Review by Choice Review
Some books understand and explain; others inspire and reassure. The Fall of Wisconsin is one of the latter. The fall is Wisconsin's recent turn away from liberalism to Republican governors, a conservative state Supreme Court and even a Trump victory. The book reassures liberals that all is due to the machinations of rich, reactionary outsiders misleading the people. Invoking the epic history of Progressivism from the founding of the Republican Party to fighting Bob La Follette to the Kohler strike in Sheboygan, the author tells stories of ordinary, highly moral, heroic liberals pitted against a fearsome array of Koch-funded foundations, think tanks, and dishonest political advertising. There is no hint that the Democrats had their own ways of exerting power, not all of them simply pure. Simple good confronts sinister evil (as it does on the right, where Koch is replaced by Soros). The author takes for granted that the old Progressive cause has no need to rethink itself and that there is nothing beyond self-serving malice that explains the changing politics of the state. For its purposes, the book works well. Summing Up: Optional. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Fred E. Baumann, Kenyon College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO the pundit Thomas Frank asked what was the matter with Kansas. Today the question is, who sank Wisconsin? In "The Fall of Wisconsin," the journalist Dan Kaufman laments the state's recent trajectory and chronicles "the conservative war" on its political legacy. That legacy in a word is progressivism: seeded by socialist immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia, nourished by liberal icons like Robert La Follette and Russ Feingold, and sheltered by institutions like the proudly lefty University of Wisconsin at Madison, with a campus where granola crunched underfoot like fall leaves. No longer. Wisconsin helped deliver the White House to Donald Trump in 2016 and has seen near-unified Republican government since 2011. The state has become a laboratory for conservative policies and a microcosm of the broader populist realignment taking place nationally. Under Gov. Scott Walker, Wisconsin reduced government spending, sidelined labor, loosened environmental regulations and restricted access to voting. As a result, Kaufman writes, the state's roads are the second worst in the country, its renowned universities are bleeding talent and poverty rates have reached a 30-year high. Conservatives in Wisconsin deployed a "divide and conquer" strategy that has pitted traditional Democrats against one another. Walker and his allies targeted organized labor with Act 10, designed to limit the rights of public sector unions to bargain collectively and signed in 2011. (The United States Supreme Court recently approved an Illinois law weakening public sector unions from a slightly different angle.) Huge protests against Act 10 swelled the state capitol, invigorating some but piquing resentment in others. "Who are these people with all this time on their hands that they can protest during the day?" went a common complaint. Similarly, conservatives attracted blue-collar support for an iron ore mine in Penokee Hills by promising to use equipment made in Milwaukee with union labor. Unions and environmentalists found themselves on opposite sides of the issue. In structure and tone, "The Fall of Wisconsin" nods to George Packer's "The Unwinding," which chronicled disillusionment and malaise in American institutions. Kaufman's book is full of sharply reported details: One liberal activist packed Luna Bars while infiltrating conservative conferences because she grew tired of eating beef. Kaufman also records some statehouse animosities that make Washington seem downright civil. One state Democratic representative from Milwaukee found that the Republican majority redrew his district to exclude his own house. Yet tone is part of the Democrats' problem in Wisconsin as well as nationally. Generations of strategic investments and tactical ruthlessness have given the Republicans control of state governments and a path to a reliably conservative Supreme Court. By contrast, the Democrats mope like marchers in a funeral parade. Kaufman can veer at times into hopelessness, especially when discussing the state's Native Americans. When he shows enthusiasm, he does so antipragmatically, lauding rabble-rousing challengers to the likes of Walker and Paul Ryan. These candidates may speak truth to power, but you probably won't find them holding office any time soon. Walker's attacks on tenure and funding at the University of Wisconsin should be a potent rallying cry for the state's liberals. Yet Kaufman will galvanize no one but the far left by lionizing, as he does here, a bearded and ponytailed professor who teaches labor songs, including one that is "a lighthearted homage to transnational solidarity among cranberry pickers." That is the music of Wisconsin's past, not its future. Michael O'Donnell is a lawyer in the Chicago area. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Settled in the early nineteenth century by Scandinavian immigrants, Wisconsin quickly became known as a haven for those with egalitarian values: antislavery, pro-worker's rights, stewards of the environment, and champions of education. From such a foundation, the state became a bulwark of progressive democracy, known for world-class universities and small businesses, family farms and strong labor unions. All that changed with the advent of the Tea Party and the subsequent rise to power of Governor Scott Walker. Suddenly, this reliably blue state went overwhelmingly red, funded by dark money, aided by gerrymandering, and guided by a GOP strategy of divide and conquer. How and why this transformation has taken place is the subject of journalist Kaufman's cogent political analysis, an in-depth look at the ways long-held traditions have become unmoored and the repercussions such disruptive practices will have not only for the future of the state but for the country as a whole. Profiling citizens who have suffered under a well-organized, well-funded conservative attack on much-needed public programs and institutions and became activists, Kaufman offers a glimmer of hope in this primer on what it will take to fight for a fair and just government in what threatens to be a prolonged and uneven battle to ensure that American democracy is preserved.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A deep blue state has turned choleric red with far-reaching consequences, according to this incisive study of Wisconsin state politics. Journalist Kaufman examines the collapse of Wisconsin's left-liberal heritage-in the 20th century the state pioneered welfare policy, labor rights, and environmental regulation, and Milwaukee had a socialist mayor for decades-after the 2010 election brought Republican governor Scott Walker to power. The state became a laboratory for right-wing nostrums, Kaufman contends, as Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature stripped public-sector unions of collective bargaining rights, gutted environmental protections, cut taxes, and slashed education funding. Kaufman interviews labor organizers, Democratic candidates, Republican operatives, academics, Native environmental activists, and others. He spotlights both the long-term Republican strategy of taking power in states, aided by right-wing think tanks and deep-pocket donors like the Koch brothers, and the mistakes of Democrats who alienated their working-class base with Republican-lite policies; he focuses cogently on the decline-and suppression-of unions as the key to Wisconsin's rightward lurch. Kaufman's leftist leanings sometimes make his analysis seem one-sided, and the book's invocations of Native American spirituality when discussing environmental policy feel awkward. Still, the author's vivid reportage and trenchant insights illuminate America's changing political landscape. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Wisconsin native who identifies as a progressive advocate contrasts the history of his state with the drastic changes during the past decade that have surprised politicians, journalists, academics, and countless voters.As Kaufman reports, Wisconsin's progressive ethos had been taken for granted over so many decades that it seemed entrenched not only within the Democratic Party, but also most segments of the Republican Party, as well. For example, a Republican governor and Republican-controlled legislature favored collective bargaining for state employees, and a different Republican governor created accessible health insurance for poverty-level families with children. The author marks the beginning of the shift away from widespread progressivism to 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed limits on contributions to political candidates by individuals and groups. The money from anti-labor union forces and other self-identified right-wing radicalsmany from outside Wisconsinchipped away at historical progressivism. Early in the book, Kaufman identifies Scott Walker as the leading agent of change. Walker moved to Wisconsin in third grade, when his father became minister of a Baptist church in the town of Delavan. By the time he entered college at Marquette in Milwaukee, Walker aggressively advocated tax cuts for the wealthy and outlawing abortions. He never completed college, later proudly citing his lack of a degree. Walker entered electoral politics as a Republican state legislator, later choosing to seek, successfully, the top executive job in Milwaukee County. In 2009, when Walker's anti-union fiscal cutbacks vaulted him into contention for governor, he won. Two years later, he survived an attempt to recall him from the governorship. As Kaufman focuses on Walker as governor, he advances the narrative by weaving in stories about avid Walker opponents from the shredded Democratic Party. Paul Ryan, Hillary Clinton, and other prominent national figures appear throughout, but this is not a book focused on Washington, D.C. Still, these tales from one state have national implications.Kaufman's disdain for Walker and other hard-line conservatives is clear, but his research underlying the antipathy is solid and important. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
