APPLETON: Michael Hovde has a lot he dislikes about Donald Trump’s plan. However, he believes the stakes are much higher than just plan issues when he casts a ballot in Wisconsin, a state that is essential for electoral integrity.
” Trump, I think, is an existential risk to democracy”, the 36-year-old said as he strolled through the bustling city of Appleton, one of the most politically different areas of one of the most carefully divided US state.
He pointed to the “terrifying” individuals around the Republican magnate and to Project 2025, the governing framework written for, but formally disavowed by, Trump that may ram through his hard-right plans.
They” they really just pass and avoid checks and balances, and really sterilize the effectiveness of our political system,” Hovde said.
Not far away, past the beautiful gardens and beautiful Victorian homes in this perfectly middle-class area, Casey Stern, 58, sees the competition between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris very different.
An imposing” Trump 2024″ flag hangs above his carefully manicured lawn of wheat and zucchini. Another symbol calls for Biden‘s prosecution and says,” We the People Are Pissed”.
If the information is in-your-face, so are the responses. Stern recounts passers-by shouting epithets, while some reviewers jot down his target and take him words.
He acknowledged that Trump’s “mean posts in the middle of the night” can bother people but believes the country needs a” strong-willed” head to tackle inflation, immigration and crime.
” Every time you go to the grocery store, you ca n’t even afford a steak”, Stern said.
He blasted Democrats ‘ claims that Trump threaten democracy and that Joe Biden has stifled open debate over the Covid-19 epidemic.
” Biden has done more to hurt democracy”, he said.
– Condition of tumult
If there is one condition where the Democrats ‘ message on Trump’s threat to democracy does organize citizens, it is Wisconsin.
Previously known for fresh, pleasant, left-tilting politics, Wisconsin has become an epicenter of partisanship– an final swing state that may tip the nationwide.
Trump won a tight election to sulk out careless Democrats. In 2020, Biden resurrected Wisconsin by a razor-thin ratio.
A turning point had come in 2010 when Scott Walker, a fresh Republican who some presumed would regard Wisconsin’s mild-mannered social fashion, was elected government and unleashed sweeping changes.
He stripped power from Wisconsin’s once-formidable labor unions, and his Republicans drastically redrew election maps, virtually guaranteeing party control of the state legislature.
Democrats hope that in the November 5 election, which will be contested by the new liberal majority of the state Supreme Court, Republicans will receive their victory.
Kristin Alfheim, a Democrat who is seeking a state Senate seat, said competitive maps benefit democracy.
” It brings the opportunity for accountability from both sides, knowing they’re going to need to work together”, she said.
– ‘ Democracy’ cuts both ways-
Biden and Harris have stomped on Trump’s threat to democracy, who resisted accepting his defeat in 2020 and launching the supporters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Arnold Shober, a government professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, said the democracy theme carried” special resonance” in Wisconsin after its experience with Walker, who was voted out in 2018.
But Shober said it cut both ways, with some Republicans still smarting over the boisterous, albeit nonviolent, protests that disrupted the state’s capitol when Walker pushed through his anti-union measure, known as Act 10.
” When you talk about January 6 in Wisconsin, folks on the right will instantly say, well, what about those Democrats with Act 10″? Shober said.
They view it almost as an equity issue, they say. You did it– we can do it, too”.
– Refusing vitriol-
The historic home to giant paper mills and now the base for major white-collar employers, Outagamie County, of which Appleton is the seat, was dominated by Republicans and produced the notorious anti-communist witch-hunter Joe McCarthy.
But in a microcosm of the country, an urban-rural split has deepened, with Democrats gaining in an increasingly cosmopolitan Appleton.
Tom Nelson, a Democrat who is supportive of socialist Bernie Sanders, has won in the elections for Outagamie County since 2011, despite his concerns that the political climate is getting worse with Trump.
” He has animated that vitriol, that contempt, that hatred”, he said.
Nelson claimed that he has been able to cross the line on a more fundamental issue.
Fundamentally, he said, people want” to be able to live in a community that is safe, that is healthy, that has a strong and vibrant economy”.
