Tuesday, Wisconsin has the chance to reelect a truly kind and decent man who is also a really effective governor, Tony Evers. This week his Republican opponent announced: “Republicans will never lose another election after I’m elected governor.” His people tried to backtrack afterwards and say he will do such a good job everyone will always forever after vote for Republicans all the time. That wasn’t what he was saying. He is a 2020 election denier who plans to abolish Wisconsin’s bipartisan election commission and replace it with one he hand picks. He sold his soul to Donald Trump for his endorsement. He is in Trump’s debt.
After Citizens United unleashed unlimited corporate political spending, Wisconsin became the Republican party’s test grounds for how to turn unlimited money into election wins. What blindsided so many nationally in 2016 with Donald Trump’s election has been ongoing here since 2010. I know some of you want to believe there are some sort of safeguards protecting our democracy or possibly some sort of protective netting preventing Republicans from sinking beyond a certain point. I can tell you there is not.
Wisconsin wasn’t chosen randomly to be the testing ground of unlimited spending. It was our long history of humanity, support for schools, fairness for workers, and leadership on environmental protections that brought us into the Republican party’s focus. Much of what you like about Penzeys has its roots in Wisconsin’s tradition of caring for others. It is our caring that the Republicans seek to end.
Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel has come around and done a very decent job covering just what a threat both our Republican governor and senator candidates are to the future of democracy. They don’t normally make endorsements, but they’ve realized this one is too important to sit out. Please read their well-reasoned endorsement of Tony Evers’s re-election for Governor and our Lt Governor Mandela Barnes for US Senator editorial here. (Just tap on the highlighted link). Evers and Barnes have earned Wisconsin’s support.
And maybe the root of this Tuesday’s election is to be the wake-up call America needs to save our democracy, but here in Wisconsin 2024 could be too late. Unless you’ve been here these last twelve years, you can’t imagine the depths of corruption that are now accepted as commonplace in our state’s Republican party. I won’t bog this down with the numbers, but Wisconsin is so very corruptly gerrymandered. It is amazing that this year there is still hope, but that hope hangs by a thread.
Please, if you know someone in Wisconsin forward to them this email or at least the link to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsements. Better yet, give them a call. We are nice people to talk to. Republicans have to cheat here because the majority of us are good and decent people, but after a dozen years of this, some of those good and decent people are exhausted. This cycle’s relentless Republican ads of nonstop lies, anger, and racism have been brutal.
Please do all you can to lift the spirits of anyone you know who lives here in Wisconsin. Against all odds this one’s coming down to the wire. Victory, and with it the survival of democracy, here is still very much within our reach. Your encouragement can make all the difference. Wisconsin isn’t Las Vegas. Nothing stays here. What happens in Wisconsin first happens to all of America next. Please don’t sit on the sidelines while Republicans end our democracy. Please help.
Thanks,
Bill
bill@penzeys.com
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The GOP has no plans for anything except maximum disruption of society and fanning the flames of the “culture wars.”
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever,
PWS
11-03-22