April 13, 2018

The Trump Effect: Creating A Blue Wave

by Harlan Richards (author's profile)

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HARLAN RICHARDS
April 11, 2018

The Trump Effect: Creating a Blue Wave

Wisconsin held its spring election April 3rd and the results are astounding! There were two critical issues to be decided: a vacancy on the state supreme court and a referendum on whether to abolish the Office of State Treasurer.

Rebecca Dallet, a progressive, won the supreme court judgeship with 56% of the vote. Her opponent, Michael Schrenock, was a probusiness, Republican, Scalia-clone. As I've commented in other blogs, Scalia believed that judges should interpret the Constitution as it existed in 1788 based on the conditions which existed back then. No right to privacy or protection of reproductive rights, no same sex marriage, no limitation on campaign donations, no regulation of electronic media, etc. For at least the last 20 years, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) has dominated Wisconsin judicial elections and repeatedly won elections for the conservative candidates and repeatedly won elections for the conservative candidates it has supported. It even successfully unseated an incumbet progressive supreme court judge in a 2002, something unheard of until then.

Progressives have finally said enough is enough. After eight years of Scott Walker gutting environmental regulations, cutting taxes for the wealthy, giving billions in tax breaks to corporations, refusing to fix our deteriorating roads and driving the state ever deeper into debt, it is time for change. But what I think mobilized progressives even more than Gov. Walker's policies was Donald Trump. I had thought George Bush was the worst president we would ever have in my lifetime. But I was wrong.

Donald Trump is an irrational, erratic, pathological liar. It is jaw-dropping the way he tells lies and denies the truth day in and day out. His supporters, true believers in his insane policies, follow him blindly. It was amusing to hear soy bean farmers on the news (Trump supporters) express puzzlement about how their demigod could have put their profits into jeopardy by starting a trade war with China.

Don't get me wrong. We need to balance trade with China. But we're not going to accomplish anything the way he is doing it. We need a labor and environmental tariff. Any country that does not have wages and environmental laws comparable to ours should be charged a tariff on its products equal to the cost of producing goods as if they paid the same wages and protected their environment. That would give China (and other countries) an incentive to raise wages and clean up their pollution to reduce tariffs. But I digress.

Republicans have been trying to abolish the Office of State Treasurer for years so they can pillage state government without any oversight from a department whose job it is to protect the state's finances. The final step is changing the state constitution requires a referendum where the citizens can decide whether the state constitution should be changed. By a margin wider than the supreme court race, voters rejected abolishing the state treasurer. They made it clear that they do not want the fox guarding the hen house. The winds of change are blowing, but not in the direction Gov. Walker wants them to blow.

Gov. Walker was recently court-ordered to hold two special elections for an open seat in the senate and assembly. He tried to deny it until November, but the court disallowed that stalling tactic. Gov. Walker fears that the progressive backlash will flip those seats to Democrats and hoped to prevent that until next year. I predict that the Democrats will make gains in the special elections and in the November elections. Progressives are motivated to do whatever it takes to regain control and put our country back on the path to progress. I personally will benefit if a Democrat is elected governor because I'll have a chance at a fair parole hearing and a realistic chance at release on parole.

Congratulations, Justice Dallet. May you dispense justice from the bench with the wisdom of Solomon and the duration of Methuselah.

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