Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Category: Politics

“Sometimes you had to fight it, sometimes you had to deal with it”

Here’s an interesting perspective from Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan:
“Foreign policy was not, therefore, a contest of good vs. evil. To condemn negotiations as appeasement, Kennan told a Princeton University audience early in October, was to end a Hollywood movie with the villain shot. To entrust diplomacy to lawyers was to relegate power, ‘like sex, to a realm in which we see it only occasionally, and then in a highly sublimated and presentable form.’ Both approaches ignored the fact that most international conflicts were ‘jams that people have gotten themselves into.’ Trying to resolve them through rigid standards risked making things worse. Evil existed, to be sure: the Soviet regime reflected it, as had Nazi Germany. Sometimes you had to fight it, sometimes you had to deal with it. The important question was ‘what sort of compromises we make,’ not how to ‘escape altogether the necessity of making such compromises.'”

Putin “Wins”

It’s laughable but carries a warning we should heed.

Vladimir Putin was always going to claim his fifth term as president with a landslide, faced with three other candidates all rubber-stamped by the Kremlin.

But when election officials said results gave him more than 87% of the vote, he said Russia’s democracy was more transparent than many in the West.

In truth no credible opposition candidate was allowed to stand.

We laugh and scorn Putin because we believe this to have been an illegitimate election. Without the consent of the governed as conferred through a fair and legitimate election, Putin’s office lacks legitimacy. Putin lacks legitimacy.

The same is true in America. As our elections become slipshod and the current administration is attempting to imprison bona fide political opponents, our leaders and our government becomes illegitimate. We are not yet near the laughable status of a Russian election, but it’s a spectrum – not a point.

Biden’s Getting Frustrated by Israel

Huh. It’s almost as if Israel is a sovereign nation fighting an existential threat and isn’t concerned with the ravings of a senile American president and his domestic political concerns.

WASHINGTON — The White House is considering options for how to respond if Israel defies President Joe Biden’s repeated warnings against launching a military invasion of Rafah without a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians, according to one former and three current U.S. officials.

 

The discussions are taking place amid growing concern in the administration and frustration among congressional Democrats that the president’s pleas will simply be ignored. Israel this week inched closer to initiating an incursion into the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.

 

“Time and again, President Biden calls upon the Netanyahu government to take certain actions, and for the most part, time and again, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu ignores the president of the United States. And so I think that makes the United States look ineffective,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., in an interview.

Blacks Less Likely to Buy Biden’s “Treat to Democracy” Rhetoric

There is a deep cultural memory in the American Black community of the government abusing their power to victimize people. The lawfare against Trump is as anti-American as what many Blacks endured for a century. That being said, I don’t expect Blacks to abandon Biden in any serious numbers.

Biden’s Black supporters, who make up about a fifth of his political base, were considerably less likely than his white backers to respond in the poll that they were voting to stop Trump, 37% to 65%.

 

Black Democrats were also less likely than white Democrats to say they were worried about a presidential candidate stealing an election or partisan state legislatures overturning its results. Black voters in the U.S. have skewed heavily Democratic for decades.

Biden Sends $120M to Tribes for Global Warming

Question

The Biden administration will be allocating more than $120 million to tribal governments to fight the impacts of climate change, the Department of the Interior announced Thursday. The funding is designed to help tribal nations adapt to climate threats, including relocating infrastructure.

 

[…]

 

In 2022, the administration committed $135 million to 11 tribal nations to relocate infrastructure facing climate threats like wildfires, coastal erosion and extreme weather. It could cost up to $5 billion over the next 50 years to address climate-related relocation needs in tribal communities, according to a 2020 Bureau of Indian Affairs study.

Can we get some reporting on how the first $135 million was spent before we throw another $120 million into that hole? Politicians are always quick to brag about how they are spending our money, but never seem to be around to tell us what we actually got for it.

Who tf Does Schumer Think He Is?

He hasn’t done enough to screw up our country so he has to meddle in Israel? If a foreign leader were calling shots in America, we’d be livid. Rightly so. What’s Hebrew for, “go f*** yourself?”

US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has called for new elections in Israel, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prioritising his “political survival” above the country.

