Photo credit: Benson Kua
By the time this column appears, the April 7 election results will have been announced providing the Wisconsin Election Commission managed to sort out the mess and figured out which votes to count and which to reject based on the machinations of both our local Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States. Whatever the results, our Election Day debacle made international headlines.
The Russian government TV program, RT (formerly Russia Today), took a decidedly pro-Republican tone in its coverage and blamed Governor Evers. The German center-right newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however, analyzed the Republican strategy of forcing an in-person election in the context of its current attempt to purge 220,000 individuals from Wisconsin’s voter registry. That will require a Supreme Court decision. Maintaining a State Supreme court majority at all costs as its goal, Republican leaders decided to achieve that end by risking the health and even death of Wisconsin voters. Mass gathering dangers be damned, it would be full speed ahead, defying logic with Robin “Covidiot” Vos leading the charge in his hazmat suit declaring voting in the middle of a killer pandemic was absolutely safe. Even the German newspaper account seemed flummoxed by the irony.
But it worked. Despite an amazingly defiant electorate that braved the risk of viral exposure, many simply could not overcome their well-justified fears of contracting the disease. Today health care professionals anticipate a potential spike in infections because of it.
Meanwhile, the regime has voiced its skepticism about mail-in ballots and seems to be on the verge of dismantling the United States Post Office to make them impossible, anyway.
Although election’s focal point was primarily the Supreme Court justice, Wisconsin also had its Democratic presidential primary and a full palette of races for local offices. However, for all intents and purposes, the thrill is already gone since contender Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign the day after. One would think that better-late-than-never decision would unify the Democrats around candidate Joe Biden. Well, not quite. As in 2016, some Bernie acolytes are not having it.
The Sanders’ campaign has a significant LGBTQ following. In fact, some are so vehement, that their social media posts could easily have been mistaken for those of agents-provocateurs. If I didn’t know the individuals personally, I would have presumed their incessant Biden bashing originated from a Russian troll farm. One listed his top five candidates. It started with Bernie at the top, of course, followed by other Democratic progressives. In the fourth position was our unfortunate Republican incumbent and then, in last place, Joe Biden. In other words, he would vote against everything he stands for before he would vote for Biden. Even now, since Bernie has left the race, this individual continues to rage against the candidate apparent. And, sadly, he’s not alone. With friends like these, who needs Russians?
At this point, there’s too much at stake. Now, in the wake of failed government response to a pandemic that so far has killed over 20,000 Americans, a concerted effort by the conservative justices of both state and federal Supreme Courts to undo the democratic process of free and fair elections, and all the rest that has preceded these calamities, we need to rally around a blue candidate. LGBTQ people should understand we cannot survive another four years of the current regime.
Consider, if you will, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court and think about the Supreme Court of the United States with a similar super majority…
