole article is that the people of Wisconsin are not "free to create such systems". Gerrymandering prevents such freedom.
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David Frum's comment is proving prescient: "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy,"
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@Johnny
Too bad Frum didn't realize this before he helped create this fiasco when Republicans in prior years and elections hired him to manage voters with language. He's not worth quoting. What is worth quoting is "when you lay down with dogs...."
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@Johnny
Conservatives have always been open about rejection of democracy as a sufficient basis of ligitimate government. Read Burke. Read Calhoun. Read John Adams comments expressing his abhorrence of democracy. You may disagree but it is an entirely viable viewpoint and one to be contended with respectfully on its merits if you wish to persuade.
@KBronson:
John C. Calhoun: “None but people advanced to a very high state of moral and intellectual improvement are capable, in a civilized state, of maintaining free government; and amongst those who are so purified, very few, indeed, have had the good fortune of forming a constitution capable of endurance.” 1848.
Imagine a debate with a slaveholding racist like Calhoun. Are you suggesting that the Wisconsin legislature is stuffed with people who are “advanced to a very high state of moral and intellectual improvement”? Would that include ex-Governor Walker?
Edmund Burke and John Adams are not the people whom we need to persuade. Burke and Adams and their like-minded conservatives are so in the minority they are not electoral threat. Most red state voters probably have no idea who Edmund Burke was. The people who are an electoral threat in America are similar to the great cheering mobs of faithful that attended the rallies of Hitler and Mussolini. These types, now attending the rallies of Donald Trump, are people who can’t be persuaded by rational debate. These people are a real electoral threat. So let’s sweep aside the ignorant, pesky Democrats so we can get on with our high minded plans to rule the country and its inferior mob to suit our own interests.
1
You could replace "rural" and "urban" with "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" and Lenin would have heartily agreed. But didn't we fight a long and bitter Cold War against these kinds of governments, in the cause of Democracy? And didn't we supposedly win?
I would hate to think that we defeated communism only to replace it with our own home-grown one-party dictatorship.
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@tom This is the opposite of a dictatorship, this is moving power from a single person back to the legislative body, the group that much better represents the diverse wants and needs of the entire state. These same rules apply to ANY governor elected in the future, not just democrats.
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@Marvin
Why did they change the rules to allow Walker to do more then?
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@Marvin When one side gets 54% of the vote but only 36% of the seats it is not moving representation to any legislative body through democracy but to a select group by gerrymandering.
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Urban voters and rural voters are both real voters.
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I grew up on a dairy farm in Michigan in a county that had a population of 2000 people. I fled the grip of community gossips and preachers to attend university and explore the world. I was warned before leaving that one could not be university educated and a christian.
As an adult I have lived mostly in cities with one exception.
My experience has taught me that rural voters have less access to information: they do not subscribe to major newspapers, they have poor or non-existent internet access and have fewer encounters with a variety of points of view.
They have not had to learn to work with and understand people who look and think differently. It is easier for the town business and church leaders to establish community conformity and deliver their votes.
There is brutal but often hidden poverty in rural areas. The need for affordable decent health care, educational opportunity, jobs, and environmental protection is just as real as it is in cities. Rural voters are not more authentic but they may be easier to persuade to vote against their self interest with misinformation.
Breaking up the misinformation and visiting local communities to give them access to a candidate and speak of local needs seemed to be a part of the Beto campaign in Texas. It was and can continue to be a ray of hope for change.
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@Lois, Your experience is recognizable in WI. Gov. Elect Evers did visit all counties in the State, listened to the people, and was elected. Unfortunately, extreme gerrymandering has given small town, small minded Representatives in the State Legislature too much power and they will not compromise, or listen to differing points of view. Testimony was heard for many hours, at 2 minutes per person, during the lame duck session. Not one single person spoke in favor of the legislation, but R's voted in favor. Many people testifying had travelled from other parts of the state. R's actually stated that the people in Madison are to be ignored.
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@Lois but they do have access to Fox News.
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@Lois
The source of news in rural areas is often radio... right wing radio.
29
This is, of course, primarily about race, with white grievance the primary driving force behind this push to give rural areas disproportionate political power. Think this is an exaggeration? What do you think would happen if the rural areas were disproportionately black, while the cities were overwhelmingly white and blue collar? I guarantee you that suddenly the "real" people would be the city-folk, while the black rural people would be "the other." So this is more about race than it is simply about rural vs. urban.
