Before Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced his retirement Thursday, it was obvious something had changed. The longest serving speaker in Wisconsin history, known for keeping Assembly Republicans on a tight leash, slipped out of a caucus meeting late Wednesday night. Capitol reporter Baylor Spears tracked him down at a fundraiser at the Madison Club, where, she reported, Vos told her his caucus was meeting without him. Later that evening, Assembly Republicans announced that Vos had suddenly dropped his yearslong opposition to letting Wisconsin expand postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers for one year. Vos’ last-minute change of heart allowed eight Republicans facing competitive reelection races to hold a late-night press conference proclaiming the news that they planned to pass postpartum coverage, along with another measure extending life-saving breast-cancer screenings that Vos was suddenly permitting to come up for a vote. Vos himself didn’t bother to attend. 

With both Vos and Gov. Tony Evers retiring, the two most powerful politicians in the state — and the often dysfunctional dynamic between them — are going away. It’s the end of an era characterized by toxic partisanship, although probably not the last we’ll see of divided government in our 50/50 state. 

Still, as Vos relaxes his grip, Wisconsin Republicans are starting to wrap their heads around the new reality that they no longer hold complete control over what was once, effectively, a one-party state. 

New, fairer voting maps have already eroded gerrymandered GOP supermajorities in the Legislature that previously endured even when Democrats won every statewide race. In the upcoming November elections, the new maps will, for the first time, take full effect.

The creation of more competitive districts has not immediately ushered in an atmosphere of productive bipartisanship in the Capitol. But it did cause enough of a thaw that Wisconsin could finally join the other 48 states that have already expanded postpartum Medicaid. Republicans running in newly competitive districts can campaign on this bit of belated progress. Two cheers for Wisconsin! We’re 49th!

At the Vos-less press conference Wednesday night, Republicans gave emotional testimony about “the women who need this protection.” They thanked the speaker for finally listening to their pleas. Then, instead of reaching across the aisle, they delivered a scorching rebuke to Democrats who had been pushing for months for a vote on both of the women’s health bills they were celebrating. When the bills were not scheduled, Democrats vowed to bring them up as amendments to other bills, holding up action on the floor and threatening to put their GOP colleagues in the embarrassing position of having to vote down their efforts.

“I’m very angry at what happened today — very angry,” Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) said. “I talked to my Democratic colleagues and told them that I was close, that it was going to get done, but then they throw this crap at us today. It almost blew it up.”

By speaking up, Democrats nearly ruined Republicans’ efforts to gain support within their own caucus, according to Snyder. That analysis caused Democratic Minority Leader Greta Neubauer to roll her eyes. “It seems that the bills are going to the floor after years of Rep. Pat Snyder telling us that these bills were going to be passed and them not being passed, so it does seem like our actions made a difference today,” Neubauer said. 

Partisan habits die hard. For much of the most recent legislative session, Republicans formed a Sorehead Caucus whose sole aims were rehashing grievances about their loss of power and trying in vain to recreate the dominance they enjoyed when they controlled every branch of government. 

Back in 2018, when Evers won the first time, breaking the GOP stranglehold by beating former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Republicans held a lame duck session to claw back the incoming governor’s powers. Eight years later, as Evers is about to leave office at the end of his second term, they’re still at it. Motivated by spite over Evers’ line-item veto extending their modest, two-year increase in school revenue limits for the next 400 years, they have insisted on starving school districts of state funds, punishing not only Wisconsin schoolchildren but also the property taxpayers who, in the absence of state funding, are forced to pick up the tab. 

In a similarly spiteful vein, Republicans just killed off the popular, bipartisan Knowles Nelson stewardship program, setting up the 36-year-old land conservation effort to die this summer. Over and over in hearings on whether to renew the program or drastically cut it back, Republicans cited a state Supreme Court decision that held they cannot anonymously veto individual conservation projects. GOP legislators said the decision — written by the most conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court — left them no option but to gut the program just to show who’s boss. 

As Henry Redman reports, a handful of conservation-minded Republicans could have joined forces with Democrats to save the program, but Republican bill authors insisted on negotiating only within their own caucus, ignoring Democratic efforts to make a deal and instead trying to please the program’s far-right enemies by making deeper and deeper cuts before finally giving up and letting the program lapse.

This style of governing — a hangover from the Walker era — might satisfy certain politicians’ hunger for power, but it’s ill-suited to getting anything productive done for the people who live in the state.

Let’s hope Vos’ departure marks the end of the petty partisanship that has blocked progress in Wisconsin for far too long.

Data centers, artificial intelligence and fossil fuels are dominating headlines. Across the  United States, more than $350 billion was invested in AI and data-center infrastructure, with  tens of billions of dollars proposed in Wisconsin. Investment and economic development are  often framed as unequivocal wins, but energy infrastructure is different. If built without  foresight, the consequences will reshape the future. 

Growth is certain; however the balance between positive and negative growth is yet to be  determined. 

I have worked in Wisconsin’s energy sector since 2019, beginning in residential and  commercial solar. Over the years, I’ve seen energy debates around renewable energy become  increasingly politicized, even as their original purpose remains unchanged: to produce reliable  electricity, reduce dependence on fragile infrastructure, and give communities more control  over their energy supply. Yet, the existing industry stakeholders have blocked deployment and  ownership for everyone but themselves. While homeowners, farmers, tribal nations and  small businesses face mounting restrictions on deploying their own power systems, the state  has moved quickly to approve massive new energy loads for data centers. These agreements  are also accompanied by preferential rate structures, infrastructure guarantees and the ability  to negotiate. 

That contradiction should concern all of us. 

Wisconsin residents have grown accustomed to electric rate increases justified by grid  maintenance, system upgrades and long-term reliability. According to federal energy data,  Wisconsin already ranks among the top 15 states for electricity costs, and utilities have  signaled additional increases in the years ahead. At the same time, power reliability has  deteriorated in both rural and urban areas. 

In parts of Milwaukee, aging poles lean precariously, and low-hanging lines form tangled  webs that look untouched for decades. In rural Wisconsin, the impacts are similar. Tribal  nations such as the Sokaogon Chippewa and the Menominee Nation have experienced  long-duration outages lasting days or even weeks, disrupting health care, food systems and  economic activity. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of an overstretched  and unevenly maintained grid. 

Against this backdrop, Wisconsin is welcoming some of the most energy-intensive facilities  on the planet. A single large data center can consume as much electricity as a small city,  operating around the clock, every day of the year. The rise of AI only accelerates this demand.  Unlike the rest of the state, these facilities do not proceed without firm assurances of power  availability, reliability, transmission access,and cost certainty. 

Data centers operate under a different set of rules.  

Utilities and regulators are willing to negotiate specialized rate structures, accelerate  infrastructure investments, and prioritize reliability. Meanwhile, everyday ratepayers, who  collectively use far less power and have far less leverage, are asked to shoulder rising costs  and accept declining service quality.  

This is not a free market. Wisconsin’s energy industry has become an unregulated monopoly.  Large utilities control generation, transmission and distribution, and they largely determine  who is allowed to produce power and under what terms. While utilities have invested heavily  in renewable energy they own, they continue to restrict external ownership and  community-scale generation knowing that distributed energy can reduce peak demand,  improve resilience, and lower long-term system costs.  

If utilities can justify new power plants, substations and transmission lines for data centers,  they must also explain why a similar urgency does not apply to grid reliability, ownership  opportunities for distributed energy systems and lower rates for Wisconsin residents. Why is  Wisconsin able to deliver gigawatts of electricity to data centers, yet unable to address  persistent grid failures in communities that have been struggling for decades?  

This moment calls for accountability, not ideology. Wisconsin deserves transparency in how  data center energy deals are structured, who bears the costs of new infrastructure and how  reliability risks are distributed. Ratepayers deserve to know why the largest electricity users  receive the greatest assurances, while households, businesses and communities are told to  accept less while paying more. Economic growth should not come at the expense of affordability,  resilience or fairness. If Wisconsin is going to power the future of AI and digital  infrastructure, it must also protect the people and communities that power Wisconsin itself.  

This energy crisis is not inevitable. It is the result of choices. And those choices will  determine whether Wisconsin’s energy future delivers reliable power for all, or a system  defined by higher costs, more frequent outages and growing divides between communities. 

I have visited many after-school and summer programs across Wisconsin, from large urban sites to small rural schools, and what I’ve seen has stayed with me. I’ve watched students immersed in creative writing, acting and robotics. I’ve observed staff working one-on-one with kids navigating intense emotional challenges. And I’ve seen the smiles on middle schoolers’ faces as they reconnect with trusted mentors at the end of the school day. These programs are not “extras”; they provide crucial support to kids, families, and entire communities.

The access gap

And yet, for far too many Wisconsin families, these opportunities remain out of reach. According to the latest America After 3PM report, nearly 275,000 Wisconsin children who would participate in after-school programs are not enrolled because none are available. Four in five children who could benefit from these supports are missing out. Parents cite cost, lack of transportation, and a simple lack of local programming as the biggest barriers.

The benefits are clear

The impact of these programs is undeniable. Parents overwhelmingly rate their children’s after-school programs as excellent or very good, reporting that they keep kids safe, build social skills, and support mental wellness. Research in Wisconsin shows that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to report anxiety or depression and more likely to feel a sense of belonging.

Out-of-school time programs often provide the space for deep, long-term mentoring, a powerful protective factor in a young person’s life. While teachers are often stretched thin during the academic day, out-of-school time  staff can focus on the relational side of development.

The cost of instability

When funding is unstable, it undermines the very connections that make these programs transformative. Recently, a Boys & Girls Club director shared the human cost of budget constraints: they were forced to reduce a veteran staff member to part-time. This didn’t just trim a budget; it severed a multi-year mentorship. When that bond was broken, several youths stopped attending entirely.

Wisconsin lags behind national trends

Across the country, after-school and summer programs are increasingly viewed as essential to youth development. Twenty-seven states provide dedicated state funding for these programs; Wisconsin provides none. States as different as Alabama and Texas recognize that federal funding alone is not enough. So do our  Midwestern neighbors.

• Minnesota and Illinois have invested in these programs for years.
• Michigan established a $73 million grant program to expand before-school, after-school, and summer learning statewide.
• Pennsylvania created the $11.5 million Building Opportunity through Out-of-School Time (BOOST) program.

The opportunity to act

Public support for these programs is strong and bipartisan. Families across Wisconsin want safe, enriching opportunities for their children. With a significant budget surplus, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to invest in its future.

State leaders should view out-of-school programming as a foundation for safety, mental health, and long-term economic opportunity. We have the resources; now we need the will. By committing to consistent state funding, we can ensure that every young person in Wisconsin has a place to belong when the school bell rings.

The federal administration’s decision to rescind the Environmental Protection Agency’s Endangerment Finding may sound technical. In reality, it targets the legal foundation that has allowed the United States to regulate climate pollution for more than a decade. For Wisconsin, the move introduces new uncertainty just as communities, farmers and businesses invest in cleaner energy, efficiency and more resilient infrastructure.

