Let's not forget the goal of good government...

We are two and a half weeks out from the November 3rd midterm election. It is essential that all of us do whatever we can to get the message out to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot. I always feel that on election night, if I know that I have worked as hard as I can, then I am at peace when I put my head on the pillow. I am asking the same of all of you.

My door-knocking partner, Deb Spiering, and I have been out the past two weekends, and we will continue until the last weekend of Get Out the Vote (GOTV). I am not being preachy, just practical. Find what you are comfortable doing and do it.

The purpose of good government is to make life better for the people they govern. Tom Tiffany will be Donald Trump with a different combover. In 2010, before the November election, I was running a teachers' union meeting in Port Washington. I told my members that if Scott Walker was elected they would never see another collective bargaining agreement with our school district again. In 2011, the Republicans, Governor Scott Walker, and state legislators including Tom Tiffany and Glenn Grothman, passed Act 10. Not only did it strip the ability for most public unions (not the Milwaukee fire and police unions because they endorsed Walker) to collectively bargain, but it also gutted funding of more than a billion dollars from public schools. The majority of that was cut from public K-12 schools. They also took an axe to the DNR. They took a knife to shared revenue for our communities. All of those actions have driven up local property taxes and created the need for non-ending referendums. When we share the costs statewide, it is cheaper for all of us.

So what does this mean and why should we care? If Tiffany wins, he will stack his cabinet and his committees, just like his hero Donald Trump, with boot-licking anti-public-good cronies. We had eight years of Governor Tony Evers playing goalie, and he vetoed some really dangerous Republican-driven laws. That is why the Republicans put the three constitutional amendments on the ballot: to circumvent the legislative process. So make no mistake, if Tiffany wins, Scott Walker’s work to make Wisconsinites’ lives worse will look moderate.

Meanwhile, according to our favorite scholar Heather Cox Richardson, “This afternoon, the President of the United States posted two videos of lions and tigers attacking humans. Either he has entirely lost it, or he is desperate for a distraction, or both.” What the heck? The family of the mentally ill man who was mauled and eventually killed has asked Trump to take them down. It is clear that Trump will continue to do anything and everything to thumb his nose at his enemies. He is one sick human.

Then there is the fact that J.D.Vance has vowed to remove more than 760,000 enrollees from the ACA, citing fraud. Again from HRC: “It turns out the attacks on Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico were probably an attempt to get ahead of yet another damaging story about Trump’s hand-picked Republican Texas Senate candidate, Ken Paxton. Yesterday Elizabeth Findell, Mark Maremont, and Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal reported that Paxton spent New Year’s Eve in 2024 in Dubai, partying with a woman who was not his wife, along with two fugitives from U.S. justice.

The fugitives with whom Paxton was hanging out were wanted on federal healthcare fraud charges. They allegedly embezzled $15 million from a Chicago hospital, and one of them was charged with receiving at least $195 million from the U.S. government for fraudulent Covid-19 tests.

One of the men donated $190,000 to Paxton, $25,000 of it after he was indicted.”

This is who Republicans have become. If any folks knock on your door on behalf of Tom Tiffany and his gang of Republican liars, ask them what they have done about corporate health care fraud.

Look through our newsletter for the various opportunities to connect, and show up to support our candidates. Remember next week’s County Party meeting will start at 6:30 so we can watch the Crowley vs. Tiffany debate together. Bring a snack or sweet to share; we will provide beverages.

Thanks for reading.

Deb Dassow