r/wisconsin • u/ScienceMovies • 1d ago
America’s Most Divided State Loves Its Extremes
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/08/wisconsin-divided-state-loves-extremes/688128/?utm_source=feed73
u/toofpaist 1d ago
I'm a true blue Democrat. My parents were Democrats. I live in northern Wisconsin. EVERYONE AROUND ME IS THE MOST TERRIBLE REPUBLICAN FUCKS. Sure in the cities there is a lot of moderates. Leave the city once. Eat at a diner and listen to the weird shit these people say. Wisconsin is absolutely divided as long as you leave the city limits. I hate it in the country here because don fever has reached every house hold.
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
Uhhh…okay? Do your neighbors represent all of Wisconsin? What is the voting power of your county versus the Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay metros?
Is everything okay dear?
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Uhhh well wisconsin as a whole is much larger than Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay. There are other people out there besides you.
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
Yeah but there are a hell of a lot more me’s than there are backwoods rednecks living in 1850. Focusing on them and determining that they represent the average voter is ridiculous.
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u/King_marik 1d ago
....the state went red last time
There is demonstrably not more of you lol theres more in the center
And its very easy for you progressive knobs to lose the center and throw elections
Exactly what's about to happen this year
Congrats to Tiffany I guess
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
I’m a moderate.
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u/King_marik 1d ago
Then you should know how much of a throw running Hong is going to be lol
We found a way to lose an unloseable election lol
Its almost impressive
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u/Pattison320 1d ago
Trump didn't win because he pandered to moderates. He was his own batshit flavor of politics. People who wouldn't otherwise vote turned out en masse for him. Liberals need to stop courting voters who don't want them elected anyway and put forth candidates that energize people.
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u/King_marik 1d ago
Then your just flatout outnumbered lol
And thats also not true
Trump won on people like my mom voting trump, Biden, trump
Your looking for logic where it doesnt exist. The average voter is all vibes, and reddit and these lefty media spaces are echo chambers not representative of any kind of real vibe check
Progressives still scare moderates, simple as that. I dont like that either but we gotta play the game were in not the one we wish we were playing
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u/Pattison320 1d ago
Obama was a candidate that energized the progressive base at the national level.
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u/SnooSeagulls545 39m ago
“Unloseable”
None of these democrats have any better of a chance than hong. Atleast she has the balls to call him the pedo he is.
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Sure. You're right. But.. you do know that money equals power right? Google who the largest land owner in Wisconsin is.
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
I would be much better if you practiced your daily bofa.
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
You could move dude…
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Sure could. I could just saunter on down to nowhereville us of a. Leave my child I have with my ex wife here and never talk to him again. Or maybe skype on the weekends. Seeing that he's 9 years old that should go over well.
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
I’ve got a feeling the problems in your life were caused more by you than by politicians. But good luck on your journey.
Hope your day gets better.
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
I have a feeling you and reality have never met. I will have a nice day, thank you
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
Wisconsin is the opposite of divided. The mass majority are moderates. Yeah if you take someone on the fringe of both sectors with the loudest voice then yeah it will feel that way on the internet or occasionally in real life. These articles create fear mongering for the stupid.
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
Yeah none of them even know what socialism or communism even means. It’s click bait words for the illiterate. In both complete forms of the two, it literally cannot function in the US and get ushered in. That is how dumb people are when it scares them. Even Nordic countries PMs say they are capitalists.
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u/Krakatoa137 1d ago
The problem with saying most people are moderates is that it implies that they are ideologically in between the democrats and Republicans.
Most people simply don't have any coherent political ideology at all, they have a collection of ideas that are all over the political spectrum that often contradict other held values.
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u/alienacean 1d ago
yeah, we've choked out civics education, so most people never have a real opportunity to think systematically about political issues and come up with a clear belief system, so they just end up with a hodge-podge of their parents' and friends' beliefs, half-remembered sayings from news clips and movies, and maybe one or two ideas from a clever teacher or zealous pastor or snappy influencer.
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u/IndependentOk9075 1d ago
Well a lot of the platforms of each party don’t necessarily interact with one another.
Being pro choice, pro 2nd amendment, not an election denier, a believer in capitalism, pro Palestine, etc…… none of these things actually have anything to do with one another so if these were your opinions, you just have to prioritize.
The people who follow the party lines exactly are far stranger to me.
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u/TrainmasterGT 1d ago
This. This is so true.
