Repressive Republicanism - McCarthy

Wisconsin's repressive Republican period followed the Progressive Era republicans (dominated by the La Follette regime.) The third and fourth republican regimes are Thompson austerity regime (welfare cuts) and Walker austerity regime (teachers union). Wisconsin's traditional political landscape is Republican. The progressive-conservative debates have happened inside the party. Abolition is the foundation of Wisconsin's republican party. Progressive education and taxation, anti-communism, austerity, and right-to-work legislation are all part of the party. In this context, Wisconsin's third parties are Sewer Socialists (Hoan, Berger) based in Milwaukee and Liberal-Democrats (Baldwin, Evers) based in Madison. The Paul Ryan wonky pseudo-libertarian austerity regime fits in the Wisconsin republican tradition even if it is part of a broader national attack on the social state. The national austerity regime was impacted by Thompson's W-2 welfare reform. Thompson went from Madison to Washington as the HHS head for George W. Bush.

McCarthy was also a product of the national anti-communist hysteria. McCarthy was like Ryan, Thompson and Johnson--radical celebrities of political extremes. La Follette was also a political celebrity representing the Progressive movement (called the Wisconsin idea by locals) to the nation--at least until 1912 when T.Roosevelt coopted the thing.

Thomas. C. Reeves was one of McCarthy's biographers. He taught at UW-Parkside. Parkside is a newer campus of the system located near Kenosha. This place is part of the Miwaukee-Chicago suburbs. McCarthy was from the Fox River Valley. Reeves' version of McCarthy is a dupe. He was a tool of J. Edgar Hoover's security state where he acted as a congressional agent provacateur. Reeves also wrote a Kennedy biography about Camelot intrigue.

Thomas C. Reeves. The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy Blond & Briggs, 1982
Thomas C. Reeves. "The Search for Joe McCarthy" Wisconsin Magazine of History Vol. 60 no. 3, spring, 1977. pp: 185-196. web. [wisconsinhistory.org]

Photos credit: "Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WIS) displays what he says is a copy of a commission President Truman issued to Adm. Louis Denfeld for a second term as chief of Naval Operations." January 18, 1950. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. [americaslibrary.gov]

"Senator Joseph R. McCarthy holding a photostat of the "Daily Worker" which includes an advertisement for a Communist front organization to which he alleged that Miss Dorothy Kenyon, a former State Department employee, had once joined." Hosted by the [Eisenhower Library].

The Thompsons - Tommy and Ed

Tommy Thompson's fourteen year gubernatorial role is only one part of a larger regime that began in 1967 and continues today. Tommy has been in the Wisconsin assembly, governorship and university system. He also served as federal secretary for the Department of Health and Human services. He has run for US senator, president and serves as a private lawyer when not in government. In these roles, he has imposed a fiscal discipline on social programs representative of a broader era of Reganomics. He rose to power from the University of Wisconsin college republicans as part of a counter-revolutionary conservatism against the sixties peace movement. In the states right-wing politics, Thompson's anti-welfare-queen rhetoric evolved into the compassionate conservatism of Paul Ryan and Scott Walker. The party's goals in both of these iterations was a decrease in social spending, reduction in taxes and stigmatization of the underclass. The economic conservatism has can be interchangeably described as reganomics and clintonomics: moral imperatives and fiscal austerity--institutional conservatism.

Ed Thompson represents a populist conservatism that was ignored by Regan, Clinton and Tommy. Ed's libertarian populism is modeled on national chamber of commerce movements. The Wisconsin Tavern League (based in Middleton) is a nearly century old trade association that spreads about $25k between both parties per state electoral cycle through it's Tavern Industry PAC [open secrets].

Tommy received a deferral and went to law school in the university town of Madison. Ed enlisted in the Navy and opened a bar next to Ft. McCoy in Tomah. Both Madison and Tomah depend on social spending, either through the military or academy, it is interesting that both Thompson's would favor small state politics considering they settled in socialized towns (not factory towns). Ed tried to continue the Thompson regime by running for governor in 2002. He lost to a milquetoast Jim Doyle and caretaker Scott McCallum in this election. Ed siphoned votes from the republican McCallum à la Ralph Nader v Bush v Gore in 2000.

Eno Yaw. A Remarkable Man: Ed Thompson's story Eno Yaw, Ltd., 2005 trailer hosted by [remarkableman.com]