This swing state's spring elections are a test of MAGA's nihilism

Wisconsinites voted for Donald Trump by a narrow margin in November. Does that mean a majority of voters here want to cancel farmers’ federal contracts, shut down Head Start centers across the state and turn loose Elon Musk to feed federal agencies into the woodchipper while hoovering up private citizens’ financial information?

The new Trump era is putting Republican nihilism to the test. In our closely divided swing state, the first official indication of whether Trump voters are developing buyers’ remorse will come, fittingly, on April Fool’s Day.

In the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, candidate Brad Schimel has received Elon Musk’s endorsement and is benefitting from a huge ad buy by Musk’s political action committee. And while some Republicans have expressed qualms about Trump and Musk’s assertions that they have unchecked power to ride roughshod over judges and the U.S. Constitution, Schimel has, notably, sided with Trump and Musk against the courts.

Last month, Schimel took to Vicki McKenna’s rightwing talk radio show to denounce the prosecution and sentencing of the Jan. 6 rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol after Trump lost in 2020, saying juries in Washington, D.C., were too liberal to deliver a fair verdict. Recently, on the same talk radio program, he criticized federal judges for blocking the ransacking of federal agencies by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), accusing the judges of “acting corruptly” by daring to issue temporary restraining orders.

The race between Schimel and Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford will determine the ideological balance of the Court and, it seems, whether a majority of justices believe in the integrity of the court system at all.

Also on the April 1 ballot is the race for state schools superintendent, which pits a lobbyist for the private school voucher industry against a defender of public schools — an existential choice as the growth of schools vouchers is on track to bankrupt our state’s public school system and enrollment caps on voucher programs are set to come off next year.

The ideological struggle over the future of our state was on stark display this week as Gov. Tony Evers presented his budget plan — an expansive vision that uses the state surplus to boost funding for K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin, health care, clean water and rural infrastructure, and leaves a cushion to help protect communities against what Evers called the “needless chaos caused by the federal government” under Trump.

In a familiar ritual, Republican legislators immediately shot down Evers’ plan, denounced it as “reckless spending” and promised to throw it in the trash and replace it with a stripped-down alternative based on austerity and tax cuts.

“Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump and his agenda to cut spending and find inefficiency in government,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declared.

But did they?

It’s not clear that most Wisconsinites wanted what Trump and Musk are delivering — cuts to health care and veterans’ services, the claw-back of infrastructure projects, mass firings at the park service and the chaotic suspension of promised federal funds for child care and other essential services in Wisconsin.

For generations, Republicans have complained about “red tape” and “big government” and promised “freedom” and lower taxes to constituents who liked the sound of all that. Under Trump, we are seeing anti-government ideology reach its full, unchecked fruition. Trump’s No. 1 private donor, the richest man in the world, is laughing all the way to the bank. He’s using his access to trillions of dollars in taxpayer funds to cancel food programs for poor children and to bolster federal contracts that enrich himself.

This, in the end, is what privatization is all about — taking the collective wealth of millions of people who contribute to maintaining a decent, healthy society and concentrating it in the hands of one very rich, self-interested man.

The long-term, existential struggle between private wealth and the public good in Wisconsin includes the fight over whether to fund public schools or give away money to subsidize the tuition of private school families. It includes whether to be the second-to-last state to finally offer 12 months of postpartum Medicaid coverage to new mothers — something even our Republican legislators support, minus Vos. The two sides of our divided government are locked in a battle over whether our universities, public parks, infrastructure, clean water and affordable housing are a boondoggle or something we ought to protect.

Trump USDA funding freeze causing farmers major hardship

Post reporters Daniel Wu and Gaya Gupta, in an article published on February 20, explain, "The Post spoke with farmers and farm organizations in 10 states who had contacted their congressional delegations about the USDA funding freeze. Some farmers from conservative-leaning districts said they have received no reply. Others said they were told that their representatives supported the (Trump) Administration's decision — and some representatives appeared to suggest that Trump's funding freeze was not affecting farmers at all. A federal judge, last week, ordered the Agriculture Department to release all withheld funds, but the farmers The Post spoke to said they had not yet received any of that money."

