No one has better articulated the political moment in Wisconsin than the student in my discussion section who raised his hand and asked if he could please join the walk-out. When I replied that rebels don’t ask permission, he said: “I just want to do what’s right.”
This interaction embodied for me the discrepancy between the mood on the streets and the national conversation. While the media have reduced 70,000 protesters to labor activists, while the governor has cast his effort as a revival of Ronald Reagan’s union-busting, and while would-be presidential candidates have been weighing in, this conflict remains at heart a local story.
It is about the culture of public spaces and public works in a quirky state. It is about who we are, and who we are becoming. And it is tearing us apart, here in Wisconsin.