The 2009 Endangerment Finding concluded that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. Courts have upheld that determination repeatedly. Eliminating or weakening it does not change the science behind climate change, but it could reshape how power plants, vehicles and industrial facilities are regulated. That shift carries consequences for states already dealing with smoky summers, heavier rainfall and rising infrastructure costs.

Wisconsin’s clean energy economy has expanded steadily, often without much attention. Renewable projects now generate enough electricity to power about 560,000 homes. Roughly 75,000 residents work in clean energy fields, and more than 350 Wisconsin companies supply technologies or services that reduce energy use or emissions. Together, these efforts reflect a broader reality: climate progress here tends to be practical and locally driven because it lowers costs and strengthens communities.

Examples are visible across the state. School districts and municipal buildings are cutting operating expenses through efficiency upgrades supported by Focus on Energy programs. Tribal and low-income households are receiving targeted weatherization investments that improve comfort and reduce utility bills. Builders and manufacturers are adopting higher performance standards to reduce long-term risk.

Federal rollbacks do not automatically halt these efforts, but they complicate financing and planning. Investors and local governments rely on predictable rules. When national standards shift, projects that once appeared viable can stall.

Some of the clearest examples are unfolding in rural Wisconsin. The SolarShare Wisconsin Cooperative is expanding community-owned solar projects that keep energy dollars circulating locally while pairing installations with pollinator habitat or sheep grazing. Hidden Springs Creamery installed a 50-kilowatt solar system to power its creamery and farm operations while continuing to produce artisanal cheeses. These projects reflect a simple idea gaining traction across the state: build it here, power it here, prosper here.

Wisconsin’s dairy sector has also become a testing ground for methane reduction strategies. Anaerobic digesters, renewable natural gas systems and advanced manure management technologies are already operating throughout the state. They reduce emissions while improving water quality and creating new revenue streams for farmers. If federal climate incentives weaken, fewer of these projects may move forward, leaving producers to absorb more risk and potentially slowing innovation that began here.

At the same time, new pressures are emerging from the rapid growth of artificial intelligence and large-scale data centers. Utilities are proposing infrastructure expansions to meet rising electricity demand, raising questions about cost allocation, water use and oversight. Small businesses, tribes, farmers and rural communities are organizing around siting decisions that affect farmland and ratepayers.

This week, the Power Wisconsin Forward campaign, supported by the Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin and more than 50 partner organizations, urged the Public Service Commission to ensure that data center costs do not shift onto ordinary customers. The debate highlights a broader reality. Wisconsin’s energy landscape is changing quickly even as federal climate policy moves in the opposite direction.

It would be misleading to suggest Wisconsin’s political environment has become less polarized. Recent legislative sessions show deep divisions and limited consensus on climate priorities. That context makes federal rollbacks more consequential. Without consistent national guardrails, states rely more heavily on local initiatives and market forces, which can advance progress but unevenly.

Legal challenges to the EPA decision are likely, but outcomes remain uncertain. In the meantime, utilities, farmers and local governments must make decisions without clear signals from Washington.

The practical question facing Wisconsin is not whether federal politics will shift. It is whether the state continues investing in projects that already deliver measurable results. Efficiency upgrades lower utility bills. Community solar keeps energy spending local. Methane reduction technologies help farms manage waste while improving soil and water conditions.

In a politically diverse state, climate progress rarely looks dramatic. It often appears as quieter momentum built through local partnerships and incremental gains. The federal rollback raises real risks, but it does not erase the infrastructure or collaboration already underway.

What happens next will be shaped less by national rhetoric and more by decisions made at the Public Service Commission, in county zoning meetings and on working farms across Wisconsin.

The winter of 2026 will go down in state history as among our finest hours. 

What happened here will be studied by social scientists and historians as one of the great victories of nonviolent resistance in recent times. Minnesotans showed that brutality and sheer numbers could not overcome communities that were united in their opposition to the usurpers.

People are right to be skeptical about whether the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown here is ending, as announced Thursday by $50,000 man and border czar Tom Homan.

But I’m confident they are leaving for a simple reason: They’re losing.  

What happened and why it happened offer important lessons for our future and for democracy defenders across the country, so let’s focus for a minute before we dance on the grave of the authoritarian attempt: 

The resistance was communitarian. By now it’s almost cliche: Minnesotans — and especially Minneapolitans — were looking out for their neighbors, be they immigrants or the people protecting them. Neighborhoods came together again as they did after the police murder of George Floyd and the chaos that followed, all during a pandemic. The lesson here is to get to know your neighbors.

The sense that we’re all in it together motivates great acts of both charity and courage. 

The resistance was libertarian. When I talked to friends and family around the country, I put it in these terms: Imagine that 3,000 masked, heavily armed outsiders were roaming around your community, routinely racially profiling people, including off-duty police (!); detaining immigrants here legally  — including young children — and shipping them across state lines; smashing the car windows of observers and arresting them before releasing them without charges; and, of course, shooting and killing two American citizens and injuring an immigrant in a case of mistaken identity. When you put it in these terms, Americans around the country got it.  

The resistance was nonviolent. (Mostly.) When authoritarians are employing brutality, armed resistance feels justified. Second Amendment enthusiasts might even say constitutional. But it often leads to a spiraling cycle of violence and repression, e.g., the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Bullhorns, whistles, chants, shouts, songs, mockery and marches were more effective than violence could ever be.

This is not a new or untested strategy. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “Nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”

The feds’ support, meanwhile, collapsed when they engaged in indiscriminate violence.

The nonviolent resistance helped win the battle for public opinion, which was crucial. An NBC poll showed that two-thirds of Americans believe the Trump administration’s immigration tactics have “gone too far,” with similar numbers in Minnesota, according to another poll.

We too often think of authoritarians as omnipotent, acting with impunity in the face of all resistance. Nothing President Donald Trump says or does seems to matter. But this is not true, and that attitude of despair is precisely what the authoritarian needs. Authoritarians have frequently been defeated in the face of mass resistance, from the Eastern Bloc to Latin America. Once the authoritarian loses popular legitimacy, it’s only a matter of time before the regime collapses.

Our strong institutions were an important bulwark. Outsiders who kept bleating about “paid protesters” have clearly never stuffed themselves with hot dish and baked goods at a Minnesota PTA meeting, caucus, hockey game or church event on a subzero night.

Indeed, as Madison McVan reported this week, churches (and let’s add mosques and synagogues) were crucial to providing material and spiritual support to immigrants and those defending them.

Minnesota ranks highly — 2nd in the nation in one survey — in indices of social capital, i.e., family unity, social support and volunteerism. If you feel like we’ve taken a beating in recent years — the killing of Floyd and unrest and rioting that followed, the looting of our safety net programs, the assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman — you’re right, but our strong institutions have helped us remain resilient.

Our big corporations were not part of that institutional infrastructure. They were silent, and then mealy-mouthed. The days of corporate noblesse oblige are over, especially when the authoritarian demands unquestioning fealty from them. 

The judiciary stood up to the authoritarian attempt. Attorneys for immigrants worked under impossible conditions to defend constitutional rights and due process. 

More than a dozen federal prosecutors quit in disgust.

And, federal judges refused to be cowed. In scorching orders — from appointees of just about every recent president, including a protege of conservative icon Antonin Scalia — many refused to countenance the legal chaos and unconstitutional usurpation the federal government unleashed here. They provided a near daily drumbeat of evidence of the Trump administration’s lawlessness. This severely undercut the administration’s message that Operation Metro Surge was a “law enforcement operation” when anyone could see it was a politically-motivated, performative show of aggression.

During one hearing, Judge Jerry Blackwell — who was the lead prosecutor of Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin — reminded the federal government’s lawyers of the seriousness of the executive branch’s insubordination in failing to release detainees, as he’d ordered: “The DOJ, the DHS, and ICE are not above the law. They do wield extraordinary power, and that power has to exist within constitutional limits.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was a PR bonanza for the resistance, even though many Minneapolis activists loath MPD. I learned from O’Hara’s many local and national media appearances, for instance, that there’d been three homicides in Minneapolis as of late January, and two of them were committed by the feds. Considering the traditional blue wall of silence, you’d expect O’Hara to refrain from criticizing the feds, but he landed punches instead. (No permanent friends, and no permanent enemies: a political maxim worth considering.)

Although this moment was far bigger than party politics, there’s a few things worth mentioning:

Some Republicans provided important bipartisan messaging. I’m sure there are others, but Sens. Jim Abeler, Zach Duckworth, and Julia Coleman and Reps. Marion Rarick and Nolan West gave fellow Republicans and Republican-leaning independents a subtle signal that it was OK to question the constitutionality and effectiveness of Operation Metro Surge.

By contrast, Vichy Republicans, like U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, turned against fellow Minnesotans and gave aid and comfort to the authoritarian outsiders. Grudges aren’t healthy, but we shouldn’t forget. Now they’ll receive their just deserts because the Democrats will likely win in November.

Which means those Republicans will be just another in the long line of Trump’s marks.

A lot of Democrats paused their endless factional disputes, or as one militant leftist posted on X last month: “Liberals, leftists, moderates, socialists, communists, and f*cking all the rest have an opportunity here to come together and fight fascism. That means, for the moment, FOR THE F*CKING MOMENT, to not be a dumb*ss b*tch about factionalism and old beefs. Just for now. For a bit.”  (I’m sure this very column will bring the requisite calumny from said factions — see item #8 — but that’s all to the good, as it signals a return to normalcy.)

Finally, respect localism. When the feds chased a man at high speeds through my neighborhood Wednesday, which led to a three-car wreck, I found myself in a state of agitation and contempt for the usurpers that was only matched previously by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

It hits different when it’s your own neighborhood. Which, I realize, is morally provincial. After all, other neighborhoods have been dealing with this on a daily basis for two months. (Some communities have suffered under repressive policing for much longer.)

And, for that matter, other nations have been dealing with rulers’ boots on their necks  — including proxies of the United States government — for years, and, in some cases, decades.

So my final takeaway is that we ought to be extremely humble when we seek to impose our will on other people, communities, states, nations. 

Now, let’s spend the weekend toasting and dancing in the streets.

Before Operation Metro Surge sent thousands of armed federal agents into Minneapolis, terrorizing families and spreading chaos and violence in formerly peaceful residential neighborhoods, local parent organizations were already setting up networks to provide mutual aid and safely transport children of immigrants to and from school.

“My school group of friends formed our first network of communication in October, after we saw what had happened in Chicago,” the mother of an elementary school student in South Minneapolis named Elizabeth told me in a phone interview Wednesday. She asked that her last name not be published, because of the danger of reprisals. 

The encrypted neighborhood chat started chiming for the first time on Tuesday, Dec. 9, she recalls, when “there were two people abducted early in the morning within blocks of my kid’s school.” When her child asked what was going on, “I said, you know, people are concerned about the safety of coming to school today,” Elizabeth recalls. “And like a good Minnesotan, my child realized that it was foggy outside and said, ‘Well, fog creates ice, and so the roads are probably slippery …’ And I said, yeah, they’re worried about ice on the roads. And I really had hope in that moment of naivety that that would be the last time we’d have to have that conversation. But it wasn’t.”

