How Conservatives Bet Big on Wisconsin and Won

The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics
By Dan Kaufman

Hardcore conservatives adore infrastructure, and they’re phenomenally good at building it. This isn’t to say they’re necessarily committed to constructing roads and bridges and dams; it’s the infrastructure of their own movement — the one that has helped Republican politicians seize power in state legislatures over the past decade — that inspires their real dedication. …

For progressives, Wisconsin has been a demoralizing case in point. In “The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics,” the Brooklyn-based journalist and Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman shows how the state became a conservative test case. As the head of the right-wing, Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation told him, “Wisconsin is a laboratory for the rest of the country.” CONT.

Jennifer Szalai, New York Times