Over the past couple of days, my head had been swimming with ideas about issues like national and international debt. For example, the U.S. debt is between $40 and $45 trillion depending on how you count things while global debt among all nations is somewhere around $300 trillion. Those are damn big numbers.

At the same time, some $124 trillion will pass inter- generationally over the next twenty or so years. Yet, we have eviscerated the estate tax to protect the uber wealthy elite. So, no substantive debt relief can be expected from that source.

I’ve been noodling on such things along with the decline of the dollar as a global benchmark currency, a hyper speculative equities market rivaling 1929 (when the global crash occurred), and other assorted warnings that a real and substantive apocalypse is about to push us into a fiscal and social abyss. We might well be talking Armageddon here.

Then I got distracted last night or, more accurately, very early this morning. We had a primary election in Wisconsin, one that encapsulated the core normative and ideological conflicts within our current body politic. That seemed more interesting at that moment than debt and disaster. Besides, my guess is that civilization will endure for at least another week, at least I hope so.

Back to last night. As noted, we had a primary election in the Badger State. True, other states did as well but my attention was focused on my home state. For those of you not blessed to live in the lovely land of happy cheeseheads, the essential story line is as follows: Wisconsin’s incumbent governor, Democrat Tony Evers, decided not to run for reelection. For two terms now, Tony has been the last line of defense against the MAGA hordes who hold power in the Assembly and Senate though, in truth, he recently has been joined by a liberal Supreme Court. Not surprisingly, a number of candidates threw their hats into the race to succeed him. It is apparent that playing the role of  hero has some appeal.

On the Republican side, a MAGA devotee and Congressman named Tom Tiffany quickly became the GOP consensus candidate. First, a note on Tom. Despite his sweet, wonderful name (Tom has a nice ring to it, don’t you think), Tiffany is a devoted Trump sycophant, a 2020 election denier, a dedicated diehard opponent of abortions with no exceptions, and pretty much a water carrier for the oligarchs poised to end what is left of our participatory democracy.

If elected, he likely would work with our Republican controlled legislature (Wisconsin is one if the most gerrymandered states in the nation) in ways that would make our last GOP governor, Scott Walker, look like a champion of the working class (sarcasm, in case you are confused). I easily could see Tiffany plowing under tens of thousands of prime agricultural land to build huge data centers for Trump’s tech bros. And then he would take the state downhill from there. I pity what he would do to our state treasure, the highly regarded research powerhouse, the University of Wisconsin.

This is a roundabout way of suggesting that the stakes are high in this race. Thus, all eyes have been on the crowded Democratic field of candidates. Will the Badger state become another playground for the oligarchic elite, our homegrown plutocrats, or will someone emerge from this crowd to protect and defend the interests of the average Joe and Jane.

As the Democratic horse race developed, a clear frontrunner emerged. Francesca Hong (left in above pic) is a Madison based member of the State legislature. From everything I heard, she is smart, passionate, and quite charismatic. It was clear even to an outsider like me that she had developed an effective campaign apparatus that was fueled by an army of energetic volunteers. She looked like a winner.

Though I was a policy wonk in life and had worked on numerous state issues (both here and elsewhere), I often was more attracted to national policy questions. Sadly, I haven’t been been involved in state matters for many years. Bad me!

In any case, my attitude was as follows … wait to see who emerges from this initial Democratic party kerfuffle and then support that candidate. I had no favorite as the race developed. My attitude was ABT … anybody but Tom. Odd, that’s what people used to say about me.

Then doubt crept in. Hong slowly built up what seemed to be an insurmountable lead, double digits for sure. She scored points when promising to raise the state’s minimum wage which Republicans had managed to keep at the unspeakably low federal level even as prices continued to rise. The affordability question could not be ignored. She also promised to stop any further interest in constructing more energy- depleting AGI data centers in the state, argued for expanding child care opportunities, for reducing the number without health insurance, and for other policies favored among progressives. 

If there was any concern among the center-left, it came from her willingness to vocally call herself a Democratic- Socialist. While this had been a label long shunned by centrist candidates among the Dems, she embraced it boldly. This singular move was accompanied by a national resurgence in leftist candidates who no longer hid their more progressive preferences.

The MAGA crowd was quick to respond. As more Dems moved to the left, the propaganda machine of the right kicked into high gear. Dems became leftists, then radical leftists, then socialists, and finally, in the recent days, Communists. The extremist labeling tactic had worked in the era of the Palmer raids during the post WWI red scare movement and during the extreme paranoia of the post WWII McCarthy era. No reason for anyone to believe that the typical American would think more clearly today. Unreasonable fear, if not panic, remains a very effective motivator in politics.

As primary day approached, it all seemed over except for the shouting. Hong would be the Democratic flag holder. Her legion of young, idealistic supporters could taste victory. Indeed, that was a sweet taste for those who had long been marginalized.