Since December, when Operation Metro Surge began, Elizabeth said her child’s class has shrunk from 25 students to just five. The school district has offered a remote learning option to immigrant families who are afraid to let their children leave the house. Meanwhile, the neighborhood chat group, which began with five families whose children played soccer together, has connected with hundreds of volunteers, many of whom don’t have kids in the school.

Because most of the families at the school are people of color, “we really had to start relying on our neighbors around us to help us, because we don’t have enough families that are not in danger,” Elizabeth said. Residents of nearby neighborhoods joined to form a group of 200 people who patrol the playground in the morning and afternoon and during recess, guard the nearby bus stops, and drive children from home to school and back again. 

In addition, volunteers pick up laundry every other week from families that are shut inside, and bring groceries, shopping for food at local Hispanic markets, which have taken a heavy hit after losing employees and customers during the immigration enforcement surge. 

There are many similar mutual aid groups throughout the area, each doing things in different ways. “There are a lot of micro projects happening everywhere,” Elizabeth said. And things are constantly changing. “It’s a living process,” she said. “No two days are the same.” 

While she tries to avoid contact with federal agents, ICE is everywhere in their neighborhood, Elizabeth said. She no longer allows her child to walk to the corner store alone. 

“ICE is constantly driving through our neighborhoods. They’re not obeying traffic signals. They’re not obeying traffic laws. They’re running through stop signs. They’re going the wrong way on one-ways,” Elizabeth said. While she isn’t afraid that her child, who is white, will be snatched and sent to immigration detention, she worries about the possibility of her child stumbling upon a violent action, “or they could get tear-gassed, very easily.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s rationale for the federal immigration enforcement surge is to enhance public safety. But it’s very clear from talking to people in Minneapolis that armed agents speeding through neighborhoods, smashing car windows and dragging people out of their homes has shattered the sense of safety residents used to have. 

Elizabeth does not claim that her neighborhood group can overcome that, or effectively deter ICE. Instead, she describes its purpose as offering comfort to immigrant parents. And for the children, she says, “I really make sure that I’m there every day so they can see the same faces, so there’s some stability in their day.”

“We’ve got families that have been in hiding for nine weeks now,” she adds. “… I want them to know that we were here for them.”

As for her own child, “I have to be really honest,” she said. She’s had to give up her hope, before the surge, not to have to talk about the sickening danger all around them. “They live in a community, and they need to be part of their community,” she said. “Right now, their community is under attack, and so I think it is my responsibility as a parent to make sure that they see that, and that they understand that this is not how you treat your neighbors. That, like I said, our community needs love, help and support right now. And so we have lots of conversations about it.”

Her child misses the friends who aren’t coming to school, and makes an effort to stay in touch and fill them in on what is happening. And there are the daily car rides with the handful of kids Elizabeth drives to school and home again. 

Those car rides are important, she said. She has a bag of snacks and a playlist the kids get to curate. “We’ve listened to a lot of K-pop,” she said. “We try to have as much joy and fun as we can for them, and to create those safe spaces and make sure that there’s laughter.”

As Wisconsinites worry about whether we will be next, I asked Elizabeth about the reluctance of some public officials to make concrete community defense plans, for fear it might put a target on our so-called sanctuary communities, and draw the very ICE surge they dread. 

“It comes back to being a good neighbor,” she said. “I’m not sure that any organizing that we’ve done or did or will do is necessarily a flag calling attention to us. It’s just we’ve got neighbors that are hungry. How are we going to feed our neighbors? We have neighbors that can’t pay their bills. How are we going to help? … To some degree it’s somewhat selfish, right? Like, I need, in order for my child to succeed in school, there needs to be continuity … I care about my community.”

“I would recommend people not be scared and not think of it as organizing against the government, but organizing for the people in your neighborhood,” she added. “And if it’s not your neighborhood, if it’s a neighborhood next to you, know where those neighborhoods are that might be impacted, and find ways that you can support that neighborhood.”

In Port Washington, Wisconsin, many residents oppose a $15 billion data center campus that’s currently under construction for end-users Oracle and OpenAI. (No Data Centers in Ozaukee County Facebook group)

Big Tech is here in Wisconsin, looking to make Wisconsin families and small businesses pay for data centers. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) is about to make a decision that will affect all of us: We Energies has proposed a new rate structure on data centers that, as drafted, favors profits and protections for Big Tech companies and We Energies executives themselves, but putting Wisconsinites at risk to subsidize the costs. Here’s what’s going on and how you can do something about it. 

What’s at stake?

We Energies, the largest and most profitable utility in the state, is preparing to spend $19.3 billion on electric generation due to data center proposals from Microsoft, Oracle, Vantage, and OpenAI.4. This is largely to build new gas plants in order to power the massive energy needs of Big Tech’s data centers. Here’s the problem: If sufficient protections aren’t in place now, the costs of these expensive gas plants may be forced onto families and small businesses, driving up people’s bills to keep the lights on and heat their homes in the winter.

We Energies’ proposals put us at risk for higher utility bills without fully ensuring that Big Tech is paying their fair share. As it currently stands, more expensive data centers likely means higher costs for all of us. Tech companies should be responsible for covering the cost of service needed to power their data centers, including the cost of building out power to service these high energy demands.

In addition to their problematic proposal, We Energies is proposing to add huge volumes of natural gas plants to feed these power-hungry data centers, which are expensive to build and take decades to pay off. These so-called “stranded assets” end up costing us more money for many years down the line, at times even when they are no longer in service. With rapidly changing AI technology, there is a very real risk that Big Tech does not move forward with planned data centers because they’re no longer profitable or needed. In short, data centers create short-term gains for Big Tech and We Energies with long-term consequences for Wisconsinites. 

What’s going on behind Big Tech’s closed doors?

We Energies’ proposal encourages Big Tech to make decisions behind closed doors, without considering Wisconsinites or how their decisions will impact Wisconsin lands, waters and natural resources. We should all be suspicious of this. What’s happening in these meetings that We Energies and Big Tech don’t want us to know about? If Big Tech builds data centers in Wisconsin communities, Wisconsin communities deserve to know what deals are being made with the utilities. 

Transparency and accountability are crucial. Big Tech and utilities like We Energies must make their data center reporting, planning and financials publicly available, so that regulators like the PSC can implement protections and ensure Wisconsinites aren’t being taken advantage of. We deserve to always know how and why our electric and gas bills are being affected.

The time to take action is now.

If We Energies builds new gas plants to power Big Tech’s data centers, all of us will live with greater risks of rising gas and electricity prices as well as environmental impacts to our communities. If Big Tech wants to come into our state and use our state resources, they shouldn’t be putting us in jeopardy, they should be the ones taking on the risks. 

As we prepare for the PSC to make a decision on data centers, we need to make our voices heard to decision makers: Big Tech and We Energies don’t get to decide what’s best for Wisconsin. You have a role to play in shaping the policies that affect you. Attend the virtual public hearing on Feb. 10 or by submitting a comment by Feb. 17.

President Trump's statements that Republicans should take over and run elections in many states, the domestic deployment of armed agents who are shooting people in nearby cities, along with Wisconsin's long struggle over fair voting rules, makes for a tense election season. But voters still have the power to defend their rights. | Photo of an anti-gerrymandering sign in the Wisconsin State Capitol by the Wisconsin Examiner

Wisconsin was almost certainly on President Donald Trump’s mind when he said this week, “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Our swing state was Ground Zero for the fake electors plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election after Trump narrowly lost here. Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s office was involved in the effort to pass off fraudulent Electoral College ballots cast by state Republicans for Trump. Our state Legislature hosted countless hearings spotlighting election deniers and wasted $2.5 million in taxpayer dollars on a fruitless “investigation” of the 2020 presidential results, led by disgraced former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who threatened to arrest the mayors of Madison and Green Bay.

So how worried should we be about Trump’s election takeover threats?

“I wouldn’t be overly concerned that the president could get anything done that’s directly contrary to the Constitution,” says John Vaudreuil, a former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin and a member of the nonpartisan group Keep Our Republic, which works to promote trust in elections.

Not only does Article I of the U.S. Constitution expressly delegate elections administration to the states, Wisconsin has one of the most decentralized elections systems in the country, with about 1,800 local clerks running elections in counties, municipalities and townships throughout the state. “And they are Republicans, they are Democrats, they are independent,” Vaudreuil says. “Most fundamentally, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends.” 

Trump’s threats of a federal takeover would be both legally and practically hard to pull off in Wisconsin.

But there is still reason to worry. Sowing distrust in elections takes a toll on clerks and poll workers, who have become less willing to put up with the threats and hostility generated by Trump’s attacks. Vaudreuil urges people to support their local elections officials and poll workers and spread the word that the work they do is important and that elections are secure.

Then there’s the danger that Trump could use his own false claims about election fraud to send federal immigration agents to the polls on the pretext that it’s necessary to address the nonexistent problem of noncitizen voting.

Doug Poland, director of litigation at the voting rights focused firm Law Forward, has been involved in election-related litigation in Wisconsin for years, including a lawsuit to block the Trump administration from forcing the state to turn over sensitive voter information. 

Poland sees Trump’s threats to “nationalize” elections as part of a pivot from Republican efforts to make in-person voting harder — on the dubious theory that there’s a huge problem with voter impersonation at the polls — to a new focus on stopping absentee voting after many people began using mail-in ballots during the pandemic. But really, it’s all about trying to make sure fewer people vote.

Under former Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin passed a strict voter ID law, which one Republican former staffer testified made Republican legislators “giddy” as they discussed how it would make it more difficult for students and people of color to vote. 

Like Vaudreuil, Poland sees the current threat from the Trump administration not as an actual takeover of election administration by the federal government, but as an escalation of intimidation tactics.

“Noncitizens generally don’t vote. So it’s a lie,” Poland says. “But it’s, of course, the lie that they’re going to use as a premise to send, whether it’s ICE or whomever it may be, to polling places, probably in locations with Black and brown populations, and that is purely for the purpose of intimidation. And at the same time, they’re pushing back very hard on absentee voting by mail.”

If the Trump administration is preparing to send armed federal agents to the polls to intimidate voters, absentee voting will be more important than ever in the upcoming elections.

Yet, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson recently told constituents that while he doesn’t think the federal government should take over elections administration, “I think we need to tighten up the requirements for absentee voting. I’m opposed to mail in register or mail in balloting.”

And as Erik Gunn reports, Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil’s Make Elections Great Again Act would restrict absentee voting, along with adding new layers of citizen verification steps while threatening to defund elections administrators who fail to comply with the bill’s onerous requirements.

“They’re going to do everything they can to try to make it harder to vote absentee by mail, to make it harder to vote absentee in person,” Poland says, adding, “They’re going to try to do it so they can put ICE agents around polling places and just try to intimidate people, to keep them away.”

So what can be done?

