When Elon Musk donned a cheesehead and began throwing cash at voters in Wisconsin, it was a check. Would these vaunted blue-collar Midwest values maintain or have been they on the market to the best bidder, a man who introduced us Huge Balls, DOGE and Cybertrucks with their aspect panels falling off as they sped alongside the nation’s highways.
It wasn’t even shut. Musk’s greater than $20 million couldn’t purchase a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket for conservative candidate Decide Brad Schimel, who has stood prominently in help of sustaining a 19th century regulation banning abortion even in instances of incest and rape.
Decide Susan Crawford, who has represented Deliberate Parenthood, lecturers’ unions and labored within the state’s Division of Pure Assets amongst different issues, received the race decisively by one thing like 9 factors.
The distinction between the candidates was stark and so was the end result of the election. The most important loser on this spectacle unquestionably was Musk, who completely had it coming.
Good for Wisconsin.
And for Coloradans who will likely be electing a brand new governor and a raft of state officers in 2026, there’s a lesson right here: values matter. They’re kryptonite for a shameless huckster whose solely guiding rules are dishonesty, cruelty and greed.
However successful elections when democracy is being suffocated by an excessive amount of cash would require extra than simply interesting to voters’ higher nature. It’s going to require candidates to take a tough have a look at the seemingly intractable issues we face. It should imply providing the form of management required to win public help and in the end make life higher.
The one efficient response to Musk’s raging anti-government motion is a authorities that works.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro have led the motion amongst Democrats to give attention to producing outcomes. Their mantra is to get, um, stuff performed.
Whitmer famously campaigned on a message to “repair the rattling roads” after which made actual progress in that effort regardless of the failure of a measure to extend the fuel tax to pay for the work that’s wanted.
Shapiro’s political stature rose when he managed to get a collapsed interstate freeway bridge reopened in an astonishing 12 days.
They proved it’s not unimaginable to run a authorities that will get stuff performed.
After a few many years of Democratic management in Colorado, the jury remains to be out on whether or not their management has been efficient.
The state stays mired in a rut of nagging issues that appear to defy answer. Persistent unaffordable housing, clogged highways, underutilized transit programs and underfunded faculties are only a small pattern.
The affect is plain.
The state’s economic system is not the behemoth that introduced rousing inhabitants development and tax revenues for greater than 10 years. A latest report discovered zero job development within the state from February 2024 to 2025 and greater than a 3rd of the state’s cities have misplaced inhabitants prior to now few years.
At 4.7%, the unemployment charge is increased than the nationwide common, and tariffs and the cancellation of federal grants haven’t but begun to register in measures of financial output.
Our subsequent leaders will face these issues together with the inevitable want to reply to pure disasters, public well being threats and all method of unexpected emergencies with meager help from Washington.
The federal authorities as we all know it not exists. We’re on our personal.
Whoever finally ends up working for governor subsequent yr should discover methods to keep up excellence within the scientific group within the state regardless of threats of devastating cuts in federal funding. They should determine easy methods to function in a state with 24 million acres of federal land with little federal stewardship and sometimes conflicting views on the way it ought to be exploited.
Future leaders should confront rising prices for baby care, householders’ insurance coverage and well being care in a political atmosphere changing into extra Darwinian by the minute. And so they should take brave stands to guard the rights and freedoms we cherish and construct coalitions throughout state and ideological traces to protect democracy.
The voters in Wisconsin have been insulted and disrespected by Musk. He handed out million-dollar checks as if the election was not about what was good for the state, however a easy transaction of shopping for votes from folks too easy to make an knowledgeable resolution.
They don’t seem to be easy, they usually weren’t on the market.
It’s a lesson for everybody working for workplace. Even in an atmosphere awash with cash from smug billionaires, you’ll be able to’t purchase voter help. You must earn it.
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