By Kevin Binversie

Kevin Binversie

If you watched last Friday’s debate while pounding shots each time Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said he was going to “end the civil war in Wisconsin,” you were probably ready for Alcoholics Anonymous midway through the second round of questions from the panel of journalists.

Liberals behind the recall like to throw around the phrase “civil war” because it fits the purpose of their campaign: Almost everybody hates war and (thus sayeth the Lord) peacemakers are blessed. So, recallistas are working to create the impression that there’s a civil war on, and in the meantime Barrett gets to appear Christ-like.

But is the recall really a civil war?

Only a fool would deny Wisconsin is politically divided. But it takes a bigger fool to say the state’s divisions appeared only when Scott Walker moved into the governor’s mansion. In the past decade and a half alone the state has seen two close calls on the presidential level. During the same time, control of the state Senate changed hands four times. Lest we also forget we saw tight elections for state attorney general in 2006 and a state Supreme Court seat in April 2011.

Where was Tom Barrett to stop those civil wars?

Politics — and political fighting — is in the Badger State’s DNA. One of my favorite books on Wisconsin political history is “Wisconsin Votes: An Electoral History,” a 2008 release by Robert B. Fowler, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s a well-researched chronicle of the state’s long voting history from statehood to today. (Fowler has even published online addendums for the 2010 and 2011 elections). One of the many things you will discover by reading it is that since the start of the 20th century the state has always been a political battlefield.

Fowler points out that the first fights were intra-Republican Party — between what were called “stalwart” Republicans and a new breed of “progressive” Republicans led by Robert La Follette. After World War II, the fight moved to the modern-day Democrat vs. Republican dynamic we know today. That was when any remaining “progressive” Republicans joined with New Deal Democrats to create the modern Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

The bottom line — we’ve been fighting since the beginning. Only the labels have changed.

So, it’s best to avoid the term “civil war” when describing the Walker recall. I like to call it a coup d’état.

Coups are defined as sudden and decisive actions in politics resulting in a change of government illegally or by force through a small group. When labor-backed demonstrators occupied the state Capitol in February 2011, Madison certainly looked like any big city in a third world country. When labor leaders used that occupation to argue that the state had become ungovernable, they seemed merely hypocritical. When they leveraged that argument—and millions of dollars in campaign slush funds—to push for the recall of the governor, well, that’s when we had ourselves a very American coup.

Watching the recallistas in action, one can see how their entire campaign platform has nothing to do with reuniting the state, ending the civil war or mending political fences. They just want Scott Walker gone — and with him any hope of permanently dismantling the public-employee machine that used to run the state’s politics.

The time has long since come for Wisconsinites to ask themselves an important question. After nearly 16 months of turmoil, do the recall supporters really want to “end the civil war” or just want to finish the coup they launched amidst the anarchy of the Madison protests? Their rhetoric says one thing, but their actions say something entirely different.

Kevin Binversie is a Wisconsin native who has been blogging on the state’s political culture for more than eight years. He has served in the George W. Bush administration from 2007-2009, worked at the Heritage Foundation and has worked on numerous Wisconsin Republican campaigns in various capacities, most recently as research director for Ron Johnson for Senate. Contact him at kevin.binversie@franklincenterhq.org.