Wisconsin GOP Opposition To Mask Mandate Is Part Of Larger A Problem
The Wisconsin GOP is a symptom of a larger, more serious issue: a dying party fighting to survive in a world slipping away from them.
Representatives and senators like Cody Horlacher have no issue blasting out a statement responding to Governor Evers’ mask mandate, wrapping themselves in the flag of fighting for “individual rights”, with no sense of shame in the hypocrisy of previously voting for the unconstitutional stripping of powers from then-governor-elect Tony Evers. Governor Evers was elected because he got the most votes from Wisconsinites who exercised their greatest individual right: their right to vote.
The only reason many of these representatives and senators are still in their seat is because Wisconsin is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. In 2018, despite getting 54% of the votes, Wisconsin Democrats hold only 37% of the seats in the Assembly. At every turn, the Wisconsin GOP attempts to achieve minority rule despite being decisively in the minority, clearly disbelieving in the true will of the people.
This ideology of minority rule is not unique to Wisconsin, unfortunately. The GOP at large sees the writing on the wall in terms of demographics and knows they have just a few years until several key states are lost forever (unless their platform shifts massively). With Hispanic voters (63% of whom identify as Democrat/lean Democrat), Black voters (where 87% identify as Democrat/lean Democrat), and other minority groups expected to make up 50% of the population by 2050, the GOP knows their time is running short.
Though it’s still unlikely, if Joe Biden manages to win Texas this year, that slow “death by a thousand cuts” turns into a swift execution by guillotine (at least in the Electoral College). That becomes an even greater possibility if Georgia also goes blue in 2020. Although this good polling could be more of an anti-Trump vote than a pro-Democrat vote at the moment, eventually, when Georgia and Texas become reliably blue, that’s lights out for the GOP.
That approaching reality is why Mitch McConnell and Republican voters have attempted to stall by making the issue of Supreme Court justices their rallying cry, and why there was such vitriol when Neil Gorsuch voted with the majority in the decision on LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace. Since the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the GOP has seen legislating from the bench as their best path forward for the time being. The outcry after that ruling by Gorsuch revealed, either knowingly or unknowingly on their part, that the GOP and their voters don’t actually care about conservative judges, only judges who will vote in a way that helps them hang onto an America that’s becoming a relic before our eyes.
For now, the party exists only to fight the “radical left” by opposing: masks (until 125,000+ Americans are dead), mask mandates (presumably until we reach another ungodly milestone for deaths), help for those in need (unless the help is for big corporations), supporting American soldiers (unless it’s for a holiday, the National Anthem, or related to Benghazi), conducting business virtually (unless it’s meeting to force voters to risk their lives to vote), and, worst of all for our collective survival, action on climate change until it’s already too late (mirroring their response to COVID-19). The Wisconsin GOP’s grandstanding on masks is just the latest example of the dying party’s nails scraping the side of the cliff before being pulled into oblivion by the realities of political and societal gravity.
P.S. Rep. Horlacher, you said to reach out to our elected officials about the mask mandate. Well, here’s my attempt, now stop trying to invalidate my individual right to have my vote count for something.
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