Mr Schumer, a Democrat and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, said Mr Netanyahu had “lost his way”.

 

He warned that huge civilian casualties in Gaza risked alienating allies and turning Israel into a global “pariah”.

It is a sharp escalation in US criticism of Mr Netanyahu’s government.

House Overwhelmingly Votes to Prohibit TikTok if Chinese Refuse to Divest

While I agree with the action, I do think it is somewhat naive. All social media apps spy on us. The only difference here is that it is a foreign actor instead of our own government.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell, as lawmakers acted on concerns that the company’s current ownership structure is a national security threat.

 

The bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.

 

TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.

 

The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. any time it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.

 

“We have given TikTok a clear choice,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences. The choice is TikTok’s.”

Choice and freedom spreading

My column for the Washington County News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

 

One of our nation’s structural supports that has provided the stability to make us the world’s oldest republic is our federalist structure. In a very geographically large and demographically diverse nation, the ability for each of the 50 states to shape public policy in accordance with the peculiarities of its citizenry is a strength — not a weakness.

 

Our federalist structure also permits each state to experiment with various policies and let other states see the effects. In recent years, we have seen states decriminalize drug use and soften police enforcement to disastrous effect. We should be thankful that such policies are tried on a state level and not implemented on all of us.

 

While we are increasingly losing our grip on federalism as power and authority concentrates in far away Washington, D.C., each of our United States continues to experiment with different policies. It is worth taking note of policies that are taking hold and becoming widespread. Two such policies are sweeping the nation and Wisconsin is not participating. Last week, Alabama became the twelfth state to pass universal school choice and six other states are considering it this year. Some 28 states and the District of Columbia already have some form of school choice according to Education Week. School choice was an innovation born in Milwaukee by a coalition of liberals and conservatives who wanted to give poor families a chance to get their kids into better schools — even if that better school was a private school. For several years, various income-based school choice programs spread throughout the nation before stalling under the withering assault of entrenched government school interests. The pandemic changed everything. Being affronted with the reality of just how bad our government schools had become, parents insisted on a better option and breathed new life into the school choice movement. While school choice comes in many forms, the common feature is that parents are provided some or all of the funding that would have been spent for their child in a government school to be spent on alternative educational options. The goal is to couple the funding to the child and not to the bureaucracy.

 

School choice has become a potent political force in states like Texas. Despite being dominated by Republicans, school choice failed to pass the Legislature last year when a cohort of House Republicans joined the Democrats to vote against it. In the primary election last week, six Republican incumbents were ousted outright and four more are headed for runoff elections — all on the power of the school choice issue. It is an issue that transcends party and motivates parents.

 

Despite being the birthplace of school choice, Wisconsin has lost its place in the vanguard of education reform.

 

Another movement that started in the mid-1990s was to reinstate Americans’ civil rights by allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon. For 20 years, states steadily implemented concealed carry laws to allow qualified citizens to carry concealed. Wisconsin was a laggard in this regard as the 49th state to allow concealed carry. Illinois reluctantly followed suit many years later to make concealed carry in some form a universal American policy.

 

In the past ten years, many states have gone further to allow constitutional or permitless carry whereby virtually anyone who is legally allowed to possess a handgun may carry it concealed without a permit. According to the United States Concealed Carry Association, 29 states currently have permitless carry.

 

Here again, the pandemic, coupled with the riots of 2020-2022, sparked new urgency with this issue. Recognizing that law enforcement is largely unable, and sometimes unwilling, to prevent people from committing crimes or protecting innocents, Americans began taking personal responsibility for their physical safety. Women and people of color are two of the fastest-growing groups of gun owners.

 

There is no definitive source to know how many guns there are in private hands and who owns them. That is as it should be. A Pew Research study from last year estimates that there are about 222 million private guns owned by about 105 million Americans. Guns are, and always have been, part of our culture and our right to keep and bear arms was protected at the founding. While our nation has always done a decent job protecting our civil right to “keep” arms, states are now doing a better job of protecting our civil right to “bear” arms. What good is a right if you have to ask the government to exercise it?

Making lemonade out of lemons

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week.

