If the states are the laboratories of democracy, Wisconsin has been smashing all the test tubes. Long known for its progressive political tradition, it has moved rightward, in ways once unthinkable. In 2010, Wisconsinites elected an anti-union Republican, Scott Walker, as governor; on the evening of Nov. 8, 2016, they pushed Donald Trump across the threshold to the presidency. Wisconsin had not smiled on a Republican presidential candidate in 32 years.
Most readers will recall the distressed masses that swarmed the state capitol in the winter of 2011. That year, Wisconsin's lawmakers approved Act 10, Walker's bill aimed at overcoming a budget deficit. Not incidentally, it also obliged many public employees to shoulder more of their pension and health-care costs, and sharply limited their collective bargaining rights.
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