Republicans don’t care unless it directly impacts them. Rand Paul went swimming in the Capitol Pool and had lunch with other Republicans after his diagnosis. How many Republican members still refuse to wear a mask on the floor?
These people are following Trump’s political bullshit and made not wearing masks and skipping vaccines a political statement- it has become their party’s platform.
Even before that. The WI Legislature was working hard since early 70s. And before that, with Joseph McCarthy… I met a lovely lady, long ago, whose mother actually taught my mother piano lessons. She was an actress and a blacklisted target of McCarthyism. Her name was Gale Sondergaard. Look her up:
Instead of the elephant as their party symbol how about this…
It fits their anti-science and anti-medicine attitudes better.
You forgot LGBTQ people.
I don’t do acronyms well
OK… LGBTQ, did I miss anybody? If so I apologize.
The story about Parsons hiding important information because it contradicted his public political position points out the evil that in inherent in the modern Republican party.
Missouri is an interesting case. Time after time the citizens of Missouri vote in ballot measures aimed at reigning in Republicans and time after time the ballot initiatives are thwarted. If the national Democratic party just did minimal organizing in Missouri it would go at least purple. It isn’t as red as the national party believes.
Even the woke got tired and lumped everyone else into a ‘+’ category.
woke?
That word has been abused. And it implies the Goobers are not awake and, well, that makes sense in a way.
That set of people who would rather obsess about their pronouns than defend their civil rights.
Are you a Democrat? What have you done? Do you think it was enough? Are you doing more (than complaining here)?
WAD, organized crime became quite sophisticated in the years since LBJ occupied the White House. Now it exerts strong control of certain parts of mass media as well as complete control of the Republican Party. Upon the rise of Joe McCarthy, H.L. ‘Bucky’ Hunt declared that the U.S. is not a democracy, that is is a republic. And he said that democracy is the same as communism… A few supreme court justices are such believers.
Alot of the silence comes down to media. When I was a kid (‘70s/‘80s), Milwaukee had a lefty paper, the Journal, and a righty paper, the Sentinel (I might be mixing them up, IDK – I was a kid!). Then the Sentinel bought the Journal and fired the lefties. Smaller city newspapers died or withered with as the Internet destroyed their commercial models. Rush Limbaugh and his mini-mes (like somewhat repentant never-trumper Charlie Sykes) activated and radicalized many of our old white folks even before they got hooked up to Fox News’ drip feed of fear and loathing. The once-mighty organized labor presence in the state was on its last gasp even before The Kochs’ sock puppet Scott Walker put the final nail in the coffin, and with it went the labor press.
You could say the thing about Texas too. The Democratic Party headquarters in many counties don’t even bother to answer their phones anymore. So by some odd chance that one might want to run for office and get their name on the ballot as a Democrat, forget it. With the exception of Governor, Lt Governor and Attorney General, it is manifest that there be but one name on the ballot for every other elected state/local office and that name better have an R next to it.
In fact, I wouldn’t put past Republicans if they’ve taken over all the Democratic Party headquarter offices in Texas which would explain why Democrats are literally non existent. Yeah sure Beto’s running. But no other Democrats are getting any local help. Because the local offices won’t even answer their bloody phones much less have Democrats actually show up to work.
