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Dixon, Dalton and Debs
There is a discontented minority who participate in liberal politics against structural obstacles. They are not pragmatic and they don't build coalitions. They are romantic idealists who are ill equipped for popular office. Some are even revolutionaries. They are not ignorant to infinitesimal odds. Some believe in building momentum for future generations, others are using politics to further public consciousness, and a few actually believe they can win without sacrificing their unique and unpopular iconoclastic principles. Probably it was the abolitionist Republican Party ascendance that inspired other outsiders to participate in partisan politics. Over performers like EV Debs, Bob La Follette, Ron Paul and Ralph Nader are hopeful outliers whose exclusion proves both the obstacles of two party politics and provides a path toward entry and reform.
It is easy to hate the liberal system. But only imperialists, sell-outs, bourgeoisie fat-cats, irretrievable lumpen-proles, heartbroken cynics and "two-minutes hate" party members would actually have contempt for an idealist, true believer, fellow traveler or participant observer (like Debs). Even anti-revisionist haters--who pick fights with everybody--don't actually dislike idealists, like Debs, nearly as much as the stagnated systemic status quo.
"He looked like an overgrown dwarf because his back was crooked from twenty-eight years in the coal mines of Wyoming. Twenty-eight years in the mine with an I.W.W. red card and damning every body...Tough...gentle and grizzled and fierce with bloodshot painful eyes. Mike had been to jail too many times not to be good. Old Mike who hated everybody. He hated Wilson and he hated Hughes and he hated Roosevelt and he hated the socialists because they had only big talk and milk in their veins for blood. He even hated Debs a little although not much. Twenty-eight years in he coal mine had fixed him up for a fine hater." (Dalton Trumbo) [my italics]
"...years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." (EV Debs) Labor universalism: both industrial and international is obviously the widest net to cast. The paring down of vanguardist partisans is different, albeit related, that solidarity building.
"I’ve never had any regard for law enforcement or the laws of an imperial nation...So I don’t care about any laws. By any means necessary...They know where I’m at. They know my address. My address is all on the candidacy forms. I live in Riverwest by the way, and if they want their signs, they can come get them..." Excerpt of Dixon's statement printed in the Milwaukee Courier (27 May 2026):
"If they want me to be arrested for it, we can do that, too. I couldn’t say that I’ve never been to jail. If there’s a criminal element, I am of it." (Carlos LeMar Dixon) [my italics]. Studying from the historical materialists of the pasts is how scientific socialism works.
It is impossible to hate these practitioners, unless you are one of the aforementioned class of sell-outs (Et al...) or a ruling class stenographer. Take reporter Ty Dysart's editorializing for example:
"Dixon has targeted signs belonging to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Franchesca Hong, 19th District Rep. Ryan Clancy, and GOP candidate Tom Tiffany. He filmed himself Thursday in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood removing signs and later insisted on being interviewed by WISN 12 News outside a Milwaukee police station." (Ty Dysart) [my italics].
It is impossible for the journalists to frame away revolutionary candidates like Dixon (or Debs). These revolutionaries are not exactly playing the same kind of electoral politics covered by traditional media. If a revolutionary's beliefs are true, then their actions are righteous even if unrecognizable from the outside. This presumably confounds people like Dysart, who ask seemingly irrelevant questions about propriety. "When asked what it would take for him to stop, [Dixon] said, "We would need to destroy capitalism and Zionism." Again, these people are not always running to win, "Despite his actions, Dixon acknowledged he does not believe he can win the governor's race," and this seems strange to conventional observers. (quotes from Ty Dysart article)
The most righteous part of Dixon's sign stealing is that he targets both major gubernatorial rivals: the northwoods dam man Tiffany and the post-Mamdani democratic socialist Hong. Only a true believer (Et al...) would target minority working class woman, DSA partisan and with bona fide Wisconsin Idea credentials from the left.
This was the unwinnable critique made by outsider partisans of the left like Socialist Debs, Progressive La Follette and Green Nader and right by Paul. In Wisconsin specifically, the Milwaukee third party sewer socialist tradition--of Debs' 1912 running mate Seidel--critiqued the two national parties from an industrial-internationalist perspective. The Milwaukee perspective is historically different than than state's two dominant political ideologies: La Follette's Wisconsin Idea Progressivism (of Tony Evers) and Thatcherite Tommy Thompson's stigmatized austerity (of Paul Ryan). Wisconsin's left must be understood in the light of these two traditions. This is why post-industrial Milwaukee produces labor socialists and the University produces democratic socialists. This distinction balances pragmatism, militancy and theory in an applicable way.
In this tension sometimes the adventurist passions of militancy ascend and some political signs get stolen. If this action brings attention to the genocide or labor movement then (from a revolutionary perspective) it is absolutely righteous. Anyway, running a campaign which centers the victims of imperial and capitalist violence and completely ignores popular personality politics is objectively more righteous on a higher scale: the Golden Rule. No one was harmed. If its good enough for Vonnegut and Jesus then it must be alright. Political machinations that don't address the political-economic reality are a distraction. Stealing signs is dirty but it is one way to "insist" media covers material reality and dials back the horse-race, popularity-contest, reality-show nonsense.
It is good to recognize a radical that looks like Christian Smalls and quotes from EV Debs. Its hard for the identity factions or theory purists to find fault with somebody like that. Building class consciousness sometimes requires impolitic acts. Sometimes it takes recordings of campaign violations posted to social media. These are the people who say "you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter what slogans you write" and give us somebody to believe in. (Trumbo 241)
People like Dixon build the momentum the accelerationists fear. Others see potential in his form of radical entryism to the left of DSAers like Mamdani and Hong. It is exciting to see a Trotsky-esque (more Socialist Alternative than Socialist Workers Party or Fourth International) styled politics in Wisconsin. If nothing else, revolutionaries like Dixon must be around to remind compromise minded DSA-ers that there is leftism beyond liberalism.
And also, don't be a hater.
sources:
Drake Bentley "Write-in candidate for Wisconsin governor posts video of himself removing yards [sic] signs from lawns" The Milwaukee Courier Milwaukee, 27 May 2026.
EV Debs "Statement to the Court: Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act" Court Stenographer (18 September 1918) via marxists.org
TJ Dysart "Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate admits to stealing campaign signs" WISN ABC 12 Milwaukee, 28 May 2026.
Hope Karnopp "Handidate films himself stealing Franchesca Hong, Ryan Clancy signs" Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 28 May 2026
Ellie Nakamoto-White "'Laws are meant to be interpreted': Riverwest ma seeking to become governor films himself stealing campaign yard signs of state representatives" CBS 58 News Milwaukee, 28 May 2026.
Dalton Trumbo johnny got his gun Lippincott, 1939 (Bantam Books 24th printing 1972) pg. 30, 34-5, 241.