Voter intimidation is a crime, and specific instances can be addressed through lawsuits, Poland says. Still, he acknowledges (and Law Forward has argued in court) that once someone is deprived of the right to cast a ballot, there’s no remedy that can adequately compensate for that loss. That’s why it was so appalling when the city of Madison asserted that absentee voting is a “privilege” in response to a lawsuit brought by Poland’s organization over 200 lost ballots in the 2024 election.

Of course, in addition to worries about possible violations of individuals’ right to vote, there’s the fear that Trump could manage to subvert elections through heavy-handed tactics like the recent FBI raid to seize 2020 ballots from Fulton County. Both Vaudreuil and Poland think judges would step in to prevent such a seizure in the middle of an election, before the ballots were counted.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, absentee voting remains legal and many municipalities are using secure ballot drop boxes. We need to keep on making use of our right (not our privilege) to vote, using all the tools we have in place.

As for the intimidating effect of armed ICE agents at polling places, local officials and perhaps local law enforcement could have a role in protecting the polls and reassuring voters it’s safe to cast their ballots. Neighbors who have been organizing to warn people of ICE raids, bring food to immigrants who are afraid to leave their homes, and form a protective shield around schools could become self-appointed polling place protectors.

If we are going to defend the core tenets of our democracy against an administration that has demonstrated over and over again its contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, it’s going to take massive public resistance and a flat refusal to give up our rights.

“What is it that will make them stand down from what they’re doing to break the law?” asks Poland. “I think the people of Minnesota have answered that for us better than anybody else can, which is that you have to stand up, you have to exercise your rights, First Amendment rights, the right to vote.”

Exercising our rights is the only way to make sure they are not taken away. Courage and collective action are the best protection we’ve got.

(Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gracias, Minnesota.

Gracias, America.

While Minnesota is where much of the resistance has been happening, my gratitude spills beyond its borders because the resistance has been virtually everywhere ICE brutality occurs.

Even before two citizens were killed by immigration authorities in Minneapolis recently, the country responded with a collective “ugh” to federal agents’  tactics.

It hasn’t escaped notice that this purge’s purpose, according to abundant evidence from the Trump administration, is to prevent the “civilizational erasure” white supremacists believe will be triggered by non-white immigrants. 

The deportations have gone far beyond the stated mandate of removing undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. Undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, legal immigrants and citizens have been routinely ensnared as if relentless quotas are at work.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave immigration authorities permission for their campaign of terror against all immigrants, whether they are in the country legally or not. Justice Brett Kavanaugh undid an order by a lower court that barred immigration authorities from using ethnicity as cause to arrest and detain. This is now appropriately called the Kavanaugh Stop.

Americans, even those who believe immigration really is a problem, are saying, enough.

Protests and polling tell us as much. 

Trump supporters are turning on key architects of the purge, advocating a purge of their own. They are urging throwing Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem under the bus to appease voters as the congressional midterm election begins in earnest. The administration sent the guy who led the crackdown in Minneapolis, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, packing and replaced him with Border Czar Tom Homan.

This is progress.

Gracias, America, but the work won’t be done until Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller are effectively neutralized. They created and cheered on pedal-to-metal deportations that feature traumatizing children to deport them.

Other features of this purge:

• Harsh mass detention used as a cudgel to get immigrants to stop their claims for lawful stays.
• Inviting undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and who are pursuing legal status to come in for interviews where they  are then arrested and detained for deportation.
• And the jack-booted tactics generally of masked immigration agents who trample rights and deny due process.

The protests grew after immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, white U.S. citizens who  had empathy for the scores of non-white victims of this purge.

They didn’t have to step up. And they haven’t been alone. 

Minnesota doesn’t have a large undocumented immigrant population relative to other states such as California, Texas, New York and Florida, but its citizens, armed only with whistles and cellphone cameras, have put themselves on the frontlines.

Empathy lives.

Enter hope.

U.S. history’s lesson: When injustices have been overcome, it is because people who don’t directly bear the brunt of the injustice have risen up. Good and Pretti were two of them.

More than 77 million people voted to reelect Trump in 2024. They knew exactly who and what they were getting.

It’s difficult to not give in to despair when your fellow Americans reelect venality and cruelty, Trump’s trademarks.

No, despair doesn’t quite capture the feeling. It is a gnawing pain in the soul that makes one feel so desolately alone. Cynicism and hopelessness beckon.

Gracias, America, for giving me and others hope that MAGA may not ultimately speak for America.

But, for now, it is a hope that requires nurturing. We’ve been disappointed before.

The midterm election and then the 2028 election will tell the tale. The first could make Congress a truly co-equal branch of government with the power to check this imperial presidency. The second will send an even stronger message if candidates who follow Trump’s playbook of nativist division are trounced at the polls.

It will take both those events to signal course correction.

Undocumented immigrants live in the crosshairs. It is part of their existence. They’ve always known that arrest, detention and deportation could happen. They’ve always known the risk but brave it to escape persecution and poverty in their native countries and to secure brighter futures for their children.

What’s different now is the brutality.

The broadening pushback is a signal that America may be at yet another turning point – that the direct targets of injustice are not alone, that others stand and fight with them because humanity counts and citizens feel called to stand up when they see American values betrayed.

From the son of people who were once undocumented, a heartfelt gracias.

Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

On July 4th, in the towns and counties of rural western Wisconsin, there were celebrations like on any other Independence Day: grilling bratwurst, drinking Leinenkugel’s, fireworks showering high in the summer night. 

That very same day, a thousand miles away in Washington, DC, HR1— also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) — was signed into law. Yet for people here, the passage of the bill was a mere blip in the national headlines. It was not apparent that it would become an economic earthquake, triggering a tsunami of devastating after-effects soon to crash down on our rural communities.

The massive tax cut and spending bill is the most dramatic restructuring of federal budget priorities in six decades. The president called the OBBBA his “greatest victory” and the “most popular bill ever signed.” The White House issued only a scant 237-word press release summarizing the 900-page law; the substance of the law itself was barely mentioned. When it was enacted, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they knew “little or nothing” about what was in the bill.

When asked about his support of the bill, my own representative from Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, Derrick Van Orden, dismissed any suggestion that the White House had influenced his vote. “The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little bitches around here, OK? I’m a member of Congress, I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites.” 

The OBBBA permanently extends the 2017 tax cuts and locks in a historic upward transfer of wealth. The top 1% of households receive an average tax cut of $66,000. Working families earning $53,000 or less get a tax cut of just $325. Roughly $1 trillion dollars will flow to the richest households over the next decade, while Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and health coverage are drastically scaled back, pushing 15 million people off insurance. 

‘I want to be part of a strategy, something that’s actually effective’

Last August, 70 of us gathered on a Saturday in Woodville, Wisconsin, population 1,400, with the understanding that something consequential was happening in our nation, yet struggling to figure out how we can respond. We filled a community center on Main Street for six hours: teachers, farmers, retirees, retail workers, students, small business owners. People brought notebooks and coffee. The windows were open. Ceiling fans spun slowly overhead. 

“I’m tired of complaining, feeling like a victim, worried about what’s going to happen next,” one of our members put it plainly. “I want to be part of a strategy, something that’s actually effective.”

I organize with Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW). Our work has always started from a simple question: How does power move in the places we live? Since the organization began, our focus has been on local issues like housing, agriculture and rural broadband. But, at that meeting in Woodville, we were trying to name what was happening: how the political chaos in our federal government was flowing down to our families, counties, schools, cities, hospitals, town boards. And, most importantly, what we could actually do about it. 

That day in Woodville we made a plan. It did not involve protest or messaging. Our organizing has never been about reacting the fastest or shouting the loudest. Power is built methodically: identifying who makes decisions, who feels the consequences, and where solidarity can be established and strengthened before a harm is normalized and written off as inevitable. That is why we started with listening.

During the following three months we sat down face to face with nearly 100 local leaders across four counties. We met in offices, conference rooms and coffee shops. We spoke with school superintendents, sheriffs, county administrators, hospital executives, clergy, elected officials, business owners. We asked the same questions over and over: what were people experiencing in their jobs, what pressures were they under, what was keeping them up at night?

Many people we spoke with were overwhelmed by the effort required to stay focused on their jobs: the to-do lists, budgets, hiring, planning. One program director told us her job was mostly “putting out fires.” When we asked how they were reacting to federal policy changes, most people didn’t have much to say. Unless it was affecting them today, they didn’t have the luxury to worry about it. 

Each conversation made clear how county governments in rural Wisconsin are lifelines, not faceless bureaucracies. They plow snow, run elections, maintain roads, administer BadgerCare and SNAP, respond to mental health crises, operate nursing homes, and answer 911 calls. And they are already stretched thin.

Funding was the issue mentioned the most. A county administrator walked us through the elaborate gymnastics required to balance a county budget under state-imposed levy limits that make raising revenue nearly impossible: wheel taxes, bond sales, consolidating services. One-time fixes layered on top of structural gaps. Again, it came back to resources. Not culture wars, not ideology. Money.

Delaying the pain

What surprised us most was what we did not hear. Despite anxiety about shrinking budgets, very few people mentioned the One Big Beautiful Bill. It had not yet made a mark on their daily work. That is not accidental. The new law is designed to delay the pain, disperse responsibility, and conceal the damage out of public view until it feels inevitable.

We decided to look into the law’s ramifications. We did our own research, and what we learned is that rural and small-town communities in western Wisconsin are in for a slow-motion fiscal disaster, and that regular people will be the ones who pay the price. 

Starting in 2027, the federal government is scheduled to cut its share of SNAP administrative costs in half. In counties like Dunn, that shift could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in new local costs. A smaller administrative budget means fewer staff, which means slower processing, higher error rates, and federal penalties that reduce funding even further. The OBBBA seems designed to trigger countless downward spirals that degrade programs until they can be declared broken.

The repercussions for Medicaid follow the same pattern. At Golden Age Manor, the beloved county-run nursing home in Amery, where most of the services are Medicaid funded, even modest reimbursement cuts will translate into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars lost each year. At the same time, more uninsured residents will still need care.

Across our counties, more than 10,000 people rely on ACA Marketplace coverage for their health insurance. Since federal tax credits expired at the end of 2025, families face premium increases averaging around $1,600 a year. Some will pay far more. Many will drop coverage altogether. When they do, costs will shift to county-funded behavioral health systems and other services already operating at the limits of their resources.

One sheriff described what that will look like in practice: “When someone is in a mental health crisis, our deputies already spend hours driving them across the state because there are no beds here,” he said. “If people lose coverage, those crises do not go away. They show up as 911 calls.”

We must act before the tsunami arrives

A tsunami is set in motion by a distant earthquake that no one feels. Life happens on shore while energy gathers fiercely far out at sea. Only a seismograph sounds the alarm. Once the wave arrives, entire cities are engulfed, communities washed out to sea. Trump’s massive tax cut and spending law was that earthquake. We have decided to act before the wave arrives.