Wisconsin’s new legislative electoral maps are heavily gerrymandered to the benefit of Democrats, but where there is change, there is opportunity.

 

First, let us recap how we got here. In the normal constitutional process, every 10 years the boundaries of the legislative districts are redrawn to reflect the most recent decennial census data. The maps are drawn by the Legislature and signed by the governor like any other law. The maps are then usually challenged in state and federal courts by special interest groups. In 2021-2022, Wisconsin went through the entire legal process and the courts agreed that the maps were fine. It was done.

 

After the leftists took control of the state Supreme Court last spring, their fellow travelers immediately sued to overturn the maps because they knew that the leftist court majority would ignore previous court rulings, the law, and the state Constitution to give them the maps they want. According to plan, the Supreme Court activists threw out the existing maps and was in the process of redrawing the maps to their liking in a complete usurpation of the other two branches of government.

 

Seeking to mitigate the looming court decision, the Legislature passed the version of the maps submitted by Gov. Tony Evers in a complete tactical capitulation to the Democratic governor. Although heavily gerrymandered to favor Democrats, the legislative Republicans thought that Evers’ maps were the least bad option that the court was going to impose. Backed into a political corner whereby Evers could not veto his own maps, he signed them into law. Since then, the high cockalorum of Madison has been crowing about his “fair” maps in full knowledge of how he gerrymandered them to favor Democrats. As the expression goes, however, it is what it is. The maps are what they are, and they will not change. As the state Republicans look at the landscape for November, what is to be done?

 

In the state Senate, the Republicans currently hold a majority of 22 of the 33 seats. Only the even-numbered districts are on the ballot this November. According to an analysis done by research fellow John Johnson of the Lubar Center of the Marquette Law School, three of even numbered districts are likely Democratic wins this year with Evers’ gerrymandered maps. It is unlikely that the Democrats will win a majority in the Senate this year, but there is a strong possibility they will in 2026 when more of the seats favor Democrats.

 

In the state Assembly, all 99 seats are up for election in 2024. Evers gerrymandered a double-digit Democratic lean in 42 districts versus 34 under the previous legal maps according to Johnson’s study. Overall, the maps still slightly favor Republicans, but are gerrymandered to extend the power of the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison into the otherwise Republican suburbs.

 

While the focus of the maps has been on political lean of each district, the opportunity for Republicans — by which I mean the Republican voters and not the elected Republicans — comes in the shakeup of incumbency. According to Ballotpedia, 99% of incumbents of state politicians of either party won re-election in 2022; 97% of them won in 2020. Wisconsin does not have term limits and the power of incumbency is, by far, the greatest force in state elections.

 

Under Evers’ gerrymandered maps, he intentionally drew as many districts as possible to pit Republican incumbents against each other. Thirty-five incumbent Republicans are now in districts with other incumbent Republicans compared with only seven incumbent Democrats. This is Evers’ attempt to counter the power of incumbency and to encourage Republican infighting to sap their strength before a general election.

 

For Republican voters, this is an opportunity to inject a substantial amount of new blood, new faces, and new ideas into the legislative Republican caucuses. Our system of government was never meant to be a job bank for career politicians. The outcome of incumbency is that elected Republicans are often reflecting the views of their constituents from when they were first elected instead of their constituents’ current views. And while a few career politicians remain energetic and effective for their constituents throughout their tenures, too many Wisconsin politicians slouch into the comfortable Madison scene and begin representing Madison’s interests instead of their constituents’ interests.

 

With the power of incumbency disrupted, Republican voters have a chance to have a rigorous debate during the primary to ensure that the elected Republican class is representing the views of the Republican electorate. Let us have that debate on issues and values. Then, let Wisconsin’s Republicans unite in the general election to elect Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate to ensure that the other two branches of government are not left unchecked to force their Leftist ideologies and turn Wisconsin into Illinois.

Foreign Enemies Look to Exploit U.S.’ Open Border

This doesn’t seem like a problem /s

The US faces a significant threat in Venezuela’s cozy relationship with Iran, with enemy nations using the socialist country as a base in the hemisphere to attack America, experts have warned.

 

Fears are rising over the influence Iran has on Caracas as the two regimes strengthen economic and military ties and grow more hostile towards Washington DC.

