Undoing The Damage Scott Walker Caused In Wisconsin | John Nichols | TMR

In this interview from April, Sam and Emma are joined by John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, to discuss Tuesday’s Wisconsin State Supreme Court race.

John Nichols joins and he and Sam immediately jump back to 2010, to reflect on the hijacking of Wisconsin’s political system by the Koch-funded right-wing, coming to fruition with the election of Scott Walker in 2010, and seeing a mass gutting of labor rights, voting rights, and general political engagement. Next, Emma, John, and Sam parse through the consequences of this era, with the US’ worst case of gerrymandering cementing GOP control for the next decade, despite Democrats sweeping in state-wide races, leaving the only viable route back to democracy through the judiciary. This brings them to today’s special elections in Wisconsin, with the state’s Supreme Court and Senate both featuring massive races for the future of Wisconsin’s democracy. After looking at the issues that are central to Wisconsin’s special election, Nichols shifts to Chicago, walking through Brandon Johnson’s race against Paul Vallas, Vallas’ courting of the right wing, and the impact a Johnson victory could have on the progressive movement nationwide.

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Joining us now is John Nichols National Affairs correspondent for the Nation magazine. John welcomed me back to the program. It's great to be with you both. So John. Let's you know we were just saying this a little bit in the virtual green room but all the attention today at least in the National media for the most part is going to be focused on the circus in Manhattan as Donald Trump gets arraigned. But really the things that are happening today in Wisconsin and in Chicago are far more important, aren't they? I happen to think so. Because I think that I've written books about presidential accountability. And so I treat very seriously the efforts to hold Donald Trump to account. And I think that's a big deal. But I think when you're doing wall-to-wall coverage of a procedural moment rather than the real story of whether he is in fact ultimately held to account. That is when you get to a point where you begin to push out all other news. And to my view on this day, the really big news doesn't happen in New York. It doesn't happen to be in Washington. It happens to be in places that often are not covered well. But that ultimately decides what happens in Washington. And that is certainly true of the race in Wisconsin for Supreme Court. And of the race for mayor of Chicago. I think it was I mean it could be close to 12 years to the day when this show started this iteration of this show started in late November I mean excuse me late 2010 like November 2010. And I think it was around this time in 2011 I went out to Madison. I think maybe it was a little bit earlier in the year, maybe it was in March or something like that to cover the… And I and I remember seeing you where you were you know all over the place there. Sort of almost like an unofficial mayor. As there were massive protests against the rollback of unionization Rights and the rollback of Badger Care and all sorts of things that Scott Walker just came in funded by the Koch brothers and the AFP. And was taking a meat cleaver to Wisconsin politics. And this is a very Progressive state where you know like I probably one of the sorts of like I don't know if it's the birthplace of unionization in the country but one of the most like historically unionized. Unions were super important in this country. And here we are again like to tell us what the implications are of this Supreme Court race that is happening right now. I mean so if you're in Wisconsin you can listen to this for a couple of minutes but then go vote. That's exactly right in fact.