You have it right, mostly. The Milwaukeee Journal was good, one of the best in its day.-- I read the Green Sheet starting when I was three. Loved it. And then read the rest of the newspaper when I was a little older, say 6 tthrough 15, when I left high school. Then I went to Madison, and I read the NYT. The “Urinal Sentinel” was always crap. Here’s a little history, from WIKI (not that they are authoritative, just that it’s an introduction):
The Journal was started in 1882, in competition with four other English-language, four German- and two Polish-language dailies. Its first editor was Lucius Nieman, who wanted to steer the paper away from the political biases and yellow journalism common at the time. Nieman was an innovative and crusading editor. The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service was awarded to The Milwaukee Journal in 1919 “for its strong campaign for Americanism in a constituency where foreign elements made such a policy hazardous from a business point of view”.[ citation needed ]
The Journal followed the Sentinel into broadcasting. The Journal purchased radio station WKAF in 1927, changing its call letters to WTMJ. It later launched an FM station, W9XAO, in 1940; it was later called W55M, WMFM, WTMJ-FM, WKTI-FM, WLWK-FM, and, now, WKTI. WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee’s first television station, went on the air in 1947.[ citation needed ]
Nieman’s successor, Harry J. Grant, introduced an employee stock purchase plan in 1937 and, as a result, 98% of Journal stock was held by its employees. A small bloc of Journal stock was given to Harvard College, and funded the Nieman Fellowship program for promising journalists.[ citation needed ]
Competing with two raucous Hearst papers filled with gossip, features and comic strips, Harry Grant took a more sober approach to news presentation, emphasizing local news. During his years as editor and publisher, the Journal received several Pulitzers and other awards from its peers; it was under Grant that the Journal gained a reputation as a leading voice of moderate midwestern liberalism. During the 1950s, the Journal was outspoken in its opposition to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his search for communist influence in government, which perhaps inflated the Journal 's reputation for liberalism.[ citation needed ]
At its circulation peak in the early 1960s, the Journal sold about 400,000 copies daily and 600,000 on Sunday. The Journal was a Monday-through-Saturday afternoon broadsheet, containing its distinctive Green Sheet, also publishing Sunday mornings. Though circulation had declined from its peak, it still held a rare position for an afternoon paper, dominating its market up until 1995, when the Journal and Sentinel were consolidated.
It’s the damned conservative party gone fascist. It’s cowards like Mitt Romney. And it’s the lack of understanding how all politics are all about morality, among the democrats. It’s the fucking Republicans who are ruthless, hateful, greedy and punishing anyone of decency, poverty, weak mindedness or the otherwise vulnerable. Demcrats are not racists, nihilists or out to get anyone. They are like the Neanderthals vs. the Cro Magnon, and guess who won that evolutionary battle?
The democrats, you and me, are being called on to get the story straight. The evidence for all the above is right out in the open. The US has become another 1930’s Germany. Many differences of course, but that’s the gist of it. Too many people, too much anger and self indulgence, too few ways to get the message out, cold war tactics going completely unimpeded by our failed systems, a neutered justice system, a broken system of play by humane rules having been trashed. This is happening NOW and HERE, and we are as democrats unable to steer clear of it. But we must. Pound on your reps ruthlessly to enact election protections. Pound on the justice system to fucking get its act together, not just saying we live by the rule of law and faking all their bullshit excuses. All the apologist lawyers, wake up and change. Then there’s the “media” gone mad and bought and sold by the rich.
Yeah, right, I know, I’m ranting and preaching to the choir. But we’d better sing a progressive tune because otherwise we are literally all gonna die sooner than anyone can imagine, if not literally then at least figuratively.
The worst part is not being able to clean up the court until 2023 given how their terms work, but hopefully the voters will take Roggensack, Hagedorn, Ziegler and the Bradleys down and start winding back the evil that has permeated WI since 2011.
That’s the plan. We voted a hack off the court in the middle of the pandemic when Vos said it was perfectly safe (in a hazmat suit) to come out and vote.
Well, the Dems took him up on it and sent the hack packing.
We know we have to do a couple more to get the court back into reality. Stay tuned.
Beyond WI, Republicans are all in this together. They all support each other. So the antidemocratic, i.e., fascist, party needs to be destroyed before it succeeds in destroying our fragile and rather tattered democracy.
But the Republican party won’t be destroyed anytime soon. Quite the opposite.
Charlie Sykes, as far as I know was a big deal in Milwaukee and Fox Valley Right-Wingification. He was very effective and widely listened to. At least that was the impression, I am not in that market and didn’t follow him, but he seemed to be a Kingmaker and able to eviscerate statewide Dem candidates. Lots of other forces were at play also, but he was very central to brainwashing the largest metro area and all it’s more affluent suburbs. Fairly well to do and dense belt of population.
@dominic
Seems Republicans have discovered continually blowing up the stadium is more effective than trying to field a competitive team.
May this be so! I presume you are back in the Midwest? Ready to start the next gigs? I wish you the best, and stay warm!!!