Heartland Signal: 'Backlash comes for the right-wing culture war in small town Wisconsin'
Heartland Signal: 'Backlash comes for the right-wing culture war in small town Wisconsin'
The cautionary tale of the right-wing anti-trans panic in small town Wisconsin, ignited by the far-right Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
The Recombobulation Area is a six-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written and published by veteran Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
Controversy and political turmoil in the city of Kiel was ignited into a firestorm by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), which fed an incomplete narrative to conservative media about a Title IX investigation, creating an anti-trans panic that led to bomb threats, death threats, and the cancellation of school and civic events.
This saga has been exhaustively detailed by reporting from Mario Koran from Wisconsin Watch. His latest piece delves into the latest chapter from the story of ongoing fallout from the ordeal, where there’s now been backlash to the right-wing culture war that was clearly taken too far too far.
WILL deserves more scrutiny than it has received over this ordeal. What it did was frighteningly reckless. The panic they sparked in Kiel should be held up as a cautionary tale of what happens when the right takes the culture war far too far.
Let’s recombobulate.
Read the full column here.
The Recombobulation Area is partnering with Heartland Signal and WCPT 820AM, progressive radio based in Chicago. This means you’ll see our commentary on Wisconsin politics every month on Heartland Signal’s new opinion section, and you can listen to Dan Shafer join Patti Vasquez on “Driving it Home” every Wednesday during the 5 p.m. hour. Follow @HeartlandSignal on Twitter.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He’s won 13 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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