Local governments will be forced to navigate what policy expert Eric Schnurer described as “fiscal and operational crises,” but few people will be able to connect what happens to a bill passed last year. “Most Americans don’t realize how dramatically state and local governments — which most directly affect their daily lives — are about to change.”

County budget hearings were held in November. They often happen with no public comment, gaveled in and gaveled out in a matter of minutes. Last year we showed up and filled the rooms. We brought letters we had drafted, breaking down projected budget impacts county by county. We delivered testimony from the podium. Our goal was not to blame our county leaders, but to signal our alignment with them. 

After one hearing, a county administrator, a self-identified fiscal conservative, met with us and said, “Every point you raised in your letter was correct. Our county government has to brace for what’s coming, and you made that clear to everyone in the room.”

The people who will be hit hardest

We know our county boards are not responsible for causing this disaster, yet they will be forced to deal with it, while we, the residents, will be the ones who feel the cuts most deeply. Our members of Congress who voted “yes” for this bill are the ones responsible for this mess. 

Letters and testimony are not enough. What we need is power. For regular people like us, there is but one path to power: organizing. That means we have to talk to those who will be most affected, inviting them to see their personal stake in this fight. The single parent in River Falls, juggling two part-time jobs and relying on SNAP to keep food on the table. The kid with asthma in Boyceville, whose parents rely on ACA coverage, now at risk of losing access to care. The retired farmer outside Balsam Lake, whose wife’s long-term care at Golden Age Manor nursing home is covered through Medicaid. 

Our long game is to begin the conversation about what it will take for Congress to repeal the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The path to repeal will be fraught with political roadblocks and fiercely opposed by the corporate class, which has been true for every consequential victory working people have ever won in this country. Repealing the law must become a defining issue in every political conversation in America – at dinner tables, at bus stops, and on Reddit threads – starting now and continuing until the law is gone. 

Cracks are already beginning to form. Earlier this month, Rep. Van Orden, along with 17 other Republicans in the House of Representatives, backpedaled on his support of the OBBBA by voting to extend ACA tax credits (more than 30,000 people are expected to lose health insurance in Van Orden’s district). However, the opposition stiffens. Shortly after the vote, in a disciplinary move, Americans For Prosperity announced it was pausing support for those who defected.

Cutting services, expanding the machinery of repression

As I write, immigration agents are spilling into western Wisconsin from Minneapolis, swarming small towns and rural communities across the region. They are driving unmarked vehicles with out-of-state plates. Some members of our organization have built rapid response networks in solidarity with immigrant-led groups. Meanwhile, our neighbors are being terrorized, taken from their homes, and families are being ripped apart. Some local Mexican restaurants and grocery stores have closed their doors. Just sixty miles west, in Minneapolis, two American citizens have been killed by ICE agents. 

This is not a coincidence. While showering billionaires with tax benefits, the OBBBA also massively expands the machinery of repression. It quadrupled the budget of ICE, expanding its force by 10,000 agents and thereby transforming the agency into one larger than most national militaries. On one hand, the administration subjects us to the cruel spectacle of paramilitary raids, disappearances and death. On the other, the administration dismantles the social safety nets that keep people alive, then redistributes public resources to the wealthiest few. A loud disruptive culture war creates a smokescreen for a quiet methodical class war. 

The fight for Congress to repeal the OBBBA will be a David versus Goliath fight. It is a fight about whether the super-rich will be able to bleed us dry and starve our local institutions. Whether our neighbors will die as wealth is extracted from above. Whether daily life for a majority of Americans will be defined by relentless top-down class war. 

This fight will not be won by politicians, consultants, or pollsters. It will be won by regular people who have decided to build a movement town by town, county by county, state by state. The ramifications of the OBBBA are so wide and deep that a new political coalition will be necessary, one big enough to include anyone who isn’t a billionaire. Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians, socialists, and people who’ve lost faith in politics altogether. White people, brown people, Black people, young people, old people. The poor, the working class, the middle class. 

An unwavering commitment to big tent politics and multiracial solidarity is how we defeat the divide-and-conquer tactics this administration relies upon. Building trust and power across differences. Not reinforcing divides through purity tests or theoretical debate. Listening for common ground and shared humanity. Seeing every person as a potential ally, not an enemy to defeat. We must organize, strategize and mobilize until regular Americans have won the freedom to make ends meet, live with dignity, and have a voice in the decisions that affect us.

Marchers begin a walking and singing vigil outside All God's Children Church in Minneapolis on Jan. 17, 2026 | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

“A great American city is being invaded by its own federal government,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on Saturday, after Border Patrol agents shot and killed an ICU nurse from Green Bay, Alex Pretti, in broad daylight while restraining him on the ground outside a doughnut shop.

In this dizzying new era of state terror, citizens and community leaders alike are trying to figure out what to do. What power do we have to face down a violent, repressive government targeting civilians in an operation aimed not at protecting public safety but at disrupting and destroying civil society? 

At a press conference with local media last week, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan promised to fight against a Minneapolis-like surge in Wisconsin, drawing a lot of probing follow-up questions from reporters. Pocan voted against $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security that passed the House and is now, belatedly, facing difficulties in the Senate. He said he would work with local law enforcement, support lawsuits filed by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and other state AGs against aggressive ICE deployments, and encourage peaceful protestors marching in inflatable dinosaur costumes. 

But the question of how to fight back is a tough one.

The federal government has created a massive paramilitary organization that is systematically terrorizing Democratic-led Midwestern cities. The 3,000 immigration agents in Minneapolis far outnumber the local police force there. We have never seen anything quite like this.

Minnesota elected officials seem to be struggling with the question of how to resist and how to defend their citizens. Along with strong language about the damage the federal crackdown is doing to the community, Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz repeatedly admonished protesters to remain peaceful, then deployed the Minnesota National Guard to block people from visiting a memorial at the site of Pretti’s death. Bringing in local and state law enforcement and the Guard to police protesters seems to buttress the Trump administration’s false claims that Minnesotans are the ones causing the violence, and that more armed men policing civilian neighborhoods will increase public safety. In reality, federal agents are the ones who are acting violently, not Minneapolis residents, and it’s not clear that local and state police are doing anything to protect the public from this threat.

The fact is, it’s hard to figure out what to do.

In Madison, on Saturday night more than 100 of my neighbors packed the James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Church for a potluck and discussion of nonviolent action, looking for answers to the terrible questions raised by the shooting death of yet another civilian in Minneapolis. 

How do we prepare for the possibility of an onslaught of armed federal agents into our own communities, busting down doors without warrants, dragging people out of their homes and firing on the neighbors who try to protect them? What power do we have to turn back the transformation of our country from democracy to authoritarian regime? 

The Madison event, planned before Pretti was killed, was organized by a coalition of dozens of peace and social justice groups under the umbrella Building Unity for Nonviolent Action. Speakers, including my friend John Nichols of The Nation magazine and Dane County Judge and Rev. Everett Mitchell, talked about the history of peaceful resistance in the U.S. The group showed part of the documentary “A Force More Powerful” about transformative nonviolent resistance struggles in India, the segregated American South, South Africa, Denmark and Chile. 

It was restorative to gather in person, take a break from isolation, helpless rage and doomscrolling and to spend some time contemplating the heroism of the Civil Rights movement activists who faced down hatred and violence with astounding courage and faith — despite all evidence to the contrary — in the fundamental decency of other people.

The difference between the Civil Rights era and today — and even the difference between the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence of a few years ago and today — is that the federal government can no longer be counted on to enforce civil rights, due process and justice. We are in a new era. “Those protections are gone,” Rev. Mitchell told the crowd. “So the only thing that you have available to you is each other.”

That bracing realization has spurred a proliferation of nonviolent resistance trainings in Minnesota and in other states, including Wisconsin.

One salutary side effect is that peaceful gatherings that bring out our capacity for love, mutual aid and connection help us avoid drowning in anger and despair.

Last weekend we drove to Minneapolis to visit our daughter who is, alarmingly, living in the middle of the chaos there. On our way to take her out for lunch we came upon a massive group of people holding a walking vigil in the neighborhood near where Renee Good was shot. About 600 Minnesotans were walking the streets singing, “You are not alone” and “Hold on, here comes the dawn,” as immigrant children and their parents peered out the windows of locked houses, waving. It was an unexpected moment of grace. A glimpse of the humanity and caring that are still possible. We need to hold onto that vision.

Data centers are mushrooming all over the country, with many planned projects on deck in Wisconsin. We need to get ahead of them by putting in place protections for the state's energy and water resources. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor)

Wisconsin stands at a pivotal moment.

Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and hyperscale data centers are arriving quickly, bringing enormous demand for electricity and water. The real question is not whether these investments will come, but how we manage them and who pays the costs if we get it wrong.

Families want affordable bills. Businesses want reliable power. Communities want clean water and economic opportunity. We need a  common-sense approach to guide how we respond to rapid data center growth.

An unprecedented load and a real affordability risk

The scale of proposed data centers is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen.

Just two projects, one in Port Washington and another in Mount Pleasant, have requested nearly four gigawatts of electricity combined. That is more power than all Wisconsin households use today.

Meeting this demand will require massive investments in power plants, transmission lines, substations, pipelines and water infrastructure. But under Wisconsin’s current utility model, these costs are not paid only by the companies driving demand. They are instead spread across all of us who pay electric bills, including families, farms, and small businesses that won’t benefit from data center power.

For small businesses operating on thin margins, even modest increases in electric or water rates affect hiring, pricing and long-term viability. In rural communities with fewer customers sharing infrastructure costs, the impact can be even more severe.

This concern is already becoming real. Utilities are citing data center demand to justify new methane gas plants and delaying coal plant retirements. Utilities doubling down on fossil fuels should give every one of us pause.

Why costly gas is the wrong answer

Building new methane gas plants for data centers would lock customers into decades of fuel price volatility, even though cleaner options have become cheaper and faster to deploy.

Wind, solar and battery storage can come online far more quickly than fossil fuel plants and without exposing families and businesses to unpredictable fuel costs. Battery storage costs alone have fallen nearly 90% over the past decade. 

Across the country, these tools are replacing methane gas plants in states as different as Texas and California.

There is also a serious risk that we will pay higher bills for decades, even when data centers stop using those methane gas plants. In Nevada, a major utility has acknowledged that only about 15% of proposed data centers are likely to be built. When speculative projects fall through, all of us are left to pay for infrastructure we actually never needed.

This is not ideology. It is basic financial risk management, and basic fairness.

Clean energy is the lowest-cost path

Wisconsin policymakers and elected officials need to put guardrails in place to protect everyday residents from the AI bubble that’s threatening the state. The core principle should be that data centers operate on 100% clean energy, not as a slogan, but because it is the lowest-cost and lowest-risk option over time.

A smart framework would require developers to:

• Supply at least 30% of their power from on-site and Wisconsin-based renewable energy
• Offset additional demand through energy efficiency, demand response – at least 25% of peak capacity and smart grid flexibility
• Participate fully in utility efficiency and renewable energy programs rather than opting out
• Each data center project should require a legally binding Community Benefit Agreement that clearly defines community protections and benefits, negotiated among developers, local governments, neighborhood-based organizations and underserved communities

This approach reduces peak demand, lowers infrastructure costs and protects existing customers while allowing data centers to advance.

Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have already publicly committed to operating on carbon-free energy. We need to hold them to that. Wisconsin risks losing our competitive advantage if we default to gas-heavy solutions instead of offering clean, flexible grids.

Water is a non-negotiable constraint

Energy is not the only concern. Water matters just as much.

A single hyperscale data center can use millions of gallons of water per day, either directly for cooling or indirectly through power generation. In communities with limited water systems, that can crowd out agricultural use and raise residents’ water bills.

Wisconsin should require closed-loop cooling systems, full accounting of direct and indirect water use, and ongoing public reporting to ensure local water supplies are protected.

A practical path forward

Wisconsin does not have to choose between economic growth and affordability. We can do both if we insist on clear guardrails.

That means requiring data centers to pay the full cost of service, powering growth with clean energy first, and protecting water resources and ratepayers from unnecessary risk.

Data centers are coming. The question is whether Wisconsin families and small businesses will be partners in that growth or be left paying higher bills for decades to come.

If we choose smart clean power over costly gas, Wisconsin can lead.

The sun sets over a playground across the street from a group of apartments where many Somali people live in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Our church stands one short block from where an ICE agent took the life of Renee Good. A few days later, the violence ICE is perpetrating in our city arrived, literally, on our doorstep: Armed masked men raided our neighbors’ homes, remaining at our corner for two long hours. As we prayed and cared for those around us, several of our pastors and staff were among those who were pepper-bombed.

Our city is under siege, and when we asked the children in our congregation how they are feeling, they told us, unsurprisingly, that they feel scared. One youth, the child of an immigrant, texted his grandmother in the middle of the night: “I’m scared every day i live in fear and I don’t know what to do if your awake please call me.”

How can we comfort our children? We feel scared too.

And so, in this climate of fear, we turn to that life-affirming work. Immigrant families are afraid to venture outside. We’ve had to cancel our children’s choir practice until we can confidently gather the children safely.

Yet a few children and their moms still rallied to go grocery shopping for immigrant families, delivering boxes to a local McDonald’s where many immigrants work. In distributing Happy Meals to the appreciative children, the assistant manager offered a lesson in how mutual care strengthens the bonds of community. “When you share,” he explained in his accented English, “we share.”

We wish that feeding one another during these terrible times would be enough. But our young people tell us it is not. As one of our youth said, “I want to make sure my friends are not stolen from their families.” Another child asked, “Could you make ICE disappear? They hurt people.”

Jesus understood what it meant to live under an occupying force — in his case, the Roman Empire. He understood the helplessness. He understood the stakes, and yet he persisted in showing us, before ultimately dying from the violence, that another way — a way of love — is possible.

So we will continue to deliver groceries. We will make arrangements so that, if the unfathomable happens, the children can stay with other families. And from the epicenter of this occupation, we send out the children’s plea: Please. Make the people who are hurting people disappear.

Pete Buttigieg speaks at a town hall in La Crosse, Wis. on Jan. 16, 2026. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

Dairy farmers and U.S. military veterans were heavily represented among the hundreds of voters from western Wisconsin and Minnesota who packed the La Crosse convention center Friday night, braving snow and freezing temperatures to hear what former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had to say about our current political predicament.

Buttigieg was following in the footsteps of other Democrats who have visited Wisconsin’s closely divided 3rd Congressional District to needle Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden for failing to meet publicly with his constituents who are bearing the brunt of tariffs, high prices and unaffordable health care spurred by Trump administration policies Van Orden has supported. 

In making his La Crosse appearance to bolster a Democratic candidate in a swing district ahead of the midterms — and perhaps to stick his toe in the water ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run — Buttigieg connected with rural and blue-collar Midwestern voters.That’s something Democrats arguably need to do better if they are going to overcome total domination by the party of President Donald Trump. 

The most interesting thing about the La Crosse town hall was the energized audience of rural and small-town Wisconsin and Minnesota residents worried about the the scary, violent authoritarian regime that is rapidly consolidating its power over a stunned and fractured citizenry. 

Democratic state Sen. Brad Pfaff, who took the stage ahead of Buttigieg, praised him as “a son of the Midwest,” denounced President Donald Trump’s gilded White House ballroom, and declared, “The rich get tax breaks and what do the rest of us get? Rising costs!” Pfaff also took a jab at “tech bros” who got front-row seats at Trump’s inauguration and are profiting from algorithms that sow “hate and distrust and division.” 

Buttigieg picked up on that theme, urging people to reach out in person to connect with their neighbors who might disagree with them. Responding to a veteran in the audience who said he was in despair about talking to people who live in a pro-Trump social media bubble and who “don’t know how close to the abyss we really are,” Buttigeig said, ”This is where I believe in the power of the offline.” 

“We are increasingly sorted into these silos where not just our opinions, but our facts, or would-be facts, are presented to us. But our relationships, our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our churches, our little league, our sports loyalty, right? That’s where we have a chance to get through to people.”

Rebecca Cooke, who lost her challenge to Van Orden in 2024 by three percentage points and is seeking a rematch, used her few minutes on stage ahead of Buttigieg to emphasize her dairy farm upbringing and work experience as a waitress, declaring, “I’m a working-class Wisconsinite who hopes to be your next member of Congress.” Cooke touted “right to repair,” legislation, “so every time your John Deere breaks down you don’t have to go to the dealership.” Her parents, she said, were on their annual trip to Mexico to get their dental work done for an affordable price “which is ridiculous.” She described how her dad was hit with a bill for over $1,000 at Walgreen’s when he went to fill a prescription for cancer medication. She’s running, she said, to represent people who “just want to be able to put gas in the car and have a little money left over.”

Going beyond Democrats’ ubiquitous talking points about “affordability,” audience members brought up their spiritual beliefs, the meaning of democracy, how technological change is driving a growing sense of alienation, the need to reconnect with neighbors and overcome political divisions, and the horror of seeing federal agents gun down a woman in a residential neighborhood in Minneapolis.

A young woman who lives near Minneapolis broke down crying as she asked Buttigieg, “How do we deal with this attack on our community, on people that we love?”

“The only antidote to a politics of fear is a politics of courage,” Buttigieg told her, praising her compassion and her desire to work for change. “It seems like you’re alone in caring,” he added, but “the majority of Americans think what’s going on there is wrong.” He had just come from talking to farmers in a conservative area of the state, he said, who were very worried about the impact of immigration enforcement on their workers. “We can bring together strange bedfellows,” he said, “as they’re doing everything they can to pull us apart.” 

A Vietnam veteran, part of a large contingent of vets who stood to accept applause as Buttigieg acknowledged them and thanked them for their service, held up a copy of the U.S. Constitution and said he was upset by Trump’s “abuse” of the military and the National Guard. “I’m really worried that a lot of our people are going to look at our veterans, look at the National Guard — and I’ve got that same creepy feeling that we used to have when we came back before — we’re not going to get the respect for what we really are.”

“Thank you for reminding us of your experience, and I know that was an experience for, really, a generation of service members,” Buttigieg said. When he finished his tour of duty in Afghanistan, he added, “I was fortunate to belong to a generation of veterans who came home to a pretty good welcome, because our country learned the hard way how to separate its attitudes about a policy from its attitudes about the people who were sent somewhere by that policy.”

He connected that change in attitude to a general capacity Americans have for learning from their mistakes, “We learned, we grew. That’s the best thing about this country,” he said. Current efforts to whitewash U.S. history assume that “any time you talk about the things that were wrong about America, that must mean you hate America,” he said, but “some of the finest moments that brought out the greatest character of this country is how we put it right.”

There’s a long way to go before we put things right in our country now, just one year into what already appears to be the most destructive administration in U.S. history. But the feeling in the room at the town hall in La Crosse was hopeful that a new, majoritarian politics could shake off the divisiveness and fear of the Trump era and reclaim democracy and a government by and for the people.

As third-generation dairy farmer Sabrina Servais put it, describing the loss of half of dairy farms in Wisconsin since the early 2000s and her fierce love for her own family’s small, organic farm, “the most beautiful place on Earth,”  “It’s easy to feel small when you’re so far away in rural America. Will anyone listen? … But we matter. We’re a swing state. We have the power to change the outcome of elections. We are the working class of America. How dare they doubt us? … We believe that, despite everything, the world is still beautiful.”

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967, at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words from his “Beyond Vietnam” speech still ring true.

“When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people,” he warned, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Those words, delivered in 1967, still summarize today’s political moment. Instead of putting the lives of workingAmericans first, our leaders in Congress and the WhiteHouse have prioritized advancing corporate profits and wealth concentration, slashing government programs meant to advance upward mobility, and deploying military forces across the country, increasing distrust and tension.

This historic regression corresponds with a recessionary environment for Black America in particular. That’s what my organization, the Joint Center, found in our report, “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession.”

The economic landscape for Black Americans in 2026 is troubling, with unemployment rates signaling a potential recession. By December 2025, Black unemployment had reached 7.5 percent — a stark contrast to the national rate of 4.4 percent. This disparity highlights the persistent economic inequalities faced by Black communities, which have only been exacerbated by policy shifts that have weakened the labor market. The volatility in Black youth unemployment, which fluctuated dramatically in the latter months of 2025, underscores the precariousness of the situation.

The Trump administration’s executive orders have systematically dismantled structures aimed at promoting racial equality. By targeting programs such as Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity executive order and defunding agencies like the Minority Business

Development Agency, the administration has shifted federal support away from disadvantaged businesses. As a result, Black-owned firms risk losing contracts and resources tied to federal programs, potentially resulting in job losses and reduced economic growth. These changes threaten billions in federal revenue for Black-owned firms and undermine efforts to move beyond racial inequality in the workforce.

The GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed in 2025, further entrenches inequality by providing tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high-income households and corporations — while simultaneously slashing investments in programs like Medicaid and SNAP, limiting access to essential services for low-income households. The technology sector, a critical component of the American economy, is also affected by this disregard for civil rights. Executive orders like “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” have stripped away protections that could advance inclusion in this rapidly growing field. As a result, the future of the American economy risks reinforcing past inequalities.

Dr. King’s call for strong, aggressive federal leadership in addressing racial inequality remains highly relevant. However, instead of eradicating structures of inequality, our current leadership is implementing policies that destroy government jobs and dismantle agencies responsible for preventing predatory economic practices. These choices undermine longstanding efforts to combat racial and economic disparities — and exemplify the regressive economic policies that coincide with rising Black unemployment.

As Dr. King stated, “we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” But urgent action is required. Unless we act deliberately, economic and racial inequalities will become entrenched, resulting in generational loss. The core question is whether we will move beyond our nation’s history of racism, materialism, and militarism, and — as Dr. King urged — embrace “the fierce urgency now” to advance equity.

