WisGOP doesn't care about the worst disparities in America. But Capitol vandalism? THEY'RE ON IT!

I’ve got a few thoughts after last night’s “action” at the Capitol. I’m enraged for a few reasons.

First, I’ll talk about the incident that seems to have precipitated the anger from last night. I’ve frequented Cooper’s Tavern on the Capitol Square in my time on the Mad City, so I know where this is (nice place, good beer). I can't say I've ever had a guy follow me into there with a baseball bat and yelling into a megaphone, and he rightfully got the boot for doing so.



All he had to do was keep it on the street, and things might have been OK. But after he was taken outside and the cops showed up, things got bad.

Four cops trying to tie a guy down for a disorderly conduct ticket seems overboard, and it deserved to be added to the list of rightful grievances that protestors have about police behavior. But the vandalism is pointless and hurts the cause. I get the whole argument of “black people are being left out of the Wisconsin that exists today and we need to wake people up”, but tearing down statues of Hans Christian Heg and Lady Forward isn’t going to get us toward a fairer, more inclusive state.

Instead, it is giving weak-minded white people the excuse they need to ignore legitimate concerns. The fact that WisGOPs did more today to condemn the vandalism and to try to pin the blame on Tony Evers than anything else they have done in their 10 WEEK PAID VACATION should tell you all you need to know.

.@GovEvers: With the City of Madison Police, State Capitol Police, WI State Troopers and the National Guard at your sole disposal, the power lies with you alone to bring an end to this destruction. Enough is enough. pic.twitter.com/CdlpbcroUV

— Rep. Jim Steineke (@RepSteineke) June 24, 2020

Wisconsin Republican state Rep. Rob Hutton says he will be introducing a bill later today that will "address the unlawful destruction of monuments and statues."

He says his office had been working on it prior to the toppling of 2 statutes outside of the state Capitol last night

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) June 24, 2020

While the Governor slept in his estate, the statehouse was under siege. We need a leader, not an apologist. Governor Evers and Mayor Rhodes-Conway have enabled this destructive and violent behavior through consistent inaction and appeasement. pic.twitter.com/tKVizTMcZW

— Sen. Chris Kapenga (@SenatorKapenga) June 24, 2020

Republican Congressman @RepTiffany, who until last month was in the state Legislature, calls for @GovEvers to resign over his handling of protests in Madisonhttps://t.co/spxML3AWxq

— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) June 24, 2020

I wish some of these people were a fraction as concerned about the lead in Milwaukee's water as they are about the bronze in Madison's statues. pic.twitter.com/yQgDty3hLG

— Tamarine Cornelius (@Tamarine608) June 24, 2020

It’s catnip to these lowlifes - they think using this incident to go off on blacks/Madison liberals is a winner in their lily-white districts. It also allows them to avoid talking about the issue of police brutality and examining the massive amount of tax dollars we spend on policing and locking people up, which is a political loser for WisGOPs in Summer 2020.

I also note that this incident comes 4 days after Governor Evers asked the gerrymandered GOP Legislature to meet to go over some policing reforms, and that the GOP Legislature has done NOTHING on it other than add that request to their already-massive dead-letter pile.

Last night’s incidents also mean that WisGOPs have less urgency to address the state’s dead-last ranking among US states for racial disparities in some statistics.

WalletHub — a personal finance website based in Washington, D.C. — assessed state-by-state disparities between white and Black residents using several measures of wealth and employment. These metrics included gaps in median annual household income, unemployment rate, labor force participation rate, homeownership rate, poverty rate, homeless rate, share of executives and share of unsheltered homeless. It used the most recently available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. …

Among the 50 states — again, not counting the District of Columbia — Wisconsin had the highest disparities between its Black and white residents in both median annual household income and labor force participation rate. WalletHub calculated a 107% racial income gap for the state, meaning that the median yearly income for a white household in Wisconsin is more than double that of a Black household.

WalletHub's analysis also indicated that Wisconsin has the second-highest poverty rate gap in the country — a 23% difference between white and Black Wisconsinites — with only Maine's being larger.

In terms of unemployment rate, Wisconsin's racial gap surpassed that of 47 other states. Wisconsin ranked 45th in terms of homeownership rate gap and 14th in the share of executives.

In fact, I’d argue that the average WisGOP politixian wants those disparities to persist. Because it allows them to soothe low-info, lower-income whites by saying “at least you’re not THOSE PEOPLE in Milwaukee/Madison/other city with African-Americans.”

It angers me that this one foolish night of vandalism is going to counteract 3-4 weeks where I had sensed the conversation changing, and that it had finally sunken in to much of comfortable white America that they need to listen to people of color and care about the unequal treatment and outcomes that exist in everyday American society.

I’m also sick of how this incident reminds me that Dems and the “left” have to act so much better than the GOP and the right. These GOPs never have to answer for all the racist behavior by MAGATs or the killing of cops by Boogaloo Boys, or any of the other heinous acts that their electoral allies pull (up to and including the President of the United States).

But the GOPs didn't hesitate to pounce on Governor Evers today and try to make Dems responsible for what these idiots did in Madison last night. And the GOPs are definitely trying to stir up the fear quotient ahead of tonight (as Tamarine Cornelius referenced, just read the Wheeler Report’s feed today). I know how this works, and it enrages me that WisGOPs will play this race-baiting game to avoid having real action.

It also shows that a “throw shit against the wall while doing nothing” strategy will be what the WisGOPs plan on for the next 4 months. It reflect the desperate spot they’re in, where their only chance of not losing big in November is to drag things down and make people vote GOP out of fear and hatred.

These actions and the GOP's misdirection play is a threat to blunt the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement and the related protests, which a strong majority of Wisconsinites favored as of last week.

In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, 61% of WI voters overall approve of the mass protests while 36% disapprove. #mulawpoll

— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) June 24, 2020

Support for “restructuring the police” is 80% among whites, 83% among Blacks, and 97% among Hispanics. #mulawpoll

— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) June 24, 2020

The last thing WisGOPs want is any kind of discussion of how Wisconsin’s disparities got so bad, why our current policing system isn't working, or how these things should be fixed. They want to turn this into resentment-based tribalism that avoids the issues entirely between now and November (outside of emotional BS like guns or religion). Which is why Evers needs to call a Special Session for next week to demand that GOPS go on the record and take action about these issues.....or not.

I bet the talk-show-driven WisGOPs don’t do anything. Because they don’t have anything beside hate radio talking points, and the rest of the state should be forced to recognize just how little these guys care about so many Wisconsinites.