"Some of those farmers have been stymied by members of Congress backing Trump. In Maryland, Laura Beth Resnick contacted Rep. Andy Harris (R) to make sure the USDA would fulfill a contract to help fund the installation of solar panels on her flower farm in Harford County…. Hoppy Henton, who farms corn, soybeans, wheat and cattle in Woodford County, Kentucky, said he had several USDA-funded projects underway on his farm, including erecting new fencing and managing a pasture rotation. He said he is owed more than $20,000, which he has yet to receive."

Henton "made several attempts to contact Rep. Andy Barr (R) and his staff about the issue."

"No one is calling me back….. The silence is deafening."

Iowa-based Shanon Jamison, who specializes in corn and soybeans. In late January, according to Wu and Gupta, Jamison found out "that her $69,000 federal reimbursement for a cover crop to boost soil health and slow erosion was frozen due to an executive order from President Donald Trump."

'Flying blind'

Air safety is another major concern of Trump critics, who warn that draconian cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will make flying dangerous in the United States.

Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation safety consultant and former FAA official, told Politico, "I would argue that every job at the FAA right now is safety critical….. (These cuts) certainly (are) not going to improve safety — it can only increase the risk."

Similarly, an aeronautical information specialist who was laid off because of the Trump Administration/DOGE downsizing told Politico, "Air traffic controllers cannot do their work without us…. To put it frankly, without our team.... pilots would quite literally be flying blind."

The aviation expert, interviewed on condition of anonymity, argued that the Trump Administration and DOGE fail to understand the importance of the FAA jobs they are eliminating — and said the workers are being "targeted just as a senseless line item on an Excel sheet."

"The first wave of White House-ordered firings at the Federal Aviation Administration included employees who play important roles in the safety of air travel — despite the Trump Administration's assurances that no 'critical' staff had been axed. More than 130 of the eliminated workers held jobs that directly or indirectly support the air traffic controllers, facilities and technologies that the FAA uses to keep planes and their passengers safe, according to the union that represents them, the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists. That alone creates reason for concern about the impact of the cuts, people familiar with the terminations said, even if the initial firings spared the air traffic controllers themselves."

The White House said today that the court orders that are blocking his illegal federal funding freeze are a “weaponization” of the justice system that’s provoking a “constitutional crisis.” That's the pretext for saying later that the only way to right such a wrong and resolve such a crisis is to ignore the courts altogether. No law will constrain him. No Congress will remove him. If he does not die in office, he will not leave.

As the fact of Trump’s tyranny sinks in – to the point where even the most privileged liberal understands that he’s no lame duck. Unless he dies in office, of disease or old age, he’s not leaving.

To be sure, the prevailing wisdom is that can’t possibly happen. The 22nd Amendment says no one can be elected more than twice. But such belief overlooks reality.

A new advocacy group, the Third Term Project — which has adopted a Caesar-like Trump image as its logo — is dedicated to upending the 22nd Amendment so that Trump can serve a third term.

“We believe that, you know, Trump is the Caesar figure that America has needed. You know, Trump is a Napoleonic figure that has emerged to lead our country,” the Third Term Project’s Shane Trejo told reporters earlier. “Some leftists might, you know, get triggered, they might get angry at stuff like this, but we think that's part of the problem. So we're playing into that.”

A few minutes later, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted an AI-generated image of Trump wearing a crown and a cloak with the New York City skyline in the background, with Trump's "LONG LIVE THE KING" Truth Social post underneath. And shortly after, the official White House X account reposted the text of Trump's Truth Social post, and added an image of Trump wearing a gold crown and the text "LONG LIVE THE KING" at the bottom.

Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales launched a fresh election bid Thursday ahead of polls in August, in defiance of a constitutional term limit and pending criminal charges.

"We will win," Morales told reporters in his political fiefdom of Cochabamba in central Bolivia in announcing his run.

We have a demented criminal president and he will watch this closely.

No one can afford to believe evil has an expiration date. It is evil, because it’s evil, and all we can do with it is fight it knowing the cost will be great and dear.