The significance of the Wisconsin court election result

Overnight came the news that one candidate for the supreme court of Wisconsin won in an election instead of another.

In normal times, few would know about such things outside of Wisconsin, and even fewer would care. Other than thinking something about judges being elected, and perhaps why they really should not be, it would hardly register a thought for someone seeing it in the news, if the result was reported at all.

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But.

We are not in normal times. And so the strangest things become important and significant – even special court elections in away states of which few in England will know anything.

The two candidates were nominally non-partisan, with no party affiliation.

But in reality, one was a liberal, and the other one certainly was not.

And this mattered, as the Wisconsin supreme court is finely balanced. A liberal supreme court judge has retired, thereby requiring a special election, and if the illiberal candidate won the court would swing against the liberals.

It was thereby an election which mattered – at least for the direction of the Wisconsin supreme court as they come to decide various contentious matters – including in respect of election districts but also many other issues.

And it was also an election that mattered more widely – and it certainly mattered to Elon Musk and other supporters of President Trump. Indeed, it mattered to them a lot.

Musk announced that this election would determine “the future of America and Western Civilisation.”

Indeed, Musk averred, the election was about “the entire destiny of humanity”.

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In normal times, this would be an odd thing to say about any election, not least a special election for the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

And Musk certainly threw himself into campaigning.

He offered large amounts of money.

Usually such election interference stays hidden, but the openness of these attempts recall William Hogarth’s vivid caricatures of eighteenth-century elections in England.

Hogarth would certainly have relished depicting what is currently unfolding in America.

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And yet, overnight, the candidate favoured by Musk and Trump lost – and lost markedly.

In her winning speech, the successful candidate said that justice did not have a price and that the courts were not for sale.

In normal times, of course, this would not need to be said by anyone, let alone in a victory speech of a newly elected judge.

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Some will not get beyond the notion of having elections for judges. Most sensible people will see this as a least problematic, but this maybe is a discussion for another time.

Suffice to say: if there are going to elections for judges, it is better that the liberals win than illiberals, if that is the significant point of difference.

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But more widely, this is a welcome sign.

It does not indicate that the tide is turning – and that is for the simple reason that the tide has not turned.

But it does indicate that the tide has not (yet) risen as high as the illiberals would like to do.

Liberals and progressives should welcome such victories as and when they happen (though many will still grumble and nit-pick), for such victories are currently rare.

If the tide is ever to turn, then this result may become – in hindsight – an early pointer.

And in the meantime, on to the next skirmish, and then the next battle, and so on, and so on, as there is no alternative. For that is the only way the illiberals will eventually lose.

 

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