Those who want to be great again

Before 2016, the last time Wisconsin voted Republican was 1984. I remember asking my brother in a conversation, "What's up with Wisconsin? I thought you guys were cool!"

He explained that there were a lot of angry rural voters -- "lifers," he called them -- who didn't have viable options for a better life. No college. The dairy farms were consolidating, or going out of business entirely. The military wasn't recruiting as much. No lumber mills. Less manufacturing. Trump offered them a better sense of hope. Misplaced, yes, but false hope is better than none at all.

Back in the days when Republicans were pro-business and Democrats were pro-union, Wisconsin Democrats could rely more on white, blue-collar voters. That worked through Bill Clinton. Now, with less union-based support (except among teachers' unions), Democrats are more reliant on urban and minority voters. That worked through Obama, but that doesn't impress rural, white, conservative voters so much. What does the Democratic Party offer *them*?

Transgender rights? LGBTQ+ friendly cakes? Opposition to Trump in general? Those are fine causes, but they don't resonate with that demographic.

Trump's ethical and moral failures lost himself re-election there (this time), but his appeal among anti-elites, gun-owners, rural residents, and those who hope for a blue-collar economic revival remains.

Until Democrats get a better message, they will continually fail to -- as Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL) put it -- "effectively rebut Republicans' portrayal of Democrats as socialists." Vestiges of a discredited economic system and enemies of America's tradition of self-reliance.

[Source:With trench warfare deepending, parties face unsettled eletoral map]

Republicans' entire argument against socialism relies on equivocation -- a bait and switch on what socialism means. That we can't emulate Europe because of South America.

It makes no sense, but until Democrats effectively define for themselves what they're about, they will not be able to out-shout the far-right media outlets and successfully sell themselves to rural Wisconsin.

Nor to rest of the country that has naturally gravitated to Trump's message of making them great again.