The GOP Has Now Made Wisconsin An International Embarrassment

     Let's get one thing straight: there is no "labor shortage." In a free-market economy, people reserve the right to not work for multibillion-dollar corporations that pay their workers starvation wages. The COVID pandemic made it clear that all that work we needed to isolate ourselves from our families to do was a construct that was used to control the proletariat. People are demanding to be treated like human beings, and companies are going to hurt until they get the pay and benefits they deserve. It is working. Almost 250,000 workers are striking, the anti-work movement went from 625,000 members to 950,000 in just a month and should pass 1 million promptly and 1.25 million as the new year comes upon us, and wages are seeing their largest increase in 40 years as the functional minimum wage is on track to pass $15 per hour.

     Rather than raising wages, employers are whining and pointing the finger while demanding more and more out of trapped workers, which only makes more of them quit for their own health. If your boss works you to death, they'll have a replacement in two weeks, and people are finally starting to realize that. The solution?

     Asking the Wisconsin GOP was probably a mistake. They tried cutting off unemployment benefits three weeks early in August with a bill that was vetoed by Democratic Governor Tony Evers. To the surprise of nobody, as Democrats explained this would happen, cutting off unemployment benefits has not increased job creation in a single state. Their next move? Well, the people who are pushing bills to ban trans kids from playing sports and receiving healthcare while protecting conversion therapy, restrict the rights of black Americans and disabled Americans to vote, ban teachers from saying slavery was bad, and sic vigilantes on women trying to receive healthcare have a novel idea even for the United States: bring back child labor.

     Like all the other bills I mentioned, the GOP-controlled legislature knows that Governor Evers will veto their plan to allow 14-year-olds to work the night shift, but that won't stop them. Wisconsin is a breeding ground for bad Republican policy proposals. This one, however, really struck a nerve with, well, anyone with common sense. It started off at the national level; blew up online with millions of people on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit (from ordinary Americans to politicians) condemning it; and, now, it is international. The Guardian, a UK publication, recently covered Wisconsin Senate passage of this bill. Let me give you a hint: the article wasn't very flattering. This is on top of the conservative Waukesha School District turning down government subsidies to feed hungry kids in their district because they were afraid of "entitlement."

     The GOP is making Wisconsin an international embarrassment, and they don't care. They're trying to push America so far right that it winds up back in the nineteenth century, an era before labor laws, rules to protect the environment, civil rights legislation, access to healthcare, and everything else that gives Americans the quality of life we enjoy. Fuck Robin Vos, the man who's been behind these efforts for well over a decade and won't stop until all Americans are suffering. You wonder why socialism's popularity among young Americans is rising? Take a look in the mirror, Republicans.