 

Last week the FBI Miami launched a manhunt to find Iranian spy Majid Dastjani Farahani, who the government accuses of looking for allies to kill US officials while operating from Venezuela.

 

Meanwhile four Iranians were charged in 2021 for plotting to kidnap dissident journalist Masih Alinejad from Brooklyn before using a speedboat to take her to Tehran via Caracas.

 

Experts warned DailyMail.com the brazen acts and strengthening relationships between dictator Nicolas Maduro and America’s enemies could spell doom in the near future.

 

They said the rich-oil nation is being used as an ‘air bridge’ because it is geopolitical gold dust due to it being just 300 miles from the Miami coast in case any world war erupted.

U.S. Prepared for Nuclear War in Ukraine

Why is this a revelation? We have a rogue nuclear power going to war against an enemy who difficult to defeat by conventional means. If the U.S. had not game played and prepared for the possibility of nuclear war, it would have been a derelict of duty.

In late 2022, the US began “preparing rigorously” for Russia potentially striking Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, in what would have been the first nuclear attack in war since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly eighty years before, two senior administration officials told CNN.

The Biden administration was specifically concerned Russia might use a tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon, the officials said.

I first reported US officials were worried about Russia using a tactical nuclear weapon in 2022, but in my new book, “The Return of Great Powers” publishing on March 12, I reveal exclusive details on the unprecedented level of contingency planning carried out as senior members of the Biden administration became increasingly alarmed by the situation.

No Labels Fraud

In case there was any doubt that No Labels is just a front group designed to help prevent Republicans from getting elected, I give you exhibit 1.

No Labels may finally have a candidate in consideration for its third-party “unity ticket” in the 2024 presidential election.

 

Sources familiar with the group’s efforts to field a third-party ticket tell ABC News that No Labels representatives have had meetings with former Georgia GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan about running as the group’s presidential candidate.

 

Duncan wouldn’t comment on this report, but isn’t shutting down speculation.

There is absolutely no way that No Labels is going to put up a candidate that is more likely to draw Dem votes than GOP votes.

Measles Outbreak Spreading

Measles is spreading across our nation and the Marxists are blaming the decline in childhood vaccinations.

Although the total number of infections nationwide may seem small, it bears noting that before the COVID pandemic, the annual number of measles infections across the US had been gaining momentum (1,274 cases documented in 2019). This underscores the salutary effect the efforts undertaken to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the first two years of the pandemic had on the spread of the highly contagious measles. In 2020, only 13 individuals developed measles across eight jurisdictions. In 2021, there were 49 measles infections and in 2022 a total of 121 measles cases, in large part due to a community outbreak in central Ohio, with 85 locally acquired measles cases. And in 2023, there were 58 across 20 jurisdictions. At the current pace, 2024 may be the largest measles outbreak experienced in the US during the COVID pandemic.

 

The current trends show the dangers posed by the government’s abdication of the responsibility to maintain an actively engaged public health infrastructure. This has led to the promotion of anti-scientific misinformation campaigns by reactionary and fascistic groups who are downplaying the dangers posed by respiratory infections, leading to a decline in childhood immunization and resurgence of disease, specifically measles.

Two points. First, I don’t disagree that the decline in childhood vaccinations is real. It is. It is measurable. However, we must realize why vaccination rates are down. For the better part of three years, the public health system in our nation flat our lied to us. They bullied us. They demonized us. They ridiculed us. They lied straight to our faces and then tried to put us in jail when we asked questions. Justifiably, they lost our trust and forced thinking people to question everything they say. If public health “experts” are looking for a cause for the decline in vaccination rates, they can look in the mirror.

Second, ignored in the news reports is the human wave of unvaccinated people flooding across our border. You cannot introduce millions – yes, MILLIONS – of unvaccinated, unwell people into our communities and not expect the diseases they carry to spread. What is the Mealses vaccination rate among the illegal alien population? I guarantee that it’s much, much lower than for legal immigrants and citizens.

IRS to Crack Down on HSA/FSA Use

This is what Democrats mean when they whine about people “paying their fair share.”

