Time magazine ran an article last month that focused on the crazy things people were thinking before but connected to the election. One example came from none other than Cedarburg, WI: A pair of women who believed that some kind of plot was brewing beneath the scenes, threatening the children of America.
I wasn't surprised in the least. Cedarburg, for all its glitz and prestige, is a smarmy, smug Republican stronghold. It was the first place that John McCain and the predecessor of all the populist nonsense that we've spent the last four years absorbing, Sarah Palin, campaigned together after the Republican National Convention in 2008. Lest you think that that was a one-off, I remember the high school being sniffed out by dogs for explosives in preparation for an appearance by then-Vice-President George H.W. Bush in 1988 when he campaigned for president.
Cedarburg was, and wants to still be, a proud, staid, no-questions-asked bastion of Republicanism. It tolerated Democrats with a kind of disdain because it overwhelmed them regularly. Beneath it, though, is a veiled contempt.
Another article, this time in the New York Times, spoke to it more strongly. Seems that someone with a Biden for President sign kept getting it taken from his lawn in Grafton, perhaps an even stronger ode to Republicanism, a town just north of Cedarburg, also in Ozaukee County. The report stressed that, if Biden was to take the all-important state of Wisconsin, in fact flip it from what 45 had done in 2016, it wouldn't be flipping the suburbs, since this was an example of that.
Thing is, stealing Democratic yard signs is old hat in Ozaukee County, otherwise one of the richest in the state. I lived in Thiensville, south of Cedarburg, in 1992, and learned that the hard way. I got one, then a second, yard sign stolen, and then put a third in the picture window of my living room to secure it but make sure it still got seen. But that sabotage has been happening for quite some time now--and you notice the Democrats won in 1992 and 1996, anyhow.
But I posted both indicators on Facebook, noting how typical both were. I got immediate pushback from people living in Cedarburg, who pointed out that the two conspiracy theorists weren't the only ones living there. I never said that, I responded (now summarizing), but I taught there for thirty years, and it's not as if I don't know the clientele. I anticipated a typical result: Ozaukee County crashing hard for 45.
Besides, I thought the turnaround would happen much more easily in the Northwest part of the state, which used to be stronger Democratic. I went door-to-door for the Democrats then, and though I was supposed to have the names of friendlies, I ran into the so-called "shy" 45 supporters, who told me to a person that it was none of my business who they were voting for.
On paper, of course, this is true except: Why would they hesitate if they were proud of who they were supporting? Why be disingenuous if they weren't crossing over? I wasn't there to argue with them. I was there to find out if they were supporting Hillary Clinton. They knew support for 45 was controversial, especially after the Planet Hollywood tape. They didn't want to talk about it.
I was at a Democratic gathering on Election Night in Eau Claire, and we saw, to our chagrin, Wisconsin go for 45. The place cleared out quickly after that. The arguments had already started: Should have been Bernie, some said. It was almost as if Clinton had it coming.
But four years later, I was convinced that those none-of-your-business voters would cross back over, having learned their lesson. I don't know if I was right about that; I haven't been aware of the counts in those counties. But I was wrong about Cedarburg. Whoa, was I ever. Whoa, am I glad.
Cedarburg carried for Joe Biden. By 19 votes. Okay, not a landslide. But someone woke up there. Someone saw the damage 45 was doing. And if that happened there, Ozaukee County, a place Republicans could once absolutely count on, turned enough on them to provide some of the 20,000+ votes for Biden to carry the state. If Ozaukee County, and Cedarburg within it, comes even close for Joe Biden, that's a shaking of the earth.
It happened elsewhere, too. Waukesha County, bunched together with Ozaukee and Washington Counties as being the Republican castle of WOW, polled some 39 percent Democratic votes for Biden--at least four or five percent more than it usually does. (This I got from Larry Nelson, once mayor of Waukesha and a member of the county Board of Supervisors) People underestimate that county in statewide votes. 39 percent isn't 35. That translates into thousands.
So, no: Not everybody in Cedarburg are stone crazy and believes in ridiculous conspiracies. And, if pushed, enough of them returned to logic and decency and science and some kind of an attempt to restore normalcy upon the land. I knew some of those people once upon a time, too. They clearly showed up.
It's nice to be wrong once in a while. It's refreshing. I see a glimmer of a consensus there. It's a place to start.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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