Revisiting a Cheesehead Love Affair

Lessons from a November swing through Wisconsin, and what may come in tomorrow’s state Supreme Court election

I was blinded by enthusiasm.

In the context of 2024, I was operating as a Democrat, not as an independent. I was caught up in the idea of seeing the rallies for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, having been to the Democratic convention, I felt the same energy as everyone else. 

My own belief that Trump’s coalition was older, whiter, smaller, was wrong, I missed the movement of Black and Latino voters, and the Democratic voters who stayed home. 

The other part I missed on the micro level – the 24/7, 365 news grind – was the power of rightwing media. It would be interesting to quantify how much the rightwing media machine is worth. Is it 1 percentage point, is it a half a point?

I was heartened by the idea these people exist and still do, the Todd Allbaughs, the Wonderstate Coffees, and all the great Wisconsinites I met last fall.

But we shouldn't be under any illusion – we and the other volunteers of Join The Union stopped by on a bus. The podcasts, the YouTubers, are on a constant loop, it never stops. When they get tripped up, it amps up, it doubles down, it triples down. 

In 2023, I didn’t think that Trump could win, but I did think Biden could lose. And that’s what happened, Democratic voters stayed home. That was part of the collective blindness, the collective over-optimism and the collective willingness to believe that Trump was so bad people wouldn’t vote for him.

The problem was there was no countervailing message, there was no countervailing force. I underestimated the populist anti-establishment message.

Tomorrow, voters return to the polls in Wisconsin to decide who will control the state’s Supreme Court, almost five months after they narrowly voted in favor of Trump, J.D. Vance and, whether they were aware or not, Elon Musk.

My original piece, with some light edits to adjust for timing follows. My original sentiment believing in the goodness of Americans holds. 

Reed

First and America

I have a confession to make. I’ve fallen in love. Her name is America, and I’m besotted. Not with her politics, of course, but with her people. Last fall I got to see my country up close and she rekindled my spirit, my adoration, and my belief that the seeds of our renewal, our community, and our future have already been sown, they’re just waiting for someone to come along and water them.

My last trip of the fall campaign started in Madison, Wisconsin. If you haven’t visited, you should. It’s a great town. We did a meet and greet with the Wisconsin Democratic Party on the University of Wisconsin campus. About a dozen volunteers showed up and deployed, handing out information. The college Republicans had a table across from our friends. There were only two: A young woman and a guy. And the guy was dressed up in an elephant costume. They were lonely. The vegans had more people talking to them.

Great to meet Kelly and all the young folks deployed to Madison on behalf of the Harris/Walz campaign.

Headed north, we first stopped in Viroqua, Wisconsin on Tuesday, one of the first stops on our Join The Union Bus Tour around the Badger State. Wisconsin is, at its heart, a small town. Everywhere we went, my Cheesehead-native busmates ran into friends, old colleagues, or family. It’s the Kevin Bacon game for the Upper Midwest.

Those are the kind of connections and relationships that make a state of five million people feel cozy.

Viroqua is an hour north of Madison, down byways, through rolling fields, and farmland, warmed by a breezy late October heatwave. The sign at the AmericInn where we stayed wished Roy good luck. I’m not sure if he’d moved spiritually or temporally, but wherever you are Roy, Godspeed.

Emily and the folks at WDRT raised $1,200 for folks in Asheville, NC for hurricane relief.

Tuesday morning, as we were loading up our bus, Nancy appeared asking what we were up to. She and her colleagues had been watching us out the window of their office and her curiosity was piqued.

Nancy told us she worked for a local agency responsible for helping with in-home visits to sick patients. Before that, she’d been a nurse in town for 40 years. She retired that Friday. Your friends, your neighbors, and community are blessed to have you; though I bet you’re not going far.

Thanks to TJ and the team at Wonderstate Coffee for hosting us.

We partnered on our tour with Civic Media and recorded The Todd Allbaugh Show live from 12-2 pm Central everyday. We set up shop outside Wonderstate Coffee (2025 Roaster of the Year!) on Main Street in Viroqua. Across the street to our left was the Technical College. Directly ahead is 91.9 WDRT the community radio station.

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During our two hours on air each day, we spoke with local business owners and community leaders; each of them dedicated to make their town, their state, their country in their own ways. Try the pecan fudge pie at the Norske Nook, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

National political news and social media convinces us that our problems are intractable, insolvable, and leave open a path for carnival barkers like Donald Trump to claim ‘he alone can solve it.’

He can’t, he won’t, and he doesn’t want to. Trump called the United States of America ‘a garbage can.’ He wouldn’t dain to spend time in the small towns I visited that week. They can do nothing for him, therefore, to him, the towns and the good people are not worthy of time, attention or consideration.

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Olson’s Rules for Dealing with Autocrats, Part V: Practice Zero-Sum Judo

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Four days later, the US will faced its most existential election since 1860, and we took the dark path. The differences between the two parties weren’t enough to save us. For too many people ‘democracy’ wasn’t an idea, but a pipedream.

Existence, in fact, is a matter of perception, perspective, and propaganda. Half the country believes we live in an occupied state; steadily poisoned against the place that has provided so many of us the opportunities to live lives too many of our own people still can’t achieve, let alone those around the globe who still see the US as the ‘shining city on the hill.’

I thought that if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were elected that next Tuesday, it would not simply be the changing of presidents, or a change in generations, but the first tangible opportunity we’ve had in a decade to push MAGA and its broken, noxious beliefs back into the woods where they belong.

I’ve been in this fight a long time, and even after all these years, I don’t think I hate any of my political opponents. Expending that kind of mental and emotional energy leads only toward darkness. I do, however, understand who and what they are: People who believe their fellow citizens, and most of their supporters, are suckers and losers.

My week in Wisconsin, like my days in Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida, have reminded me that we all need to get outside our bubbles more often. Making contact with those not of your place is a good thing; maybe one of the best things.

So many of us took those first few small steps toward a better tomorrow; texting or calling voters, or getting out and knocking on doors. It wasn’t enough. But now is not the time to give up on this complicated country we call America. No, it is the time to redouble our efforts, so that the good people of this country can look forward to creating better worlds for themselves and their families. The communities that have been left behind are waiting for someone to stop by and say hello.

If you need me, I’ll be at the corner of First and America. Come by and say hello.

Reed Galen, is president of Join The Union, author and host of “The Homefront” and a veteran political staffer. He co-founded The Lincoln Project and has worked on numerous presidential campaigns, including John McCain’s 2008 race for the White House. He writes “This Land” regularly for 24sight News, with an eye on the stories of the American people written from the ground up.