This article originally appeared in OtherWords.org

Julia Coelho leads a song at a vigil outside the Wisconsin State Capitol after the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, MN. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

At a vigil outside the Wisconsin State Capitol Friday evening, a few days after a federal agent shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good, hundreds of people held candles and raised their voices in a call and response song led by Madison Community Singing leader Julia Coelho: “This is way too big for you to carry it on your own …  you do not carry this all alone.”

Tiny lights flickered in the darkness. “This is not a rally centered on chants or speeches,” an organizer from the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera told the crowd. Instead, it was a moment to acknowledge our collective shock and grief, to support each other as we face the sickening and disorienting shift in the world around us, and to try to hold onto a protective sense of community. 

It was a needed respite from watching the video, obtained by the Minnesota Reformer, of the shooting of Good in broad daylight as she sat at the wheel of her minivan on a Midwestern residential street, apparently trying to move away from the agent who shot her. The horror of that scene was compounded by the propaganda from the Trump administration that followed, immediately blaming Good for her own death and calling her a “domestic terrorist,” while claiming that the real victim was the ICE agent who, after he shot her, walked away unhurt. 

Stoking political division and hate, justifying murder, treating people’s real lives like a video game — our poisonous political atmosphere is overwhelming. We need to put down the screens and restore our sense of human connection if we are going to overcome it.

Dane County Judge and Pastor Everett Mitchell, speaking at the vigil, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eulogy for the three little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Their deaths, King said, “have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism,” as well as to those who “stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.”

“Madison,” Mitchell said, “we can no longer stand on the sideline and feel like we are protected. We must substitute courage for caution.”

Here in Wisconsin, the Minneapolis shooting hits close to home. Minnesota is our near neighbor. My daughter, who lives in the Twin Cities, was driving past the area of the ICE surge when Good was shot. She texted us about the unfolding chaos in real time, as ICE vehicles sped past her — putting our whole family on edge. 

Maybe we have had the false sense, as Mitchell said, that we were protected. 

The “Midwest nice” culture of Minnesota and Wisconsin — whether that describes taciturn conflict avoidance or genuine warmth — doesn’t fit with political violence. 

It’s impossible to see ourselves in Trump’s heated rhetoric about the “Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate.” Nicole Good, whose last words were, “I’m not mad at you,” certainly doesn’t fit that profile. 

The killing of a U.S. citizen by federal agents, justified after the fact by the president, vice president, and secretary of Homeland Security, is a turning point for all of us. As investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein points out, Trump’s national security order targeting so-called leftwing domestic terrorist groups, and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s tag-along directive, “Ending Political Violence Against ICE” broadly justify the targeting of Americans who protest Trump’s immigration crackdown or attempt to help their immigrant neighbors who are being terrorized.

In a video filmed by the agent who shot Renee Good, released by a right-wing news outlet that tried to spin it as exonerating him, you can hear a man’s voice, immediately after the shooting, cursing Good, calling her a “f-ing bitch.” 

A Customs and Border Patrol Agent who shot Chicago resident Marimar Martinez five times and bragged about it in text messages, also allegedly used the word “bitch” as he rammed into her car, according to Martinez’s attorney. The Justice Department initially claimed Martinez, who survived. was the aggressor, saying she used her car to try to harm the agents — the same dubious claim made against Good — but then dropped all charges after Martinez challenged the government’s evidence.

Turning hyped-up, poorly trained agents onto the streets to pursue civilians is, contrary to Trump administration propaganda, making America much less safe. And pouring fuel on the fire with hateful rhetoric about “the radical Left” and the need to round up immigrant “criminals” —  a majority of whom have committed no crimes — is exacerbating this disaster.

The Trace puts the number of ICE shootings at 16, four of them fatal, since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began — including Silverio Villegas González, a father from Mexico who worked as a cook, killed just after he dropped off his children at school, while reportedly trying to flee from ICE officers during the Midway Blitz in Chicago. At the vigil Friday night, Mitchell connected those killings to racist violence from the Civil Rights era to the 2020 murder of George Floyd. “And now carved into the same, sorrowful stone is the name of Renee Nicole Good,” Mitchell said.

People are struggling to figure out what to make of our frightening new reality. At the Madison vigil, one activist declared that the escalating ICE crackdown “is not because they are inevitably powerful. It is because we are powerful.” But the escalation, which is targeting people who are decidedly not powerful, is coming directly out of the more than $170 billion allocated to immigration enforcement in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — more than the yearly budget for all local and state law enforcement agencies in the U.S. combined, according to the Brennan Center. The Trump administration is using this newly empowered militarized police force to target civilians the administration characterizes as enemies. 

Most of the people I know are aghast at this scary turn of events. But one Wisconsinite I spoke with waved away the shooting, saying, “Minneapolis has a lot of problems.” There’s that false sense of being protected Mitchell called out. It’s really just denial — a powerful wish to believe that bad things only happen to other people, that violence is far away and somehow the fault of people who are different from us and who bring it on themselves.

But this touches all of us. And it won’t go away unless we get to the root of the problem — the unAmerican national security directives, the insane ICE budget, the lack of accountability — what Vice President JD Vance, astoundingly, asserted was “total immunity” for the rogue, masked agents targeting people in a political crackdown that has nothing to do with keeping us safe.

We have to see this for what it is. We need members of Congress to demand a rollback of the massive funding for Trump’s unaccountable police force. We need leaders who will state clearly, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have done, that political violence against civilians waged by the Trump administration is immoral, illegal and has to stop. 

Most of all, we need each other. This is too heavy for one person to carry. We need to connect, to combine all of our efforts and to build a massive popular movement to take care of each other and reject the hateful forces that are trying to tear us apart.

Wisconsin State Flag | Getty Images Creative

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol, demanding that then-Vice President Pence overturn the will of the people. Efforts to impose accountability for those responsible and those involved have largely ended — except in Wisconsin. This means that Wisconsin has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to re-assert the rule of law, to ensure justice, and to bolster the foundations on which American democracy has been built over the past 250 years.

As we assess the state of our democracy in light of this somber anniversary, let’s start with the bad news: 

• The U.S. Supreme Court derailed efforts by states to enforce the 14th Amendment’s prohibition against insurrectionists serving in federal office, and then it invented an ahistorical and jaw-droppingly broad doctrine of presidential immunity to derail criminal prosecutions of Trump in state and federal courts alike. 
• Federal prosecutions of the violent mob in the Capitol were upended by Trump’s Department of Justice, and Trump issued sweeping federal pardons to every individual connected with Jan. 6, effectively encouraging them to keep it up. 
• State prosecutions of the fraudulent electors — those who executed an unprecedented effort to overturn the 2020 election by submitting to Congress (and other officials) paperwork that falsely declared Trump to have won seven key states that he in fact lost and thereby laying the groundwork for the Jan. 6 rioters to violently demand Pence validate their efforts — have faltered, often for reasons unrelated to the merits of those actions. 

But here in Wisconsin there are still grounds for hope. Hope that bad actors who deliberately took aim at our democracy will be held accountable. Hope that our institutions will stand up and protect our democracy from further meddling by those most directly responsible. And hope that those institutions will act promptly to prevent further damage. Every Wisconsinite should be watching the following accountability efforts — and urging our elected officials to use their authority to advance the rule of law and protect our democracy. 

First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will soon determine the appropriate sanction for Michael Gableman’s ethical transgressions as he spearheaded a sham “investigation” of the 2020 election. Gableman, who once served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, accepted this job despite his own assessment that he did not understand how elections work in Wisconsin. He wasted taxpayer funds, undermined government transparency laws, dealt dishonestly with his clients and the public, lied to and insulted courts, and tried to jail the elected mayors of Green Bay and Madison. In March 2023, Law Forward filed an omnibus ethics grievance, documenting Gableman’s myriad breaches of the ethics rules that bind all Wisconsin attorneys. Last summer, Gableman stipulated that he had no viable defense of his conduct and agreed with the Office of Lawyer Regulation to jointly recommend his law license be suspended for three years. (He is now trying to wriggle out of accountability by serially pushing justice after justice to recuse.) 

Wisconsin precedent is clear that, where a lawyer is charged with multiple ethical breaches, the proper sanction is determined by adding the sanctions for each breach together. The Court should apply established law, which demands revoking Gableman’s law license. Then the Office of Lawyer Regulation and the Court should act on our requests to hold Andrew Hitt (chairman of the Wisconsin fraudulent electors) and Jim Troupis (chief Wisconsin counsel to Trump’s 2020 campaign and ringleader of the fraudulent-elector scheme) accountable as well.

Second, the primary architects of the fraudulent-elector scheme, detailed in records  obtained through Law Forward’s groundbreaking civil suit, are also facing criminal prosecution in Dane County. Attorney General Josh Kaul’s case is narrowly focused only on three lawyers — two who were based here in Wisconsin, and one working for the Trump campaign in DC — who conceived and designed the scheme to overturn Wisconsin’s results and then convinced six other states to follow suit. Troupis, who himself was appointed to the Wisconsin bench by former-Gov. Scott Walker as a reward for his key role in the 2011 partisan gerrymander, has gone to great lengths to slow down this prosecution, which Kaul initiated in June 2024. He filed nine separate motions to dismiss the case. He accused the judge hearing preliminary motions of misconduct and insisted that the entire Dane County bench should be recused. And now he has appealed the denial of his misconduct allegations. This case, since assigned to a different Dane County judge, will proceed, and it is the best hope anywhere in the country to achieve accountability for the fraudulent-elector scheme. 

Third, on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and two individual voters, Law Forward is suing Elon Musk and two advocacy organizations he controls for their brazen scheme of million-dollar giveaways to influence the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. This case is about ensuring that Wisconsin elections are decided by Wisconsin voters, not by out-of-state efforts to buy the results they want for us. We’re waiting for the trial court to decide preliminary motions, but, with another Wisconsin Supreme Court election imminently approaching, there is urgency to clarify that Wisconsin law forbids the shenanigans we saw last year, which contributed to the most expensive judicial race in American history. 

Beginning in 2011, Wisconsin became the country’s primary testing ground for the most radical anti-democratic ideas. From Act 10 to one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, from subverting the separation of powers and steamrolling local control over local issues to hobbling the regulatory state and starving our public schools, Wisconsin’s gerrymandered Legislature adopted idea after idea hostile to democracy. With the end of the nation’s most extreme and durable partisan gerrymander in 2023 and a change in the makeup of the state Supreme Court, however, the tide in Wisconsin has ebbed somewhat. 

Now, improbably, Wisconsin is the place that democracy can best hold the line. We can create accountability for those who have abused power, have undermined elections, and have diminished the ideals and institutions of our self-government. That, in conjunction with Law Forward’s broad docket of work to defend free elections and to strengthen our democracy, sustains my hope.

Gov. Tim Walz announces he will step down from the 2026 gubernatorial election Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 at the Minnesota State Capitol. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

The moment Gov. Tim Walz was cooked was little remarked upon at the time, but in retrospect illustrates how he and his administration were sleeping through an enveloping crisis.