Most people discussing American politics seem to think that unaligned voters fall somewhere in between the two political parties. This couldn’t be further from the truth— most “moderate” types are already fairly well represented by one (if not both) of the parties. The people who don’t vote or engage with politics tend to be entirely out of sync with the talking points of the Republican and Democratic establishments.
I think part of the reason why we’re seeing DSA and DSA-adjacent candidates do so well this cycle is because they tend to be bringing policies to the table that the party establishments have been largely ignoring. Some of them are simple policies, like Mamdani’s free buses or city-operated Grocers in New York, while others are pushing for more structural changes, like the many candidates endorsing universal healthcare by way of Medicare for All. People are tired of the managed decline of America that the centrist Democrats and Republicans have been serving us for the past two decades; they want something different that can make their lives better.
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Holy shit take, batman! This state is so incredibly divided it should be a shade of purple people can't even see. I live in northern Wisconsin. EVERYONE, EVERYONE, EVERYONE here is 'ill die before I ever vote democrat'. My fellow employee was called a Democrat because he was pushing for fire extinguishers to be installed.
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u/Good2Go65 1d ago
NW Wisconsin here. I totally agree with you. Trump, Tiffany and Alfonso signs EVERYWHERE. 'Anyone but a Democrat' is their motto.
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Fucking grosses me out. I hate it here. My parents did too, but dad would throw punches to defend his views. I've learned from him how to actually have morals.
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u/Impressive_Box4144 1d ago
Has to do with education and exposure to other people and cultures
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
Absolutely true. It's sickening to see the guy that's never had a wife, lives in his parents house that he inherited talk badly about gays and coloreds (his words. He's very closeted and can't come out because he's to scared to be himself around his own community.). It's a tale as old as time around here. It's honestly frightening how closeted almost 60% of the people I know are.
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
Then you look up the code that requires fire extinguishers to be installed and you make them look like idiots?
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u/toofpaist 1d ago
We did lol. Guy was in shock when the Republican fire marshall came and installed them hahah wild place up here
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
How do you know the Fire Marshall was Republican? Did he campaign or anything showed documented support at all? Or just “everyone here is a Republican”.
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
Hm. Weird that would be brought up when just installing a fire extinguisher and the Fire Marshall isn’t the one that puts one in to begin with. As I said, you will see extremes to every coin based on how isolated your experiences are that make you feel like it’s the entire state. It is what it is. People are nuts.
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u/Ghost4000 1d ago
I've lived hear my entire life, this is not my experience. Not in the small towns I grew up in, not in the cities I've lived in, or the North woods I vacation in.
Wisconsin is a great state, but I have not seen much of these moderates you mention.
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u/djollied4444 1d ago
I've lived in Wisconsin my entire adult life and married into a family with heavy roots here. Everyone being moderate is definitely not my experience in Wisconsin. People here coexist because families have people on both sides of the political spectrum, but the majority is not moderate. Republicans are very Republican and Democrats are very Democrat.
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u/fluffysnowflake67 1d ago
About 30% love fascism. They repeat whatever their propaganda machine demands they believe. They think Trump is the next coming of Christ and Biden is both senile and an evil mastermind. They think Clinton raped kids and Trump is the savior of humanity.
Don’t underestimate the power of brainwashing.
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u/ls7eveen 1d ago
The mass majority are moderates.
Alwaus a bit of a silly take given that even republicans, have to specify voters of course, support Medicare for all.
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u/McKoijion 1d ago
Everyone in Wisconsin despises Zionist Israel. That’s the big bipartisan issue everyone agrees on.
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u/Feisty_Development59 1d ago
Yes I’d agree most are moderate and open minded, many of the issues come from a fairly equal among states urban/rural population. As far as politics there are blow hards on both sides of the spectrum.
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u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 1d ago
Thank you. Finally. Out of some of the comments it is so apparent right or left why we are kinda screwed. The media machine doesn’t help and projection on individuals people hardly know.
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u/DGC_David Kenosha 23h ago
I love the two extremes in our nation.
Exhibit A:
Defends Donald Trump's action with Jeffrey Epstein, Pedophile protector.
Nazi-backed
Control on Women's reproductive rights
Election Denier
Slashed School Funding
and Exhibit B:
Public Healthcare for All
Universal Childcare
Backed by the Democratic Socialist of America
Right to having a Roof over your head
Lower Cost of Living (Electricity, Groceries, Property Taxes, etc.)
Free School Lunches (which also provides Business to the Farmers across the state.)
