Wisconsin and the politics of resentment

Today, On Point – episode three in our special series, “The Power of Populism” — We’ll look to Wisconsin, and the politics of resentment.

[BB-WISC-01 (Time: 0:08) WALKER: We took the power away from the Washington-based special interests and we put it in the hands of the Wisconsin taxpayers.

[BB-WISC-02 (Time: 0:20) CRAMER: In these smaller places, rural communities, people were basically saying, “We do not get our fair share. You city people who make all of the decisions, you don’t know us, you don’t understand what our lives are like and you think we’re all racist and sexist and backward and uneducated.

[BB-WISC-03 (Time: 0:12) SYKES: “It did feel for a while as if Wisconsin was ground zero in American politics. In many ways a precursor of the kind of hyper-polarization that we later saw all around the country.”

Today, On Point: The power of populism in Wisconsin.

Guests

Charlie Sykes, founder and editor-at-large of The Bulwark, a centrist website. Host of The Bulwark podcast. Author of the 2017 book How the Right Lost Its Mind. (@SykesCharlie)

Shawn Johnson, state capitol bureau chief at Wisconsin Public Radio. Also co-host of the Derailed podcast from Wisconsin Public Radio. (@SJohnsonWPR)

Also Featured

Kathy Cramer, American politics professor and Natalie C. Holton chair of letters and science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.

Related Reading