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Wisconsin War on Scott Walker was training ground for #TheResistance War on Trump

Wisconsin War on Scott Walker was training ground for #TheResistance War on Trump

How Walker survived politically is a lesson for the Trump administration.

In our report earlier, we noted that the “Resistance” to Donald Trump is unlike anything seen in the opposition to Obama, The “Resistance” Moves Towards Violence and Intimidation as Key Tactic.

The opposition to Trump is becoming increasingly violent, and explicitly seeks to drive political intimidation into personal spaces by confronting Republicans everywhere they walk, talk and eat.

This total war on Trump’s administration and supporters by the media, Democrats, and a vast array of well-funded leftist groups might seem like a reaction to … Trump. That would be a myopic view.

The tactics you are seeing play out nationally had a dry run.

That dry run was the 2011-2012 war on Scott Walker in Wisconsin after Republicans in the legislature passed public sector collective bargaining reform. A national coalition of progressive groups and unions launched a war on Walker, as did a Democratic prosecutor using the “John Doe” law.

That war on Walker had almost all of the tactics we are seeing in the anti-Trump Resistance, such as obstructive legislators, highly organized direct action, politicized trial judges, threats and intimidation, and invasion of personal spaces.

Obstructive Wisconsin Democratic legislators literally fled the state to Illinois to avoid a legislative quorum. Trial court judges issued outlandish injunctions, only to be overturned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but not before the damage was done to the political process. (The Wisconsin collective bargaining reform law ultimately was upheld in its entirety.)

Well-funded and well-organized leftist activists willing to engage in “direct action” such as taking over the State House:

Some of the protesters were so crazed that some locked their heads to railings in the State House:

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/124005599.html

(Image via JSOnline)

The activists even impersonated Walker in order to run sting operations on unsuspecting Walker supporters. So deep was the corruption of civil society in order to accommodate the protests, that doctors openly issued false medical notes so protesters could miss work.

Democratic party officials “joked” about violence, as personal intimidation at the homes of Republicans, including Walker, and were physically confronted in public spaces such as restaurants, even in D.C.

Republican legislators were threatened at home and were chased down and harassed as they went to work at the State House.

Even using a bus to escape the mob outside the State House offered no assurance of safety for Republican legislators:

The supposedly non-political bureaucracy was corrupted to serve anti-Walker purposes, as police union members openly called for insurrection and joined the protesters.

Yet through it all, Walker never took the bait, Republicans never responded in kind, and just kept pushing forward with their agenda to reform government.

It paid off, with Walker surviving the 2012 recall effort, Republicans maintaining their majorities, including on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Wisconsin being a better place for the effort. There’s a lesson in there for the Trump administration.

[Featured Image: Wisconsin GOP Senator Glenn Grothman chased, trapped by hecklers, via YouTube]

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Comments

This product of this Resistance is nothing more than intolerant and irrational hatred (also know as bigotry), and delusional anger. They failed with Walker and the will fail with Trump.

Even earlier, it was the left-wing Occupy movement that targeted people at their homes and in public spaces with random acts of violence. It was notable for defending the state’s collusion with private entities to sustain the progressive cost of medical care among other goals. And before that, demographic gerrymandering (now refugees of Obama’s elective regime changes) through the welfare industry (and some religious groups) and intimidation of Americans at voting sites (including foreign representation).

    murkyv in reply to n.n. | May 16, 2017 at 6:21 pm

    Let’s not forget ACORN.

    It’s not like that infrastructure just folded up and went home when they got exposed

What Walker could teach T-rump…

1. unload the foot-shooter

2. unload the neck-shooter

3. adopt a conservative agenda and state of mind

4. it isn’t about Donelle T-wamp…it is about the nation

5. put down the tweet-generator

But it’ll never happen. Seventy-year-old New York Collectivists, pathological liars, and narcissists don’t change.

    SDN in reply to Ragspierre. | May 16, 2017 at 7:20 pm

    What President Trump taught Walker: How to, you know, actually win the Presidency.

    Squeak, chew toy, squeak.

      Ragspierre in reply to SDN. | May 16, 2017 at 9:38 pm

      What someone ought to do is…you know…teach Pres. T-rump to…you know…at least ACT like he’s governing.

      That chew toy in your mouth…the one you keep sucking, you know…??? It won’t ever squeak.

      Keep bobbing, honey.

    herm2416 in reply to Ragspierre. | May 16, 2017 at 10:09 pm

    Your predictable hatred doesn’t change either, Rages.

    inspectorudy in reply to Ragspierre. | May 17, 2017 at 10:45 am

    I know you will get a lot of flack for your statement but you are giving him good advice. Put down the tweeter and shutting your mouth would go a long way to quieting down the msm. They would still make stuff up but they wouldn’t have his stupid tweets or video quotes to use as ammo. The man is a walking mistake when he is unscripted and just like obama makes huge mistakes when he ad libs.

If you want to stop “The Resistance” quickly, start shooting the leaders. Most of them are cowards and will crawl back into the sewer from where they came.

    rdmdawg in reply to berni. | May 16, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    That’s the same tactic we should be using on islamists. Assassinate the top 10 most vile, radical Imams, the rest will get the message and hopefully we’ll see an end to muslims pouring out of Friday prayers chanting ‘Death To America!’

    Ragspierre in reply to berni. | May 16, 2017 at 4:07 pm

    See, this is fascinating.

    The Prof. posts on what Walker did politically in Wish-con-sin.

    I post on what Der Donald could (obviously) do to good effect and get my typical downthumbing.

    You suggest murder, and people approve.

    There are a lot of nutters here anymore.

    Oh, and you go out and try your plan, Mr. BigBalls. Let us know how it works. ‘K…???

      Close The Fed in reply to Ragspierre. | May 16, 2017 at 4:52 pm

      About Rags immediately preceding post:

      His previous post elucidating what POTUS could do, was so general and vague as to be useless advice.

      That’s all.

The leftists-“resisters” will continue until they suffer casualties. That is the nature of the Left for 100 hundred years.

“… confronting Republicans everywhere they walk, talk and eat.

The real problem with this is that it doesn’t give Republicans (or Trump supporters) any reason to take “The Resistance” seriously … to reconsider their positions. It merely hardens the positions that are already held.

Most non-Resisters (perhaps Capacitors or Inductors) don’t se this as Trump v World.

Yes. We all know how well the Resistance worked against Gov. Walker, don’t we?

Meanwhile, back at the fever swamp…..

There’s a huge amount of speculation about the Seth Rich murder and the implications of a laptop he owned that might contain communications with Wikileaks, together with speculation as to where other evidence of such a connection might be found. This kind of speculation relating to other events has in the past been ephemeral, and later followed by the disclosure of interesting public documents. Maybe they will come up dry, this time, or maybe they will help solve a murder.

    Petrushka in reply to Valerie. | May 16, 2017 at 4:04 pm

    WikiLeaks always responds quickly to any misinformation about them. The fact that they have been retweeting stories about Seth Rich being the DNC leaker means they are endorsing the stories. So we know Seth was the leaker.

    Which means the Russians were not the leakers.

    Professional killings are professional. We will never know who did it, but at least we can know why.

    The parents are surrounded by DNC operatives. I suppose they are embarrassed by having a son who helped elect Trump. They can’t possibly shed any light on the murder, because they have been kept in the dark, along with the rest of us.

pablo panadero | May 16, 2017 at 3:58 pm

Any examination of Walker should include a simultaneous review of John Kasich of Ohio and learn how not to do it.

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | May 16, 2017 at 4:11 pm

Think this sort of encapsulates the “Re-raisonettes” entire problem.

https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/preistap-mccabe-2.png

The situations of Walker and Trump aren’t really parallel.

Neither Trump nor his office are in any danger. There’s no way to “recall” a President. And there is not a shred of a ghost of a chance that the House will impeach Trump, even for the most ridiculous fabrications; and even if it did, no chance that the Senate would convict.

All that the Left is doing here is its usual game of being excruciating annoying. But I suspect they were all planning to do that anyway, Trump or no Trump. There’s no chance that it will be effective. Harassment of other Republicans is not harassment of Trump. Harassment of Trump voters doesn’t change the vote count of last November.

The best tactic? Pay no attention. Attack them in the Press, sure, but that doesn’t suck up many resources. Tweets are easy, and cost nothing. Violent attacks can be handled with the usual mechanisms of law enforcement as currently exist. Police chiefs who won’t do their jobs can be replaced by the usual methods. While no American President has been removed from office by impeachment, judges who are quite clearly and unambiguously acting illegally have been so removed; I’d like to see a few more.

In short, the Leftist assault on America is almost entirely mere noise; there’s little cause for extraordinary remedies. The dry run wasn’t Wisconsin, it was Weimar; but our Left doesn’t control the mechanisms of government, so even that parallel in no cause for alarm. Of course had Hillary won, the situation might be very serious. We know from FDR’s concentration camps just how far Democratic presidents are willing to go to protect themselves from imaginary enemies. But as things stand right now, we have nothing to fear but noise.

    Tom Servo in reply to tom swift. | May 16, 2017 at 5:40 pm

    I think it’s a bit more serious than you think; I believe we’ll see an assassination attempt soon by someone on the left, not of POTUS (too hard) but of a Congressman or Senator.

    The left is working themselves up to that, it won’t be long before one of them goes for it. Remember how last summer a radicalized BLM member assassinated 5 policemen in Dallas? Don’t buy into the nonsense happy talk that it happened just because of “one disturbed individual”, it didn’t. He had a lot of support, although they probably didn’t think he would take it as far as he did. But there’s a lot more of him out there, and they’re not going to wait too much longer.

    ss396 in reply to tom swift. | May 17, 2017 at 8:28 am

    There is much more going on than just leftist noise. College students are being wrecked and opportunities closed to them, jobs are being lost, corporate donations to non-left outfits are drying up, and people are being more careful in their speech when they choose to speak at all.

    Meanwhile, the mayhem and the riots drive up insurance costs, and cost those companies everything that the insurers don’t cover, they have days / weeks of lost or curtailed business, they have added security costs to operate. The small businesses get crushed by this. Even business in the neighborhood, though not attacked, lose traffic to their stores, and share in the increased insurance costs.

    At the government level the burden of regulation gets heavier and heavier, as business need to add more and more positions of “compliance managers” to keep up with the paperwork being demanded. Plus, of course, having to hire people that they’d rather not and pay them at a scale that is dictated outside of the value to the company.

    No, there is a lot more going on than just noise and pixels.

    pwaldoch in reply to tom swift. | May 17, 2017 at 10:07 am

    They are closer than you think. Your solution is basically what we used in Wisconsin, “The best tactic? Pay no attention.”
    Some attention to the more dangerous and hurtful actions needed addressing, but that’s a case by case basis and only to address the situation. Never did see the outlandish ‘Antifa’ crap. There were threats, but not actual direct violet masked thug action.

    Your right, it’s not so much about removing Trump or was Walker as was just continuing to gin up the base, raise money, and just stick it in the eye or Republicans & conservatives
    Like you said, this crap was going to happen to this level if ANY Republican won the White House.

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | May 16, 2017 at 4:34 pm

Agreed.

RE: “Neither Trump nor his office are in any danger. There’s no way to “recall” a President. And there is not a shred of a ghost of a chance that the House will impeach Trump, even for the most ridiculous fabrications; and even if it did, no chance that the Senate would convict.”

Pelosi Schmelosi | May 16, 2017 at 5:17 pm

…because the #Resistance was just soooo successful in WI that Walker couldn’t win recalls and Hillary won the state in a landslide.

Repeat after me…
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result.
This is how you got Trump and this is how you will get more Trump.
Please do carry on…

One is not quite like the other.

While Walker suffered attacks on a near daily basis, it was not a full scale assault from both parties and the national fake news “media”.

I doubt the way Walker handled it will work here.

    Dave in reply to Barry. | May 17, 2017 at 8:05 am

    Walker and the Wisconsin GOP had a plan to move forward and the GOP in Congress does not – and they don’t all support Trump (see McStain, RINO), which hurts the Donald badly.

    Trump needed to figure out a strategy long ago to deal with the MSM. Instead he’s lurching from one fake news story to another and his team hasn’t a clue.

      tarheelkate in reply to Dave. | May 17, 2017 at 8:44 am

      Congress is the largest roadblock at this point.

      Barry in reply to Dave. | May 17, 2017 at 11:37 pm

      “Trump needed to figure out a strategy long ago to deal with the MSM.”

      What is your strategy?

      Some of us think he did does have a strategy, call them out for the liars they are. Just because some people get the vapors over the truth doesn’t make it less true.

      I really want to know what strategy you think will be effective against a “media” dedicated to communism in this country.

tarheelkate | May 17, 2017 at 8:43 am

Trump needs to keep on doing things, as he has been — not the tweets, but the substantive actions like appointments to federal offices, review of regulations, and the effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce and streamline its operations.

People living in the Swamp in the DC area, and in the NY Swamp, actually care about what the Washington Post and New York Times print and think. Much of the country doesn’t any more.

With reference to the cascade of leaks, who operates and services the recording equipment in the White House offices? When the administration changed, was a security sweep done? How many committed leftists are still working there, and how many of them would self-righteously leak either true or false information for “The Resistance?”

Even Trump voters who don’t idolize the man are unlikely to be persuaded by all of this leftist garbage and the increasing number of incidents of leftist violence.

kenoshamarge | May 17, 2017 at 11:38 am

What Walker did, and still does here in Wisconsin, is keep calm and not to feel the need to respond to every liberal fool or accusation. Thus even many Democrats here in Wisconsin see him as rational and the really insane Dem party in this state as the evil lunatics they have become.

He stays above the fray most of the time. It would serve Trump better than barking back at every lap dog in the media.