There was civil disobedience, but not violence or gunshots. The windows were used by Democratic legislators who moved their desks outside to hold office hours or let constituents and others in because they were not permitted to enter the building.
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“Trying to draw false equivalence is pretty thin cover when one party has been cheering on Trump’s sedition right up until the moment it turned violent,” says Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee). “As much as those covering for domestic terrorism today would like to re-write history, the 2011 Wisconsin protests were never violent, though Scott Walker admitted he had
thought about planting troublemakers to make them that way.”
Sen. Chris Larson
(via Facebook)
Still, Steineke argued the comparison was accurate: “Capitol buildings in both cases were taken over by protestors. I was there at the Wisconsin Capitol. We were trying to conduct our business and were prevented by protestors storming the Capitol. So yes, it’s similar.”
Former Rep. Michelle Litjens, now married to Speaker Robin Vos, added her own recollections of Act 10 from her time in the Assembly. “The DC protestors have gone too far, be strong. In WI folks were sleeping on the floors/hallways, living in the Capitol, bathing in the bathrooms, blocking entrances, screaming and spitting on us in 2011. Stand your ground Congress. It will be over soon #dcprotest”
Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) says he would never want to diminish the tension Republicans may have felt at the sight of tens of thousands of people at the Capitol opposing their actions to curtail workers’ rights during Act 10 protests and, of course, not the seriousness of death threats.
What strikes him as a stark difference — more so than the level of the violence in D.C. — was what sparked the two protests.
“The intent behind these actions would seem to be considerably different,” says Hintz. He points out that former Gov. Scott Walker campaigned on being willing to bargain with workers, saying individuals and families “felt betrayed by a lie … that had an impact on their economic security and their workplace security.”
“Protesting a policy with an outcome that could be good or bad for people is not the same as threatening a coup.
When a violent mob stormed the DC Capitol, breaking through police lines and crashing barriers, encouraged by President Donald Trump, to stop Congress from ratifying the election results, the minds of some Wisconsin Republicans immediately turned to the sustained but peaceful Act 10 protests at...
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