Seventy-one percent of all voters believe that democracy is at risk, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, but only 7 percent identified that as the most important problem facing the country. Americans face more immediate concerns: the worst inflation in 40 years, the loss of federal abortion rights after 50 years and a perception that crime is surging, if not in their communities then in cities nearby.
But another factor is dampening people’s motivation to save America’s representative system of government: Some have already lost faith in its ability to represent them.
Wisconsin would seem like a state where concerns over democracy feel pressing — especially in this western swath of the state. The House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack uncovered text messages indicating that Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican seeking re-election, wanted to hand-deliver a slate of fake Wisconsin electors to Vice President Mike Pence that day to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow victory in the state.
And Wisconsin, perhaps more than any other state, is suffering through the erosion of democratic ideals already. Though virtually every elected statewide officer here is a Democrat, extreme gerrymandering of state legislative maps has given Republicans near supermajorities in the State Senate and House. At best, Democrats enter the state elections in November hoping to perpetuate the stalemate by re-electing their governor, Tony Evers, said Michael Hallquist, a Democratic alderman in Brookfield, outside Milwaukee.
But that democratic erosion may have sent many of Wisconsin’s citizens on a downward spiral of feeling powerless, apathetic and disconnected as one-party control becomes entrenched.
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