It even was widely rumored that many Republicans would use the state’s open primary system to vote for Hong, assuming she would be the easiest candidate for Tiffany to beat. In fact, Tiffany was so confident that Hong would prevail, he had already started releasing ads painting her as a wild-eyed leftist, if not rabid terrorist. I shuddered at what lay ahead in the general campaign.

Sensing a done deal, a few Democratic candidates dropped out, presumably seeing the writing on the wall. In early July, one of those candidates was an African-American named David Crowley. He had several clear strengths … including excellent experience as the chief executive of Milwaukee County. He also was personable, well spoken, and a relative centrist. But his campaign lacked spark and he was largely unknown outside of the city best known for brewing beer. He couldn’t seem to push his numbers above single digits in a crowded field.

Though this looked like a certain Democratic year, increasing doubts emerged about how the Dems might fare in the fast approaching Governor’s contest. Hong was a woman in a state where no female had been elected to the top post. She was Asian in a state where relatively few of that ethnicity resided. She identified herself as an unrepentant leftist in a proverbial purple state. And she was from Madison in a state where rural folk equate most Madisonians with creatures very likely sired by Satan himself.

The old fears and prejudices were many and deeply rooted. You knew Tiffany’s smear campaign directed at Hong would only get more vicious over time, a rather predictable image crushing effort financed by the vast resources of the hard right elite. Not long ago, as many recalled, Elon Musk alone poured some $25 million into a race that would decide the normative balance on the state’s Supreme Court. In that case, he failed.

Almost without fanfare (in my naive view at least), Crowley was convinced to reenter the race about ten days or so after exiting. Likely, that decision involved arm twisting by the party’s movers and shakers who increasingly saw Hong’s earnest, outspoken progressivism as a real liability.

Without question, Crowley was pushed by a worried, perhaps panicked, establishment that included the incumbent governor. Over the last several weeks or so, I saw a number of postings (on Facebook for example) from what I consider to be the old liberal guard, the very same war horses who earned their spurs in the 1960’s antiwar movement. They were now old enough to want victory, not another idealistic defeat.

Their appeal was simple. Hong is right on most policy matters. But the cost of failure in this critical campaign would be catastrophic. A MAGA acolyte as chief executive could do immeasurable damage. With support from a number of Trump zealots in the legislature, they could prevent any future for a functioning democracy in 2028 and beyond. With issues like climate change, the rapid emergance of AI, and the reality of hyper- inequality, we may already have run out of time. Losses at this point in time might well be permanent and perhaps irreversible.

Personally, I did not know what to think. Part of me would have been excited to see a real progressive go one on one with a true MAGA troglodyte. Over time, we have become accustomed to seeing Democrats approach campaigning with great timidity, mostly trying not to lose. This defensiveness, in my humble opinion, comes from a not unreasonable perception that the public has been well trained to vote against their own self interest.

Think about it, the right’s well funded propoganda effort over the last six decades (especially since the early 1990s) has been very successful. Neo- liberalism has become the go-to default normative position thoughout much of America. Just consider how perverse it is for people to choose candidates whose primary goal is to further enrich the wellbeing of the economic elite at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary folk.

But that counter- productive stance prevails all the time. For example, you see Americans asserting that we have the best health care system in the world. In fact, we typically pay twice as much for, at best, mediocre outcomes. Let’s face it, we live in the Twilight Zone.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke and checked the results. I was shocked that the race was close but could not yet be called. Crowly had stunned everyone by taking a small lead. More amazingly, he hung on. In virtually no time, he went from race dropout to winner. The (almost) final results contradicted all the polls and prevailing opinion.

David Crowley  … 313,321

Francesca Hong … 310,110

All others  …………  164,247

What the hell happened? I suspect that many folk were like me. We wanted a revolutionary change in the direction of our state and our nation. Hong therefore was very attractive. At the same time, we worried that going with our heart as opposed to our head seemed foolhardy. It raised  potential consequences we could not easily entertain and certainly could not accept.

In the end, I voted for what I thought was the safe route. But was that the correct choice? I have no freaking idea. All I know is that I have had decades of extreme disappointment at the polls. How many times have I voted for whom I considered the better candidate only to discover that few others shared my view or my enthusiasm.

Perhaps I am settling for too little. But I cannot accept what might be at stake. Though I have been around long enough to develop a sense of perspective, our times do seem existential in character. In pursuing dreams of perfection, perhaps we might lose just about everything. Perhaps our hubris and foolishness just might lead to the final extinguishment of our long American experiment in self- governance.

What will happen in the election. I have no idea. I did see an immediate prognosis which had the likely victor switching from Tiffany to Crowley when the primary results were finalized. But who knows? Much will depend on whether Hong’s most devoted followers will suck up their disappointment and vote for someone they see as another centrist candidate. In any case, as we just saw, much can happen in just a few days. After all, the smart money was on Hong in the primary. So, check back on November 4.

I will leave you with one piece of wisdom. As I oft note, if you want the perfect candidate, you had better run for office yourself.