Dear John,
While Trump celebrated his so-called "Liberation Day” at the White House this week, the real victory happened hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin.
Voters defied Elon Musk’s $20 million influx of cash, rejected deceptive campaign tactics, and elected Judge Susan Crawford. The state seems to have turned on Trump, swinging to the left across the board.
The result is that the Supreme Court will now rule to protect abortion rights, defend public sector unions, and resist Republican gerrymandering. This was a win for American democracy.
This race was the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, fuelled by dark money and Elon Musk’s ego. These are generally low-turnout, non-partisan races, but this one became a proxy war for heated national politics in a key swing state.
Wisconsinites sent a clear and refreshing message: No billionaire can buy our democracy. Justice isn’t for sale.
Of course, the fight is far from over. Unchecked corporate and oligarch cash, like the donations that flooded this race, still poisons our politics.
Just as the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision let oligarchs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel drown out the people’s voice, glaring loopholes in Britain’s campaign finance regime threaten do the same.
Wisconsin showed that when voters turn out, they can fight back. But ordinary people, whether here or across the Atlantic, shouldn’t have to out-organise a billionaire at every single election.
True ‘liberation’ can only come from the people, never from the whims of an unelected plutocrat.
