Madison police, Dane County Sheriff’s Department, UW and Capitol Police — red alert. Be prepared to cancel leave at a moment’s notice. The Donald Trump resistance is going to get ugly.
Madison’s radical left is “Moving beyond marching,” according to its mouthpiece, The Capital Times.
It is a timely article, given the 75,000 who marched Saturday in Madison against the Trump regime and the 2.5 million said to have done so in Washington D.C. and in cities around the country. Well written and deeply sourced.
“Beyond Marching” serves unmistakable notice — No More Mr. Nice guy for Madison’s Radical Left. They mean business.
The byline is a new one but reporter Lisa Speckhard must have borrowed Comrade Nichols’ Rolodex for her article. She quotes a roll call of the perpetually discontented, old cranks, and downright dangerous hombres. The rogue’s gallery includes the local Black Lives Matter affiliate, various communist front organizations, UW identity politics junk scientists, the ACLU, and veterans of the Act 10 uprising in February-March 2011.
Including one Adam Schesch, whose name we had not heard in decades. Schesch is the familiar story of a 1960s campus radical who got faculty tenure. Fittingly, his field of study is “guerrilla warfare and counter-insurgency.”
What lies “beyond marching?” Reporter Speckhard occasionally uses the adjective “peaceful” but the examples of civil disobedience being contemplated will be anything but.
“People need to do whatever is possible to advocate for justice,” the reporter quotes one radical. Violence, The Capital Times suggests, is not off the table.
One idea: they’ll occupy Speaker Paul Ryan’s office and refuse to move “until Ryan backs off on his attacks on the public safety net.” That’s not peaceful. That is intimidation.
Something called 350 Madison (“the local branch of an international climate activism organization”) is prepared to physically block construction on the Enbridge tar sands pipeline in northeast Dane County. That is no more peaceful than pro-lifers blocking access to an abortion mill.
Voces de la Frontera may physically block deportations of illegal immigrants. That’s called vigilantism.
Schesch and others say that for real change to happen, people need to move beyond symbolic protests and start engaging in real resistance. They call it “putting their bodies on the line.” … breaking or refusing to comply with the law.
… Activists recognize the risks involved — a criminal record, fines, jail time.”
Does anyone believe that in this atmosphere, a few windows won’t be broken out, a cop car overturned, a store front spray-painted, ambulances blocked in traffic?
Why all this plotting? Because “nothing else is working.”
That’s what the Left does when it can’t win elections.
Blaska’s Bottom Line — The irony is that a few pages down from today’s (01-24-17) Capital Times, Comrade John Nichols ponders why Donald Trump carried rural America to win states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. What the Old Left doesn’t get is that Donald Trump IS a revolt against the Establishment. Frank Bruni in today’s New York Times:
You know how Donald Trump wins? I don’t mean a second term or major legislative victories. I’m talking about the battle between incivility and dignity. He triumphs when opponents trade righteous anger for crude tantrums. When they lose sight of the line between protest and catcalls.
When a writer for “Saturday Night Live” jokes publicly that Trump’s 10-year-old son has the mien and makings of a killer.
“Barron will be this country’s first home-school shooter,” the writer, Katie Rich, tweeted. I cringe at repeating it. But there’s no other way to take proper note of its ugliness.
Many people I know thrilled to BuzzFeed’s publication of a dossier with unsubstantiated allegations about Trump. But that decision bolstered his ludicrous insistence that journalists are uniquely unfair to him. It gave him a fresh weapon in his war on the media.
Bruni forgot the broken Starbucks windows, the burning limousines, the injured police and harassment attending the presidential inauguration.
Will Mayor Soglin and the State Journal editorial page find their voice? Will the city’s Democrats urge calm? Not holding our breath. They are reaping their own whirlwind.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
11 responses to “Madison’s anti-Trump militants are ‘Beyond marching’”
Don’t forget about the trash can, Dave. They burned a trash can.
A trash can!
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Nice attempt at deflection.
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Your whole blog is deflection! Nothing about the policies of your president, let alone his antics.
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The Left will have all the Pajama Boys, all the perpetually outraged, the Occupy Anarchists, the transgender wannabes and John Nichols.
President Trump will have Mad Dog Mattis.
Pass the popcorn.
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Also, I recall that under the Obama administration a lot of sophisticated weaponry was given to local law enforcement.
Who controls that now?
Here’s a hint…….. nobody who reads The Nation.
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Dave, when I followed your first link, I thought for sure it was going to a Nichols diatribe! Imagine my surprise when it went to a diatribe from one of his clones!
MadisonExPat: does anyone actually read The Nation? I think liberals just look at the pictures. I don’t know for sure that it has pictures because I’ve never wasted my time looking at it.
I sure hope the riots extend to south Park Street. If it is cold outside, there is a lot of waste paper there that could be burned for heat.
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The state journal? You mean the communist capital times protege??
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… The throwing of an narcissistic, epic temper tantrum is NOT going to help your cause. The election is OVER and you lost. As the former President said, “Elections have consequences.” How about you think about what you did wrong, cite ACTUAL NEWS & FACTS instead of regurgitating the same old talking points & calling everyone a racist who doesn’t agree with your point of view. What would help is to have a better candidate next time who isn’t a washed-up pathological liar.
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You make a glancing reference to the Act 10 protests six years ago when Madison lefties (and their out-of-state enablers) were convinced they were unstoppable. True, Scott Walker had won the election (and had the temerity to carry out his campaign promises), but THEY were the real voice of The People. Look at the hordes besieging the Capitol, look at all those signatures on the recall petition. In no time, Wisconsin would right the unthinkable wrong of electing Walker and all those other vile Republicans in state government. To paraphrase Sarah Paliin, “How’d all that marchin’ and hollerin’ work out for ya?”
Fast forward to the anti-Trump protests last weekend. Same cast, same plot, same props (well, more pink beanies this time around), same pious posturing, same fawning media coverage, same vows to re-dedicate themselves to their vision of a world without the likes of Trump and Walker. Who was it that said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? The rest of us should be grateful the Left is so addicted to its particular brand of insanity, one full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
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Message to Chris: You should have your own column in the State Journal rather than tell me what to write. (“Nothing about the policies of your president, let alone his antics.”) I’ve laid out my differences with Trump throughout the summer and fall but at least his actions, so far, have been legal. Not one trash can overturned! If you disagree with this blog, if you think the militants should throw sand in the gears, please say so. Deflecting is bad enough but your equivocating is maddening!
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I wonder how many of those marching actually voted, let alone voted for Clinton and not Stein?
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