At the late 2024 budget forecast, he said disability and autism services were driving state government spending beyond expectations. When he was asked about potential fraud in the autism program — about which we’d reported an FBI investigation six months prior — he seemed unfamiliar. I traded texts with an incredulous reporter who was there and wound up publishing a column called, “Minnesota: an easy mark.” 

More recently, Walz faced the full force of the right-wing propaganda machine in the past two months. It was a frightening sight to behold, and a healthier democracy would never be host to such a parasitical malignancy.

Although restoring American democratic habits of mind to eviscerate that propaganda machine should be on our lengthy, long-term to-do list, the lesson here for me is that the most underrated tool in the political toolbox is … governing.

Deadly dull, I know, but the word governor even has the word “govern” in it: competently administering programs to help people who need it; ensuring Minnesota’s children are learning literacy and numeracy; and managing the state’s vast infrastructure assets. That’s the job.

Former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, another one-time rising star in Minnesota politics, recently faced the same sort of governing reckoning as Walz, when Mayor Kaohly Her pulled off an upset November victory promising to make stuff work again. May Democratic elected officials everywhere take notice.

We live in perilous times, no question, but Minnesotans are right to expect a minimum level of competency in these matters of public administration. It’s especially important for the party of government, i.e., the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, to pay attention to details, like whether a 3,000% increase in spending on the autism program is reasonable, especially when some of the providers had ties to Feeding Our Future.

Tim Walz is at heart a decent man, and he doesn’t deserve what’s been thrown at him in recent weeks — especially a despicable allegation leveled by the president of the United States and the odious propagandist Nick Shirley that Walz was involved in the assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman.

He made some mistakes, but he’s not evil, unlike some of the loudest and most influential voices in American politics today, whose greed and lust for power are boundless.

Walz’s first term was marked by almost constant crisis, none of it his doing. He was a mostly steady hand, even as Republicans came to despise him during the pandemic and the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd.

His second term comprised major legislative accomplishments — for which the credit mostly belongs to Hortman and the late Sen. Kari Dziedzic — as well as his (again, in retrospect) disastrous candidacy for vice president. All the while, thieves were stealing the people’s money with gusto.

Walz has served the community of Mankato, the people of Minnesota and his country.

And now he has saved us from what would have been a deeply divisive campaign, and which would have put the state of Minnesota under federal siege.

Unlike former President Joe Biden, who doomed his party and the country with his insistence on running for a second term, Walz is stepping aside before any more damage is done to his state and the DFL. He says he’ll focus all his energies on cleaning up the mess.

He deserves our thanks for that service and for making this decision.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

Protesters supporting U.S. President Donald Trump break into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Five years ago today we were transfixed by the surreal spectacle of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The violence and horror of that day was made more bearable when the insurrectionists were arrested and the election results they tried to overturn were certified.

But now they’re back, pardoned by President Donald Trump, released from prison and planning to parade triumphantly today through the streets of Washington, D.C. 

Among the people convicted and later pardoned by Trump, at least 33 have been arrested and charged with new crimes, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Their alleged continuing criminal behaviors include rape, illegal possession of weapons, firing on police officers, and, in the case of Chrisopher Moynihan, threatening to murder House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. 

Some of the most violent offenders are back behind bars. But the most powerful proponents of the Big Lie, including Trump himself, the enablers who staff his administration and the Wisconsin Republicans who hatched the fake electors scheme to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election, continue to work to undermine our democracy. 

“We must continue to defeat election deniers and the threats they pose,” the Wisconsin-based progressive firm Law Forward declares on its website, in a section devoted to a timeline of the fake electors scheme. Law Forward brought the first class-action lawsuit against the fake electors, and forced the release of documents, text messages and other evidence showing how the plot unfolded, starting in Wisconsin. They present the timeline “as a call to action for every American to see how close our democracy came to toppling and how the freedom to vote must continue to be protected, not taken for granted.” 

For a few years it seemed as though we had dispelled the nightmare of Jan. 6. But the lawless, emboldened second Trump administration has dragged us back to that scary, dangerous time.

The brave work of people like Jeff Mandell, founder of Law Forward, and the other lawyers, judges and investigators who continue to struggle against the agents of authoritarianism trying to destroy American democracy is still making a difference. 

Last month, Dane County Judge John Hyland found probable cause to continue the trial of Wisconsin attorney James Troupis and Trump campaign aide Mike Roman, charged with felony forgery by Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul in connection with the fake electors scheme. Hyland  rejected Troupis’ desperate effort to scuttle the case by claiming another judge had a personal bias against him.

Wisconsin attorney Ken Cheseboro, the originator of the fake electors plot, is also facing felony charges.

As Trump and his gang openly defy the U.S. Constitution, pursue baseless, vindictive prosecutions of their political enemies, launch military actions without the consent of Congress, threaten to seize other countries and use their positions to enrich themselves while destroying the public welfare, it feels as through that dark moment on Jan. 6 when American democracy was under physical attack was just the beginning.

But as Mandell told me last year, a few months after Trump took office, “I think building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance.”

“When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level,” at the state and local level, Mandell said, “we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance.” 

We need that reassurance today more than ever.

“We are slow to realize that democracy is a life and involves continual struggle,” said Robert M. La Follette, the great governor and senator from Wisconsin and founder of the Progressive movement. I’m grateful for the Wisconsinites today who, like La Follette, are committed to that life and willing to continue the struggle.

Judge Hannah Dugan leaves court in her federal trial, where she was convicted of a felony for obstructing immigration officers. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

According to the Eastern District of Wisconsin’s Interim U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel, freshly appointed to his position by President Donald Trump, the federal trial of Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan had nothing to do with politics. “There’s not a political aspect to it,” Schimel told reporters after Dugan’s felony conviction on charges she obstructed U.S. immigration agents as they tried to make an arrest inside the Milwaukee courthouse. “We weren’t trying to make an example out of anyone,” Schimel said. “This was necessary to hold Judge Dugan accountable because of the actions she took.”

Schimel didn’t say whether Dugan’s very public arrest and perp walk through the courthouse was also necessary, along with the social media posts by Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, crowing about the arrest and sharing photos of Dugan in handcuffs. 

There is no doubt that the Dugan case was highly political from the start. 

As a coalition of democracy and civic organizations in Wisconsin declared in a statement after the verdict, Dugan’s prosecution threatens the integrity of our justice system and “sends a troubling message about the consequences faced by judges who act to protect due process in their courtrooms.”

But Schimel is right about one thing: Dugan’s trial this week was mainly about “a single day — a single bad day — in a public courthouse.”

That narrow focus helped the prosecution win a conviction in a confusing mixed verdict. The jury found Dugan not guilty of a misdemeanor offense for concealing Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the defendant she led out a side door while immigration agents waited near the main door of her courtroom to arrest him. At the same time, the jury found Dugan guilty of the more serious charge of obstructing the agents in their effort to make the arrest. The two charges are based on some of the same elements, and Dugan’s defense attorneys are now asking that her conviction be overturned on that basis.

An observer watching the trial from afar with no inside knowledge of the defense strategy might wonder why Dugan’s defense team didn’t enter a guilty plea on the misdemeanor charge and then strongly contest the felony obstruction charge as an outrageous overreach in a heavily politicized prosecution. That might have led to a more favorable mixed verdict, in which the jury found that Dugan was probably guilty of something, but that it did not rise to the level of a felony with a potential penalty of five years in prison.

I’m no expert, but daily reports from the trial this week gave me the strong impression that things weren’t going well for Dugan as long as witnesses and lawyers focused on a blow-by-blow account of the events of April 18. Witness testimony described an agitated Dugan, whose colleague, Judge Kristela Cervera, testified — damagingly —  that she was uncomfortable with how Dugan managed the federal agents she was outraged to find hanging around outside her courtroom. 

It’s not surprising that the jury agreed with the prosecution that Dugan was not cooperative and that she wanted to get Flores-Ruiz out of her courtroom in a way that made an end-run around the unprecedented meddling of federal immigration enforcement inside the courthouse. Like other judges and courthouse staff, she was upset about the disruption caused by ICE agents stalking people who showed up to court.

But, as Dean Strang, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and a long-time Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer, told me in April just before he joined the defense team and stopped talking about the case to the press, “Whatever you think of the actual conduct the complaint alleges, there is a real question about whether there’s even arguably any federal crime here.” 

The government’s behavior was “extraordinarily atypical” for a nonviolent, non-drug charge involving someone who is not a flight risk, Strang added.

The handcuffs, the public arrest at Dugan’s workplace, the media circus — none of it was normal, or justified. When Bondi and Patel began posting pictures of Dugan in handcuffs on social media to brag about it, “what is it they are trying to do?” Strang asked. His conclusion: “Humiliate and terrify, not just her but every other judge in the country.”

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Voces de la Frontera, and Common Cause-Wisconsin agree with that assessment, writing in their statement reacting to the conviction that Dugan’s felony conviction threatens the integrity of our justice system as a whole, and undermines the functioning of the courts by scaring away defendants, witnesses and plaintiffs who are afraid they might be arrested if they show up to participate in legal proceedings.

But that big picture perspective was not a major feature of the defense’s closing arguments, which relied heavily on raising reasonable doubt about Dugan’s intentions and her actions during a stressful and chaotic day.

That’s frustrating because, contrary to Schimel’s assertions, the big picture, not the events of “a single bad day” is what was actually at stake in this case.

One of the most distressing aspects of the Dugan trial was the prosecution’s through-the-looking-glass invocation of the rule of law and the integrity of the courts.

The federal agents called to the stand, the prosecutors in the courtroom, and Schimel, in his summary of the case, made a big point about the “safety” of law enforcement officers. 

Repeatedly, we heard that immigration agents prefer to make arrests inside courthouses because they provide a “safe” environment in which to operate. 

In his comments on the verdict, Schimel emphasized that Dugan jeopardized the safety of federal officers by causing them to arrest Flores-Ruiz on the street instead of inside the courthouse: “The defendant’s actions provided an opportunity for a wanted subject to flee outside of that secure courthouse environment,” Schimel said.

This upside-down view of safety has become a regular MAGA talking point, with Republicans claiming that when citizens demand that masked agents identify themselves or make videos of ICE dragging people out of their cars, they are jeopardizing the safety of law enforcement officers — as opposed to trying to protect their neighbors’ safety in the face of violent attacks by anonymous thugs. 

Churches, day care centers and peaceful suburban neighborhoods are also “safe” environments for armed, masked federal agents. But their activities there are making our communities less safe. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka, delivering the prosecution’s closing argument, told the jury it must draw a line against judges interfering with law enforcement, or else “there is only chaos,” and that “chaos is what the rule of law is intended to prevent.”

But chaos is what we have now, with federal agents terrorizing communities, dragging people out of courthouses and private residences, deporting them without due process and punishing those who stand in their way in an attempt to defend civil society.

The real questions raised by Dugan’s case are whether we believe the “safety” of the agents making those dubious arrests matters more than the safety of our communities, and whether we want the courts to be able to regulate the conduct in their own courthouses as a check on the government’s exercise of raw power.