The Great Purple State

In this episode, Conall and Emerson discuss the upcoming high stakes supreme court election that will determine the fate of things like Wisconsin's abortion ban, voting rights, and fair maps in the state. We explain our endorsement of Janet Protasiewicz and encourage others to vote for her!

In this final episode of our episode on Derrick Van Orden, the Republican congressional candidate for Wisconsin's Third District , Conall and Emerson make our case for why he represents a threat to Wisconsin's democracy. From his embrace of Trump's election lies to his attendance at the January 6th rally, these render him unfit to serve the people of Wisconsin's Third. 

We also analyze the state of Wisconsin's democracy and how other Republicans like Tim Michels and Ron Johnson also represent a threat to it - and why it's important for us to vote on November 8th to uphold Wisconsin's democracy, protect abortion rights, and more. 

In this episode, Emerson and Conall dive into the culture wars the right has been waging against LGBTQ content, and how Derrick Van Orden's harassment of a teenage library page in Prairie du Chien proves his unfitness for office. We also discuss the extensive issues facing a district like WI-03, including agricultural monopolies, soil depletion, underfunding for rural hospitals, lack of access to healthcare and population loss - and why the Wisconsin GOP's policies have made these problems worse.

We hope you enjoy the masterful intro by Emerson. And yes, we soon learned after we made this that Brad Pfaff's name is pronounced "Paff" - not "Faff". 

In this first episode of a mini-series on Wisconsin's 3rd House district, Conall and Emerson dive into the political dynamics of Wisconsin's 3rd district, a mostly rural district in western and central Wisconsin, and how the political winds in the district have shifted as of late.

We also spend time recapping some highlights from Derrick Van Orden, the 2020 Republican candidate for the district running again in 2022, for all to know within Wisconsin and without it. Including his attendance at the January 6th conspiracy theorist rally that led to an attack on the Capitol! We will be letting our listeners know about his track record and latest antics over the next few weeks, and why we both believe he's dangerously unfit to be a congressman. 

Expect more on this to come as election season heats up, we're just getting started. 

In this emergency pod, Conall and Emerson discuss recent negative events in the world - such as the highly likely overturning of Roe v Wade, the Russian attack on Ukraine, or recent shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York. We discuss peoples' feelings of hopelessness and helplessness in times like these, and how we can work through these feelings while also orienting ourselves toward action for a better future. We also look back at the Sandy Hook shooting and what did - and didn't - change after it. 

Persistence is difficult in these circumstances, but both necessary and possible. In addition, Conall and Emerson discuss the recent successes the labor movement has had in the organizing drive at Starbucks' stores all over the country. 


LINKS TO DONATE: 
Sandy Hook Promise (https://takeaction.sandyhookpromise.org/a/foundation?source=salsa-redirect)
National Network of Abortion Funds (https://abortionfunds.org/)

Conall's note: The reverend I quote from at the end of the podcast about trauma is Roy Peeples, pastor of Turning Point Life Church. 


In this 3rd installment of a 4 part series about the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, Conall and Emerson dive into the tumult experienced by Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot by a Kenosha police officer. Centering the accounts of those most impacted, we discuss the broader political fallout from the the killings of 2 protesters by an armed vigilante and the rioting that roiled the city for several days. Among other things, we analyze why Trump was able to outperform his 2016 numbers in the Kenosha area despite losing the state. 

We close with a meditation on the nature of community trauma and how events like those that roiled Kenosha linger long after they have faded from broader public consciousness. 

In this second part of a 4 part mini series on the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, we discuss the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis and how that rippled through the country - and how it changed the presidential race. 

And how Wisconsin - a state with stark racial disparities between Black and white residents - would soon be forced to once again confront racism in its own backyard in Kenosha, all amid the backdrop of racist rhetoric and incitement by President Trump. 

In this first episode of a 4 part series, Emerson and Conall recount the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin. Remembering our experiences on that fateful election night back in November, we segue into a broader discussion of the dynamics of the election as they played out in Wisconsin (hopefully you like the general silliness in Emerson's masterful introduction). 

We go over the contentious 2020 Democratic primary leading up to Wisconsin's Democratic primary and the anxieties felt by many opponents of Trump over winning back the Midwest, including the pivotal tipping point state of Wisconsin - and with it the path back to the White House. In a lengthy discussion, Conall analyzes how the GOP tried to weaponize the upsurge of BLM protests that were sparked by the murder of George Floyd not only in Minneapolis, but also in places like Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot by a police officer. 

We also discuss the spring of 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and how that framed the many, many larger battles over voting access and voting rights in the months to come.

FACTUAL CORRECTION: Biden spoke on the night of the election in Wilmington, Delaware from the Chase Center, not from his campaign's Pennsylvania-based headquarters. 

In this episode, we discuss the insurrection and attempted coup at Capitol Hill by neofascist Trump supporters witnessed on January 6, 2021. It's a date which will live in infamy, but it was not at all unforeseeable - we discuss why antifascist warnings of this type of thing were not taken seriously and what sort of consequences there needs to be for Trump and his enablers in the GOP. 

Factual correction: If the President is convicted in the Senate, he is not barred from holding public office ever again - the Senate would need to pass a separate resolution for that, although that only requires a majority of Senators.

Sources: 
How the Pro-Trump Mob was Able to Take Over the Capitol
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/06/us/trump-mob-capitol-building.html?referrer=masthead
An Account With Many Sources Who Experienced the Attack
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/capitol-hill-riots-doj-456178
Once again citing the "I Lived Through a Stupid Coup, America is Having One Right Now" that we did in a previous pod about the election 
https://medium.com/indica/i-lived-through-a-coup-america-is-having-one-now-437934b1dac3

In this episode, Conall and Emerson conclude (for now) their discussion of the 2020 presidential election and the lasting damage that President Trump has done to constitutional government in the United States by lying about the election's integrity. We also examine the broader role that the Republican Party has played in facilitating these conspiracy theories, and discuss more generally the importance in a democracy of losing parties seeing their losses as fundamentally fair and legitimate. 

We end the episode on a more hopeful note, reaffirming that the anti-Trump forces in this country are formidable when organized, and that the power of ordinary people organizing and fighting back is what got us through the Trump era. 

Sources: 
Medium article, "I Lived Through a Stupid Coup, America is Having One Right Now" 
https://indica.medium.com/i-lived-through-a-coup-america-is-having-one-now-437934b1dac3
Snippet from Trump campaign lawsuit in 3rd Circuit Court, where Rudy Giuliani is quoting telling a federal judge under oath *in court* "this is not a fraud cause...". Judge Bibas goes on at length to dismantle the Trump campaign's arguments. 
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1332376432559984641?s=20
Full opinion of federal Judge Bibas dismantling Trump campaign legal arguments here
https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20417624-document-1 


Music rights: 

Hit the Lights by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/