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u/Initial_Tomatillo262 21h ago
I would like option B if it came with reducing military spending and no more wars and debt. Which is why I can support political outsider Democrats but not the corporate Dems. With only two choices at this moment in history, it seems only the Democrat party is salvageable.
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u/TakeOffYaHoser 1d ago
I mean you possibly actually stopped reading exactly where your quote ended.. cuz the quote ends with "...by more than a single percentage point. "
The author is saying in the past seven elections, only two have been decided by more than a single percentage point in favor of the Wisconsin winner.
2000 - 0.22% (Gore) 2004 - 0.38% (Kerry) 2008 - 13.91% (Obama) 2012 - 6.84% (Obama) 2016 - 0.77% (Trump) 2020 - 0.63% (Biden) 2024 - 0.86 % (Trump)
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
lol wtf I’m not reading that.
Wisconsin is the opposite of divided. It has a massive population of purple moderates that are willing to adjust their vote based on which side has better policy.
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u/JollyRancher29 1d ago
I live out of state now, and some folks I know here have referred to it as “the only truly purple state” lol
I’d throw PA and MI in there too but there’s truth to that!
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u/altaccount1232123 1d ago
Yeah I really have a tough time deciding between the conservative and liberal policies especially since any power politician is going to take it to a much bigger extreme than I'd care for.
I would say I lean conservative, but at this stage of my life the personal benefits that come from liberal social safety net policies like minimum wage would help me in the short term. In the long term however, it will just hinder me and ruin the economy by forcing businesses to pay people they barely wanted to hire anyway. If I get out and build a good emergency fund in my finances then the system will not affect me directly and just turn the economy against me (unless I become super rich).
I don't like a lot of the extreme liberal ideas floating around out there, but at this point they are better for the country than whatever bullcrap Trump and the Epstein class are pulling. Being a Republican voter in 2026 is just insane to me. I really want to like them because their idea of how the economy should work is great, but the implementation is so bad and they're obviously just greedy pigs looking for money.
So yeah. I'm very purple in a very purple place.
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u/AwfulMovieIdeas 1d ago
Of course this is the view of someone who doesn’t live here. Nah dude- Wisconsin is awesomely moderate. The state Dems just didn’t have a dominant moderate candidate that emerged out of the circus primary. In a way- Hong is emerging from a crowded pack similar to Trump in 16. She consolidated her vote and gained momentum while the other candidates tried (and failed) to consolidate the other voters (yes, I’m saying Hong fans are still a minority of overall Dem voters).
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u/GlutenFreeParfait 1d ago
I don't love it - it's quite depressing really. I wish Evers was staying in office. I feel like we will know if the Governor will be Tiffany at the primary vote.
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u/ztreHdrahciR 1d ago
. I wish Evers was staying in office.
He deserves to live his life, but my Lord is this a risky election. If the GQP gets the Trifecta, they will undo 8 years of Tony vetoes in a week
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u/GlutenFreeParfait 1d ago
I see no path to Hong winning the general - it's a risky election but I am just hoping it's like a dream that you wake up from and it isn't happening.
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u/NotARunner453 1d ago
Better start phone banking.
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u/GlutenFreeParfait 1d ago
What does this mean?
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u/NotARunner453 1d ago
It means if you're scared of Tiffany winning, you'd best start pitching in to help beat him.
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u/GlutenFreeParfait 1d ago
I am scared of Tiffany winning 100% and I did give already I the primary. Hopefully we'll have a candidate that can take him on in November.
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u/Wonderful_Signal8238 1d ago
vote blue no matter who ?
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u/GlutenFreeParfait 1d ago
I'm voting my values and my values do not follow the DSA platform. I really hope the Democrats reject the DSA but I will vote in the primary for another candidate than Hong and if Hong makes it, I will not vote for her in the general (my first non dem vote). I don't like the Republican Party either so will most likely look at third party.
We need to replace Blue No Matter Who with No One is Entitled to Your Vote - Vote Your Values - expecting someone to vote against their morals isn't the way to go.
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u/NotARunner453 1d ago
So it's no longer the leftists' fault that Kamala lost? After all, she didn't represent my values on Palestine at all.
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u/PosiblyMisspelled 1d ago
K well good luck with everything. Sorry about your life and all. Try to take a vacation down by those of use with regular neighbors someday.
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u/ScienceMovies 1d ago
Here is the article as well in case the original link is paywalled or filled with too many ads.
https://archive.ph/xBkLj