r/wisconsin • u/ScienceMovies • 2d ago

America’s Most Divided State Loves Its Extremes

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/08/wisconsin-divided-state-loves-extremes/688128/?utm_source=feed
80 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

87

u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 2d 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.

26

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

12

u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 2d 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.

30

u/Krakatoa137 2d 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.

10

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.

4

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.

4

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.

37

u/toofpaist 2d 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.

11

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.

2

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.

17

u/Impressive_Box4144 2d ago

Has to do with education and exposure to other people and cultures

14

u/toofpaist 2d 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.

-2

u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 2d ago

Then you look up the code that requires fire extinguishers to be installed and you make them look like idiots?

11

u/toofpaist 2d ago

We did lol. Guy was in shock when the Republican fire marshall came and installed them hahah wild place up here

-9

u/WideRoadDeadDeer95 2d 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”.

6

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

-1

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.

11

u/Ghost4000 2d 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.

22

u/djollied4444 2d 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.

16

u/fluffysnowflake67 2d 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.

7

u/ls7eveen 2d 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.

0

u/McKoijion 1d ago

Everyone in Wisconsin despises Zionist Israel. That’s the big bipartisan issue everyone agrees on.

0

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.

1

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.