For years, Americans have been using tax-free dollars from health savings accounts to cover a wide variety of health and wellness items, including eyeglasses, tampons, massage devices, acupuncture and even fitness equipment deemed medically necessary by a doctor.

 

But now the IRS says some companies are misleading consumers about what is and is not eligible under the rules of these Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSAs), which allow consumers to use pretax dollars for various health needs.

 

[…]

 

The agency says that unless consumers meet strict criteria, they can’t use funds from their HSA and FSA accounts to pay for things that promote their “general health and wellness.”

 

Calley Means, a co-founder of Truemed, a company that helps people obtain letters of medical necessity to purchase items with HSA funds, said that the IRS is on shaky legal ground and overstepping into the relationship between patients and their doctors.

 

He said that by challenging the legitimacy of some doctors’ notes and warning that HSA funds could only “rarely” be used for things such as food and exercise, the agency is setting a higher bar for people to get “medically tailored exercise and food plans than antidepressants and Ozempic.”

While the Truemed person has an obvious bias, he’s not wrong. The entire purpose of HSAs is that people can set aside some money without paying income taxes on it for the purpose of paying for medical expenses that would otherwise be tax deductible. For years, the IRS has been pretty liberal about what counts as a qualified expense or not.

This new regime is seeking to crack down on the incentive because… they can. The perverse result is that the system incentivizes people to buy drugs and equipment instead of using the money to make better, but more expensive, lifestyle choices. Is our government, once again, building policies around funneling money into the hands of Big Pharma and Big MedTech at the expense of taxpayers?

Yup.

Americans Increasingly Want to Scale Back Role as World’s Policeman

Hey, we’re broke. Someone else is going to have to pick up some of the tab for a while.

While an American role as the “world’s policeman” has become an increasingly contentious partisan issue, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans agree that the U.S. should not get more involved than it currently is in the ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.

 

The poll shows that 4 in 10 U.S. adults want America to broadly take a “less active” role in solving global conflicts. Only about one-quarter think the U.S. should take a more active role, and about one-third say its current role is about right.

 

[…]

 

Where the U.S. should be focusing its international military resources is also a subject of debate, with Republicans and Democrats disagreeing over whether the nation should be taking a more active role in the war between Ukraine and Russia or the war between Israel and Hamas.

 

Among U.S. adults overall, there isn’t much appetite for a more active role in either conflict: Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say the U.S. should be taking a more active role in each war. For each, about 4 in 10 say the current role is about right, and 36% say the U.S. needs to take a step back.

 

But Republicans and independents are more likely than Democrats to say that the U.S. should dial down its support for Ukraine. About half of Republicans and independents want the U.S. to take a less active role in the war between Ukraine and Russia, compared to only 18% of Democrats.

NY Governor Implements Police State for NYC Subway Riders

The cycle is so predictable… Liberal implements policies that creates more problems.

Liberal implements more policies that deprive citizens of civil rights in effort to combat problems caused by previous policies.

Liberal deploys violent police power to enforce depravation of civil rights.

Liberal demands more money to support violent police power to enforce depravation of civil rights to combat problems caused by liberal policies.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Prediction: Most of the people swept up with weapons on their person are regular New Yorkers who started carrying something for self-defense. Liberals can’t tolerate people taking ownership of their own personal safety.

New York National Guard troops and New York State Police troopers will be deployed into the subway system to help riders feel safe after a spike in transit crime, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday.

 

The new deployment is in addition to the 1,000 New York City police officers who were ordered to patrol subway lines and do security checks on bags in the nation’s largest transit system last month following an attack on a conductor and other high-profile crimes.

 

[…]

 

Hochul said her plan also includes assigning 1,000 state workers, including 250 state police troopers and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police members, to assist the NYPD in enhanced baggage checks at heavily trafficked areas of the subway system.

 

“No one heading to their job or to visit family, or to go to a doctor’s appointment should worry that the person sitting next to them possesses a deadly weapon,” Hochul said at a news conference Wednesday.

State DOC In Collapse

It’s almost tiresome to say, but if this was the Walker Administration, the reaction from the media and various pro-criminal interest groups would be quite different.

