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Congress, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Trump, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 4.12.24: So Much for Conservative Populism Before MAGA

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:15 and sunset 7:34 for 13h 19m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes President upon Roosevelt’s death.

When Rep. Mike Gallagher decided to resign from Congress, two longstanding conservative populists announced they were running for the open 8th Congressional District seat. See Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher Heads for the Exits and Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon. The two tenured WISGOP populists running in that district have now learned that tenure as conservatives doesn’t matter. It’s sycophancy to Mr. Trump that matters:

With the support of former President Donald Trump, former gas station owner Tony Wied of De Pere entered the race this week for Wisconsin’s open 8th Congressional District — making him the third Republican candidate to announce. 

Wied, who owned six Dino Stop gas stations and convenience stores in Wisconsin until he sold them in 2022, is positioning himself as an outsider, who would look to deliver the “America First change this country needs” in Congress. He officially launched his campaign at an event in Green Bay on Monday evening. 

“Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District is hungry for an America First outsider,” Wied said in a statement announcing his campaign on Tuesday morning. “For too long, career politicians have failed to deliver the results we desperately need.” 

“I look forward to earning the trust of Wisconsin voters and taking the lessons I’ve learned from three decades of operating businesses in Northeast Wisconsin to Washington, DC,” Wied added.

Two Republicans — former state Sen. Roger Roth of Appleton and current state Sen. André Jacque of De Pere — had already entered the race for the seat, which is open following the surprise departure of U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who is set to resign next month. 

Conservative populism is roughly synonymous with MAGA, but only up to the moment the MAGA leader decides otherwise. Afterward, as Jacque and Roth have now learned, past tenure as an ideological stalwart melts before the MAGA leader’s personal preferences.

Japan to give DC more cherry trees:

City, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Local Government, Politics, Populists, Trump, Trumpism

Daily Bread for 12.1.22: Trump and Trumpism (Conservative Populism, MAGA, Etc.)

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Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 15m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with with 61.2% of its visible disk illuminated. There will be a City of Whitewater election machine audit at 1:30 PM, and the Fire…

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Populists, School District

Daily Bread for 4.13.22: The Environment That Populism Creates

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Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of 69.  Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:35 PM for 13h 20m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1970, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting…

Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, Right-wing Populism, School District, State Government, Trump, Trumpism

Conservative Populism Moves in One Direction Only

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While there’s more than one kind of conservative Republican (traditionalist, transactionalist, or populist), it’s the populists who are the most numerous and most demanding. Over time, they’ve pushed other kinds of conservatives – even transactionalists who are behind-the-scenes manipulators – into subordinate positions. (See generally Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021.) These rightwing populists have outlasted Trump,…

City, Culture, Local Government, School District, University

Old Whitewater and Populism

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Most of the figures who represented an Old Whitewater outlook have faded from the scene. Their high water mark was several years ago; they’re receding now. Their like won’t be seen again. Their decline, however, comes in the immediate conditions of an impatient populism. That populism doesn’t represent a New Whitewater, but replaces Old Whitewater’s…

Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, Never Trump, Reasoning, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.26.24: These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset 7:15 for 12h 30m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1812, a political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

A brief post today, about Boardmember Maryann Zimmerman to follow yesterday’s post about conservative populism more generally. (A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election. Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.)

Anyone who has visited this site knows that this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is, and always will be, an opponent of conservative populism, MAGA, Trumpism, or whatever one calls that ideology. Never Trump before Never Trump, so to speak. See yesterday’s example Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon.

I am also someone whose family, teachers, and professors did their level best to inspire in me a respect for principle, reasoning, and tradition (in that order). Any success that this pupil has had in that regard owes only to them; they had poor clay with which to work. All their effort on my behalf, over so many years, leads me now and again to see something clearly.

And this is one of those times: the claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.  Mrs. Zimmerman may hold, as I think she does, conservative populist views. To the extent that she holds those views — but only to the extent that she holds those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

Some of her ardent supporters most assuredly hold conservative populist views. To the extent that they hold those views — but only to the extent that they hold those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

If in this beautiful city, the answer to Mrs. Zimmerman’s nonpartisan concerns and proposals is an answer directed in opposition to conservative populism, then that answer is misdirected, to the degradation of scholastic standards.  

It’s that simple.

I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman; we may never meet.  One needn’t have met her to grasp that she is willing to speak and write in support of her views when, by striking contrast, the current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons. (Those who know the law know that those assertions are not merely false but risibly self-serving.)

The district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking. In Maryann Zimmerman’s recent claims, and in her composed defense of them, there’s no trace of partisan ideology. She’s been admirably clear and steady. Others want to see what’s not there; they are looking into an empty room.

These aren’t the MAGA claims they were looking for.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024 explained. Date, maps, times and more:

The United States, Mexico and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Space.com’s Brett Tingley explains what you can expect. Total solar eclipse 2024: Everything you need to know: https://www.space.com/41552-total-sol…

WARNING: People should always use protective solar eclipse eyewear when viewing a solar eclipse.

Credit: Space.com | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GreatAmericanEclipse.com 

Congress, Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.25.24: Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon

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 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:46 and sunset 7:14 for 12h 27m 48s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1655, Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn‘s largest moon, Titan.

Not every issue from a conservative populist (MAGA, Trumpism, etc.) is an issue of conservative populism. One presumes the conservative populists and other ideological groups all tie their shoes the same way. (Whether Mr. Trump, in particular, can reach his own shoes awaits video evidence.) 

And yet, and yet, some issues are germane to conservative populism, including the shaky GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Of that shaky majority, Rep. Mike Gallagher knows that MAGA will be someone else’s headache soon. Lawrence Andrea reports 8th District Republicans criticize Mike Gallagher’s early departure from Congress: 

Gallagher, who chairs the high-profile select committee on China, received intense scrutiny from his party’s right flank in February after voting against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and he announced his retirement just days later. His decision Friday to depart before the end of his term has only intensified that ire as some on the right see the move as deliberate to keep Republicans’ House majority slim. 

….

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said last week Gallagher “should be expelled if he refuses to leave immediately in order to allow his district to hold a special election,” and Bruesewitz said he hopes Greene would move to expel Gallagher should he not resign earlier.

An aide to Greene did not respond to Journal Sentinel questions about her plans. 

Gallagher’s office, meanwhile, labeled false the claims that his departure was a deliberate attempt to hurt Republicans, who will temporarily have just a one-seat majority after April 19, further complicating their ability to pass their agenda. 

A spokesman for Gallagher told the Journal Sentinel that Gallagher’s move was a family decision and said House leadership had been aware of his plans for weeks and approved the timeline. 

It’s improbable that Gallagher cares what Greene, Republicans in the 8th, or anyone else thinks about the timing of his departure. 

Note well, Whitewater: While Gallagher’s departure is a MAGA issue (their politics have wrecked the House GOP caucus), some local issues that local conservative populists present in this town are not MAGA issues at all. They are, instead, issues applicable across the political spectrum. 

Well-read people defending education need not — should not — conflate claims (too much synthesis, too little analysis?). (Of officials in the Whitewater Unified School District, on the board and at Central Office: they do not honor the instituitions from which they were graduated by conflating specific claims with general ideologies.) 

Now, here’s a national issue that is a MAGA issue (and how to address it!) — Rep. Jared Moskowitz Dares Republicans to Impeach Biden: