Remembering the Wisconsin 2011-2012 Leftist “Insurrection”
Dems/Media Now Furious That State House Takeovers By Leftists Are Being Called “Insurrections”
Democrat/Leftist/Anti-Republican protesters have been taking over state houses and disrupting legislative proceedings multiple times in the past couple of months. It’s not like it’s a new tactic.
I’m so old I remember the insurrection against Scott Walker in Wisconsin during 2011-2012.
It was what I called Wisconsin’s Long, Strange Trip, on which we had exhaustive coverage:
Police insurrections. Palace guards. Catch a Senator contests. Doctors behaving badly. Massive national solidarity protests which weren’t. Identity theft as political theater. Shark jumping. Legislators who run away to other states. Bus bang bangs. Protesters locking their heads to metal railings and pretending to walk like Egyptians. Beer attacks. Canoe flotillas. (alleged) Judicial chokeholds. Tears falling on Che Guevara t-shirts at midnight. Endless recalls. And recounts. Communications Directors making threats. Judges who think they are legislators (well, I’ll grant you that one is common). V-K Day. Hole-y warriors. Cities named Speculation and Conjecture.
Windows were smashed to gain entry, as protesters pushed through police guarding the doors.
The capture and occupation of the Wisconsin State House was violent, it took over a legislative building, and disrupted legislative proceedings. The purpose was to replace the duly-elected Wisconsin government.
A Republican State Senator was chased down:
A bus carrying Republican legislators was attacked:
But Democrats and the media believe the term “insurrection” only can apply to the January 6 riot. (As before, my position is that the J6 riot should not have taken place, but it has been exploited by Democrats and the media who have lied about it repeatedly, including false claims that police were killed.)
There is a concerted media effort to demand that state house disruptions not be called an insurrection. On April 14, 2023, The Washington Post ran a laundry list of offenders:
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- In October 2021, Trump said in a statement that the “real” insurrection was the 2020 election itself, which he continues to falsely claim was stolen from him.
- In April 2022, Florida Republicans accused Democrats of “insurrection” after state lawmakers held an hour-long protest on the state House floor to object to a congressional redistricting map.
- In May 2022, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called protesters outside the homes of Supreme Court justices “goons” and said that Democrats “believe in violence” and “mob rule.” He also said that “on Jan. 6 of 2021, you had tens of thousands of people peacefully protesting,” but that “the corporate media and Democrats slander them with the made-up term ‘insurrectionist.’”
- That same month, right-wing media personality Matt Walsh wrote on Twitter that the leaking of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning its landmark Roe v. Wade decision “is an actual insurrection” and that “January 6th was a stroll in the park compared to this. It’s not even close.”
- In June 2022, Arizona Republicans praised the Arizona Department of Public Safety for dispersing a protest of several thousand people which GOP lawmakers called an “insurrection” at the state Supreme Court. Protesters, some of whom were banging on the court’s windows, were dispersed with tear gas, though the event was reportedly peaceful and no arrests were made.
- In July 2022, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, joked on Fox News that an interruption of a House hearing by gun control activist David Hogg “is the definition of insurrection” and that “he should probably be brought up and charged. Where is that J-6 committee when you need them?”
- In February, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, when asked about a rule change at the Florida Capitol that requires a state agency to approve any protest, said the measure was likely meant to prevent “a heckler’s veto” and that protesters “from the left” are praised for “democracy in action. They don’t say it’s an insurrection if you take over a Capitol because of that.”
The Associated Press ran an article on April 28, 2023, GOP uses state capitol protests to redefine ‘insurrection’:
Legal experts say the term insurrection has a specific meaning — a violent uprising that targets government authority.
That’s how dictionaries described it in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the term was added to the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University.
Protests at the capitols in Montana and Tennessee didn’t involve violence or any real attempts to dismantle or replace a government, so it’s wrong to call them insurrections, Tribe said.
Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said insurrection is understood as a coordinated attempt to overthrow government.
“Disrupting things is a far cry from insurrection,” Gerhardt said. “It’s just a protest, and protesters are not insurrectionists.”
Nevertheless, conservative social media commentators and bloggers have used the word insurrection alongside videos of protesters at state capitols in attempts to equate those demonstrations to the Jan. 6 attack….
Republicans’ use of the term insurrection in these cases isn’t just wrong, it’s also strategic, said Yotam Ophir, a University at Buffalo communications professor who focuses on misinformation. Repeating a loaded term over and over makes it lose its meaning and power, he said .
Because AP article run in newspapers across the country, the story has been widely shared.
This is now a major media theme, such as this MSNBC segment:
Sorry, the word “insurrection” has been weaponized against people attenting protests at the Capitol on January 6 who committed no violence, and are being charged with misdemeanors such as “parading” and various forms of trespassing. No one has actually been charged with insurrection. Yet even old ladies who spent minutes inside the building walking through open doors are meeting the full force of the DOJ police power.
So as not to upset the media, please stop calling things “insurrections” even when they are insurrectiony.
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Comments
Yeah Scott Walker was my first choice in ’16 b/c of his willingness to take on the powerful public sector unions and more importantly win. Just a happy warrior smiling all the way to the winner’s circle despite all the vitriol spewed at him.
It was low key a beta test of the strategy later used v DJT. Far more openly partisan by media than ever before and far more vicious attacks than in previous modern elections and coverage of controversy at least IMO.
He had a horrible campaign and folded like a cheap suit
Kinda. The DC establishment turned their cannon on him early to knock him out of the race b/c they feared him as someone who was willing to disrupt the go along/get along grift in DC.
Ultimately though you are correct in that he most certainly did not win b/c his campaign couldn’t figure out how to overcome the onslaught. Non winners are very correctly classified as losers and in 2016 Walker didn’t achieve victory. Everyone, especially losing politicians, should be honest enough to admit that but many refuse for their own reasons.
I’m curious why the main page shows there is only one comment on this thread when there are two?
Try logging in, then out. You should see comments when you log back in. There is obviously a timer applied to a logged in user and a bug somewhere in a line is preventing all updates from displaying.
Even now the counter is off by one. The thread says there are 15 comments and I count 16 (not including this one). At first I wondered if my post might not be visible to others … a form of shadow banning (my paranoia showing) … since my post garnered no comments. But now that it has (one), I guess I’ll assume a software flaw and a lack of interest. Not sure that makes me feel better, though. 🙂
This happens in every comment section I’ve ever seen (including all my own personal blog incarnations). Indeed, in some comment software like Disqus you can see “x people typing now,” so you need to refresh the page (others will auto-refresh) to show new comments. There also might be comments in moderation or in the spam filter that have yet to be approved/spammed/trashed or any number of other things going on. You will notice that you never see the likes of “Oooh! I made a bazillion dollars a day sitting in my jammies” or “this cured my [insert dread disease] and will cure you, too, just click here!” spam on our site. There is nothing nefarious going on, but if obsessing about how our comment section looks to you as a reader keeps you occupied and feeds your self-professed paranoia, shrug, knock yourself out.
Don’t worry, I don’t believe there is anything nefarious happening on LI. But I’m not convinced there is no bug in the software. But I don’t intend to knock myself out trying to prove it, however, since it really doesn’t matter.
And the paranoia part was a joke, although it is true that several big social media sites were (and may still be) shadow banning conservatives as a means of keeping certain information from being disseminated. You can see why I might be concerned about that happening here, can’t you?
A nation that was prepared since 1947 for global nuclear and, later, thermonuclear war with plans to survive a direct attack on Washington D.C. is somehow vulnerable to complete take over by unarmed flag carrying grandmas? We have seen the country degraded from a republic ,to a democracy, and finally to a “precious democracy”.
I remember Wisconsin Democrats fleeing the state to avoid a quorum before the vote on union dues. What they won’t do..
Fleebaggers
That was it. If only fleeing Dems would flee and stay fled, for good.
I’m glad to see you used the word “weaponized.”
Democrats weaponize language daily, but get outraged if you pick up the same weapon and use it the very same way.
“No, no! Insurrection doesn’t mean that, it means this… uh, THIRD thing!”
Yeah, you do it all the time, and sometimes you even get ass-kissing online lexicographers to memory-hole the old definition simultaneously. But my sheets are clean, and my dictionaries are on paper.
The left keeps telling me that words are violence. Therefore every protest is a violent protest.
But silence is also violence, because it rhymes, so every non-protest is also violent
I love the hubris, naivete, ignorance etc. of the Dems that think their tactics won’t or can’t be used against them. It’s the Harry Reid Nuclear Option effect all over again.
Of course, the fully expect the media to bury their actions and exaggerate the actions of the right, but when you peel away the lies, it becomes clear that they believe that they have one set of rules and we have another, both dictated by them.
Shall we ballot harvest, my dear?
If you want to see Leftist hypocrisy in action, read the following: https://www.westernjournal.com/county-councilman-gets-libs-protest-ideology-proclaiming-now-black-woman/
Just a county away from me
Proof that done all Hoosiers are wooden Pences
“not” all…
They’d love to have you ballot harvest. That will guarantee their win.
This is a good callout,
Case in point of “it’s only bad when Republicans do it, not Democrats”
Wisconsin was a particularly nasty Democratic insurrection.
Unlike this site, where we only focus on civil, effective legal ones … 🙂
Democracy can survive anything except Democrats
Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlien he should known, having started out a democRAT and a socialist. In fact, he was so far to the left that the Navy refused his offer of service in WWII. And while he seemed to change his politics later in life, he always claimed he didn’t, saying that the left and right simply moved to the left. And that is arguably plausible looking at things now.
Yes it is. The natural drift of institutions and organizations is leftward unless said groups are by rule Conservative. Fabianism was simply a British effort to bring about what would come naturally anyway.
“Fabianism was simply a British effort to bring about what would come naturally anyway.”
Either I don’t understand you or I don’t agree.
BeAchooser,
“Fabianism: a member or supporter of the Fabian Society, an organization of socialists aiming at the gradual rather than revolutionary achievement of socialism”
Natural drift leftward is what organizations do anyway thus accomplishing what the Fabians wanted. Back then they didn’t understand natural drift.
I know what Fabianism and the Fabian Society are (read some of my posts). I don’t necessary agree that organizations naturally drift leftward. And I don’t know what you mean by “rule conservative” being the thing that can prevent that..
Robert Conquest: “Laws of Politics”
“Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”
Whitehall writes:
“Robert Conquest: “Laws of Politics
Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”
Actually, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest, Conquest had only 2 laws of politics:
1) Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on subjects he knows about.
2) Every organization appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.
The third “law” you cite, about organizations not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becoming left-wing, was attribute to Conquest in a National Review article by John Derbyshire who said “”[a]s best I can remember”. Derbyshire gave no source for it. Turns out, it’s actually O’Sullivan’s First Law, which was published in National Review about 14 years before Derbyshire’s article.
But be that as it may, I don’t think you should use as a source a man who joined the communist party and studied at Oxford, an institution controlled by Fabian Socialists. Not only that, but after WW2, he joined the British Foreign Office in a unit created by Clement Attlee, a Fabian Socialist.
Just because he fought Soviet communism doesn’t mean he wasn’t a Fabian Socialist. FDR fought the Soviets and the evidence strongly suggests he was a Fabian. Fabian Socialists opposed the Soviet version of communism because they wanted to dominate the world with their version through their own tactics. They figured that Marxism as pursued by the Soviets would make that harder.
It’s fine and dandy that Conquest was anti-Soviet throughout his career, but did he ever ONCE as a historian write anything about Fabian Socialism … an equally communist organization that was started in the UK and was/is a bigger threat to the west and world than Soviet style Marxism?
If he didn’t, and he would have been perfectly situated to do so at the time and over the years, then pardon me if I’m a bit skeptical about his rules and agenda, especially when the data might suggest he worked for an organization that controlled by a cabal of our enemies … Fabian Socialists.
Indeed, it’s noteworthy that Conquest apparently had contact with George Orwell, another Fabian Socialist, but one who grew disillusioned with it. When Orwell did, he wrote a book (1984) as warning about where it would lead.
Instead of warning the world about Fabians, Conquest instead became First Secretary of the British Delegation to the UN, a Fabian construct, and kept the world’s eyes on the USSR instead of what’s turned out to be the bigger threat … Fabian Socialism for decades.
Call me suspicious..
Let’s do include uniformed, armed election “security”, cased.dropped by The Lightbringer’s Wingman declined.
I seem to.recall a different to intimidation gauntlets, by a prior A G. Now, what was that again?