"Wisconsin is a big rural state, but it is not conservative; its politics are in the middle, leaning a little toward the left. Organized labor has a long history in the state, and Wisconsin has gone Democratic in every presidential election since Reagan. Bottom line - it's moderate - polite and civil and moderate. That right there is really the break that Scott Walker has made. His plan, whether you love it or you hate it, was a big move away from the middle. He's pulled a pretty moderate state dramatically toward an extreme, and done something they don't do in Wisconsin - he's picked a fight. And he's forced a lot of people who don't like to fight to choose sides anyway."
After my husband and I voted, heading up to the Capitol Square seemed like the natural thing to do as we were only a few blocks away. We reached it right as the polls were closing.
I haven't spent a lot of time at the Capitol during political events since I hung out with the protestors in February 2011. On that day, it felt like everyone was there for one purpose; though there were thousands of people in the Capitol, they were moving together as one unit, all part of the same vehicle using their momentum to head toward the same destination.
On Election Night, the scene was muddled, contradictory, like a cell without a nucleus. There were singers and people with signs, of course. I saw a lot of people I recognized as students and journalists. But there were others who looked and behaved like they were there from out of town, just there for the show. I saw contentious arguments. I watched as an angry Recall supporter jumped in front of a local news camera, interrupting the reporter who was probably on his 18th hour of being awake and just trying to do his job. It was a stark and shocking contrast from the feeling a year and a half ago, to say the least.
Most of all I could feel the moment when the crowd deflated, when it the air changed from hopeful optimism that the initial results were only from a few small rural precincts to the realization that this was happening. This was really happening. It was like air being let out of a balloon as people quieted down, peeled off, and drifted away.
No matter how you feel about the political situation, hopefully there's some empathy with the people who were disappointed that night, people who had worked hard for change only to be brought solidly back to square one in just one day.
"What happens now?" I kept asking my husband on our walk home that night. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a steep cliff, knowing that as a population we were going to have to move forward somehow but not sure how or to where we were going. I felt proud of my state, of all the people, Democratic and Republican, who had worked hard and fought for what they believed in, no matter what that was. But at the same time, I felt sad for everyone, not just the "losers," but everyone, as Ben Calhoun pointed out, who had to pick a side, who had the comfortable grey area pulled out from under them. In the past year and a half, my Wisconsin has become unrecognizable with blistering letters to the editor, people screaming at each other, people dumping beer on lawmaker's heads or tearing up recall petitions. Wisconsin has been and has felt divided, and as much as I love this state, that's not the Wisconsin I want to live in.
The photo above is misleading. I love the image of the bright Capitol building in the background, the center of our state government, bright and shining like the City on the Hill. The Overpass Light Brigade set up on the lawn, their signs declaring "The People United." The photo is idyllic, hopeful. But I can't help but feel less united as a state than ever before.
More photos from Election Night can be seen over on my Flickr.
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