Harry Targ
Francesca Hong was an excellent candidate and has made great strides in building a left in Wisconsin. But this article like virtually all analyses since last Tuesday ignore the candidacy, constituency, and history of David Crowley, the winner. Milwaukee, as the ACLU reported, is one of the most racist cities in the US. The African American population makes up 38 percent of Wisconsin's largest city. Thirty-four percent of African American residents live in poverty. And one of their own was running for the statewide office never held by an African American. In short, the primary election had a win/win outcome. But we on the left need to contextualize our analyses and reflect on the connections between the contextualization and future political strategy.
And Wisconsin now has the opportunity to defy conventional tropes, encouraged by the corporate media, to build one progressive movement comprising both sectors of the Democratic Party (even including anti-MAGA Republicans) and the Democratic Socialists of America. The history of the Socialist and Progressive movements in Wisconsin provides a possible inspiration.