MADISON – The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into an alleged conspiracy within Waupun Correctional Institution to bring in cell phones, illegal drugs and other contraband — a probe that has resulted in the suspension of nearly a dozen prison employees.

 

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and state Department of Corrections officials in June asked federal authorities to conduct an investigation into potential criminal activities inside the Waupun prison after a DOC sweep of multiple housing units uncovered prohibited items, according to Evers’ spokeswoman Britt Cudaback.

 

Cudaback said the initial DOC probe “revealed allegations of potential employee involvement in those illegal activities, including information suggesting financial crimes may have occurred.”

 

[…]

 

The investigation is under way as DOC’s top administrator is set to leave his post. Corrections Secretary Kevin Carr announced last week he would be retiring from the Evers administration at the end of this week. Evers told reporters this week that he did not ask Carr to resign. His successor has yet to be named.

 

Eleven Waupun employees were placed on administrative leave by DOC officials between May 2023 and March 2024, some with pay and some without, according to the department.

The investigation comes at a time when state corrections officials face litigation and questions from families of Waupun inmates over conditions in the prison and over the deaths of four inmates in custody of Waupun prison officials.

Georgia State Lawmakers Consider Penalties Against Sanctuary Stories

Yes. More of this.

ATLANTA (AP) — Some Georgia senators want to punish cities and counties that they say are illegally harboring immigrants who are in the country without permission by cutting off most state aid to the local government and removing elected officials from office.

 

The Senate Public Safety Committee voted 4-1 on Wednesday to rewrite House Bill 301, with supporters saying the move is needed to enforce a 2009 state law that outlaws so-called sanctuary cities and counties.

 

It’s the latest measure proposed by Republicans after police accused a Venezuelan man of beating a nursing student to death on the University of Georgia campus.

I don’t think they should remove local elected officials. Leave that up to the voters. But they can’t leave unaddressed local governments that violate state laws.

Democrat Arizona Governor Welcomes Illegals

Keep that door wide open, eh?

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona bill that would have made it a crime for noncitizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry has been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

 

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure late last month along party lines. Arizona has emerged as a popular illegal border crossing point, and the bill would have let local law enforcement arrest non-U.S. citizens who enter Arizona from anywhere but a lawful entrance point. A violation would be a top-tier misdemeanor – or a low-level felony for a second offense.

 

In a letter to Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen on Monday, Hobbs said the measure raised constitutional concerns and was expected to lead to costly litigation.

“This bill does not secure our border, will be harmful for communities and businesses in our state, and burdensome for law enforcement personnel and the state judicial system,” Hobbs wrote.

Making lemonade out of lemons

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

While the focus of the maps has been on political lean of each district, the opportunity for Republicans — by which I mean the Republican voters and not the elected Republicans — comes in the shakeup of incumbency. According to Ballotpedia, 99% of incumbents of state politicians of either party won re-election in 2022; 97% of them won in 2020. Wisconsin does not have term limits and the power of incumbency is, by far, the greatest force in state elections.

 

Under Evers’ gerrymandered maps, he intentionally drew as many districts as possible to pit Republican incumbents against each other. Thirty-five incumbent Republicans are now in districts with other incumbent Republicans compared with only seven incumbent Democrats. This is Evers’ attempt to counter the power of incumbency and to encourage Republican infighting to sap their strength before a general election.

 

For Republican voters, this is an opportunity to inject a substantial amount of new blood, new faces, and new ideas into the legislative Republican caucuses. Our system of government was never meant to be a job bank for career politicians. The outcome of incumbency is that elected Republicans are often reflecting the views of their constituents from when they were first elected instead of their constituents’ current views. And while a few career politicians remain energetic and effective for their constituents throughout their tenures, too many Wisconsin politicians slouch into the comfortable Madison scene and begin representing Madison’s interests instead of their constituents’ interests.

 

With the power of incumbency disrupted, Republican voters have a chance to have a rigorous debate during the primary to ensure that the elected Republican class is representing the views of the Republican electorate. Let us have that debate on issues and values. Then, let Wisconsin’s Republicans unite in the general election to elect Republican majorities in the Assembly and Senate to ensure that the other two branches of government are not left unchecked to force their Leftist ideologies and turn Wisconsin into Illinois.

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