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@Raindog63, Your point is taken, however in WI "the other" includes a variety of people, as the state is overwhelmingly white (Milwaukee being the exception). Some examples of disdained groups: "people from Illinois"(regardless of color); "liberals" (Madison, home of the UW flagship campus); anyone who does not "deer hunt"; spiritual/religious views not historically represented in northern Europe; "women" of all colors (unless a billionaire who donates to white male state politicians), and folks with fancy homes "up north" bigger than the traditional hunting/fishing cottage.
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My opinion, but it seems that "Conservatives", whatever that term means today, firmly believe that their cause is God's cause and since God wants them to "win". Any and all tactics employed to "just win" and permitted. Suppression of the votes of the "elite", whatever that means, minorities and the poor just "levels the playing field", since there are so many of them and so few of God's folk.
Do the "Conservatives" really believe that or do they just act like they do?
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@Dumb Engineer
A religious Christian commenting on a prior article wrote to paraphrase, 'we know they are not moral, but they are giving us what we want, so we are willing to look away.' I don't know if this helps to answer your question. Make of it what you will.Make of it what you will.
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"Legislators represent people, not trees." Reynolds v. Sims. The will of the majority should be no less worthy of respect simply because its members are geographically concentrated.
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@MT The problem is when the representation is based on gerrymandering saying like in Wisconsin when one party gets 54% of the vote but only 36% of the seats.
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@MT
Harlan II mad a very good argument that the Warren Court was amending the constitution with that decision, which the Warren Court apparently took as a mission statement rather than a ligiyimatd criticism. The principle commanded by the court for the states is directed rejected by the United States Constitution. The court adopted a definition of “Republican” form of government for the states that excludes the national government ( on which paradoxically their own legitimacy rest) as a legitimate republic.
That is the clownishness of Warren Court logic. If the decision is correct, then the supreme court is an illegitimate creation of an illegitimate Senate and their rulings have no legitimacy. So if they are right, they are wrong.
Harlan II’s dissent makes no sense and the case was wrongly decided. The will of the majority when that majority is due to overwhelming support in one community while opposed by majorities in many more communities demands less respect than a majority that is widely based among most communities in the political body.
Scott Walker is only getting back at Governor-elect Evers for beating him fair and square, and Democracy and people will only suffer. Same in Michigan. Governor-elect Whitmer is suffering from the evil jealousy of the GOP. Hope the GOP loses badly because their self-respect is gone.
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@Jen Those GOP representatives were elected via democracy so quit with anti-democratic clap-trap. Partisan move, yes, but by ELECTED folks. Nothing un-democratic about it.
@Marvin
No,they were elected because of a gerrymandered map that ensured they couldn't lose their majorities no matter what.
That is as anti-Democratic as it gets.
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@Marvin If only they had been ELECTED instead of using gerrymandering as a coup to illegitimately place themselves into power.
11
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” Vos said.
So, if you don't count the votes of the people who voted against me, I won the election. Can't argue with logic like that.
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What would state tax receipts look like without Madison and Milwaukee? The rural areas want to impose taxation without representation.
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Uh, only real people vote Republican.
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@woodlawner I live in red state California. Folls here want blue state CA to pay for their schools, roads, and whatever but to otherwise hands off. When they discuss funding the first thing they talk about is getting grants from Sacramento.
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This is just another example of how modern politics is more about "winning" than about the intention of our elected politicians to do what is right for (their!) society as a whole. It's not new, but in the era of Trumpism it has reached a new pinnacle of cynicism and hypocrisy. I must agree with Tim's comment, that right now "Republicans ... are: a clear and present danger to democracy." Somehow we need to convince Americans that a middle way is the only way forward. Super left and super right is nonsense.
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elections are about representing people, not geography. government serves the people, not geography
this is super frustrating to hear these talking points. so lame
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@George what is lame is essentially disenfranchising a majority of the electorate because they don't happen to vote for Republicans.
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@George The U.S. system, revolutionary in its inception and still remarkable today, was SPECIFICALLY comprised so that small and rural areas would not be bullied by cities.
The French Revolution devolved into murderous madness because the "enrage" of the Parisian underclass intimidated the national assembly and Robspierre rode their unbridled anger to power.
The over-representation of rural communities in Congress has tempered the U.S. from moving too fast and risking destruction.
If you live in the cities, don't worry your city laws are already supremely liberal and your day to day lives will remain unmolested by slightly conservative state houses. If only the rural folks could say the same when dems take state and national power...
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@Arturo "The U.S. system, revolutionary in its inception and still remarkable today, was SPECIFICALLY comprised so that [the slave states]would not be bullied by [the free states].
There, fixed it for you.
3
The GOP is giving democracy a bad name.
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Wow! An entire article about racism without one mention of racism. The "concentration of Democrats" in a small number of areas is the result of racist housing regulations across the country. There's a reason that Blacks were concentrated in the South Side. A lot of minorities would not like to be "concentrated" in inner cities, but they were systematically excluded from suburbs (read "The Color of Law").
And on top of that, Republicans systematically gerrymandered districts to pack Blacks and Hispanics into a few limited districts, while creating safe districts for their own candidates.
The notion that people in the city aren't real people, don't count, and should be excluded is repeated in all sorts of ways: Barack Obama isn't really an "American," he "doesn't share our values", "he wasn't born here."
Time for The Times to label racism as racism.
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@Sean From my perspective as a middle-aged Wisconsin native (and white, btw) who still visits the state frequently, your comment is exactly on point.
10
Great post from Shaun. He mentions Richard Rothstein’s book The Color Of Law on how structural racism has shaped our Political geography. I would also recommend Ira Katznelson’s book When Affirmative Action Was White, detailing the structural racism that infected otherwise wonderful programs in the New Deal and postwar programs like the GI Bill
7
@Sean
Democrats did the packing of minorities creating ghetto communities. Gerrymandering Republicans just drew lines around the communities, giving them the opportunity to express their will as a community.
This is nothing short of the hijacking of democracy, and the practice is hardly limited to Wisconsin.
Never let it be said or understood that today's Republican Party, anywhere, has the slightest respect or commitment to the core principles of democratic rule. The GOP is simply not interested in it, rigging the system to retain partisan power even when voted out of power by the electorate.
If the Wisconsin example fails to persuade, look no further than the efforts to short-circuit electoral politics in North Carolina, Michigan and Georgia, to mention but a few GOP jurisdictions where votes are suppressed or election results annulled for the illegitimate sustenance of power.
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@John lebaron
Hasn’t democracy been “hijacked” several times already. I am remembering hearing cries of “hijack” in the 2000 election, when Mitch McConbel declared to opposition to Obama’s agenda, when Trump was elected, and every third day since. How many times can the same democracy be hijacked? Isn’t it time for democracy to get more creative in its victimization?
What a pathetic argument to justify cynical, corrupt overthrow of the will of the voters. It's time to treat Republicans as what they are: a clear and present danger to democracy.
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@Tim
They're not just a clear and present danger to democracy; the GOP is a criminal syndicate that belongs in federal prison for massive violations of the Constitution and federal voting rights.
4
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” he said. “We would have all five constitutional officers and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature.”
Seems only fair to take their tax revenue out of the formula as well. Lets see how they feel about it then.
You hear a lot of dog whistles about "public sector paychecks" and "welfare queens" from people in areas that are heavily subsidized by the Milwaukees and Madisons of the country. let them foot the bill next time a tornado flattens their town.
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What a terrible headline... Parroting what Republicans are using as the flimsiest of excuses to gerrymander and grab power is inexcusable.
The question is a non-issue. All voters are 'Real' voters and that should be that. Wisconsinite Republicans changed the rules while Scott Walker was in power. Now, in the lame duck session after said power was lost in November, they're changing the rules back to foil incoming Democrats. That's all there is to it. The question is a fake one designed to spur a fake debate and deflect the conversation from what it ought to be: how far we've moved from democracy in the states and federal level.
Watch congressional Republicans attempt to do some rather undemocratic things in the House of Representatives, for the same reasons.
This GOP is owned and operated by the oligarchy and the oligarchy doesn't want to cede the power it lost. It's as simple as that. Rural workers are no more equal than anyone else in this nation.
The constitution badly needs a reboot before we start seeing the same sights we are seeing in France.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-2ZW
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@Rima Regas do you want today's Republican Party changing the Constitution to suit the will of their narrow-minded, insular Base while also further exacerbating the wealth/power divide in the Nation?
2
I thought that it was generally understood that, when a headline poses a question, the answer is preemptively "no." The's even a name for that presumption, "Betteridge's Law."
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@Rima Regas
The constitution is what protects us from what is happening in France, the rural areas in rebellion against a capital that ignores their concerns. Thanks to the Electoral College and the Senate, s half dozen metropoli on the coast don’t completely rule the country and grow deaf to the rest that have to rebel and shut down the nation to be heard.
2