David Michael Miller
A few weeks ago I became so distressed at the state of the world — Donald Trump, Brexit, Hillary’s emails, police shootings, climate change disasters, the Brewers West Coast road trip — that I told my Isthmus editors I wanted to commit a kind of blogger’s suicide: I would write of nothing but pleasant things.
They convinced me to back my head out of the oven. Still, I’m spending a week at our cabin in the North Woods endeavoring to ignore the world as much as I possibly can.
I have important projects to distract me. After much searching and debate I found the perfect spot to hang our hammock. I perfected a boat slide — my own design — that I built out of old two-by-fours so that we can easily store our little fishing boat out of the water. (It’ll be available in better hardware stores by Christmas!) Dianne got busy clearing brush and using her chainsaw. Yes, I’m married to a woman who owns her own chainsaw and enjoys clearing brush as much as Ronald Reagan did. For the record, that’s the only thing she has in common with Ronald Reagan.
Still, I’ve spent so much of my life in and around politics that I can’t help thinking about it even while I’m doing pleasant things and listening to the soothing buzz of a chainsaw. The difference is that I’ve now given free rein to my most unfettered political fantasies.
So, come with me and imagine the world a year from now.
President Hillary Clinton has had two nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court approved by the Democratic-controlled Senate. (Merrick Garland was easily approved by the lame duck Republicans even before Clinton took office out of fear that she’d appoint someone even more sensible.) Justice Clarence Thomas resigned citing exhaustion because, with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, he now felt compelled to ask questions in court. Clinton replaced him with a young liberal justice. Then Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, at 83 the oldest of the liberal majority, decided to hang it up while she might be replaced by someone of her own point of view. Clinton responded with a promising third-year law student who is likely to serve for about 70 years.
Democrats are considered a shoo-in to take back the House next year (2018), a point conceded by Country Club Republican Speaker Paul Ryan. The Republican Party formally split into two parties after the disastrous showing of Donald Trump last November. They are now the CC Republicans, led by Ryan, and the Very Angry Republicans, led by Sarah Palin, Trump’s surprise vice presidential pick. The CCR and VAR can’t even speak to one another. Literally, they have different languages. For example, when Paul Ryan says he wants a “free market opportunity economy,” Sarah Palin responds by saying, “well, We the People want a free market for our guns and our Bibles, and we want the opportunity not to be politically correct and to say the things that is on our hearts and in our minds because we love this great God-given, gun-tottin’, not politically correct country that the Good Lord bequeathed upon us by our Founding Fathers and Mothers and their children and their dogs.” See what I mean?
Meanwhile, anticipating strong majorities in both houses, Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Bernie Sanders is preparing a long list of aggressive proposals to provide a fair distribution of wealth created by the booming American economy, which is booming because of the market confidence in Clinton’s steady leadership, even while they have burned her Commerce secretary in effigy on a light pole on Wall Street. Sanders noted that the effigy was wearing brand-new Italian loafers, which was not lifelike, to say the least.
Here in Wisconsin, Democrats are gearing up to take back both houses of the Legislature thanks to a U. S. Supreme Court ruling that tossed out the Republican gerrymandering that resulted in their majorities. New, fair districts were drawn by the federal appeals court. Gov. Scott Walker, facing a 23% approval rating, has announced that he will not run for re-election, opting to write a book and spend more time with his family. Likely Democratic nominee Tia Nelson, the daughter of the late iconic Wisconsin Gov. and Sen. Gaylord Nelson, already has the measurements for the drapes in her new office.
Cruising toward an easy re-election, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin is looking forward to joining newly re-elected Sen. Russ Feingold in the growing Democratic majority.
Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy is congratulating the Milwaukee Brewers on their amazing first half of the 2017 baseball season, sitting in first place with a 10-game lead over the hapless Chicago Cubs, still reeling after their historic September collapse of last season. “The rebuilding process is coming along a little faster than expected,” said an understated Brewers manager Craig Counsell.
Awash in cash from their new licensing deals, the UW Badgers became the first college program to pay their players what they’re worth, sparking a movement nationally to follow Wisconsin’s lead.
The only dark cloud on the Wisconsin sports horizon is the struggling Milwaukee Bucks, whose billionaire owners were so embarrassed by their 10-72 record that they decided to chip in the rest of the cost of their new arena, saving taxpayers millions.
And back here in the North Woods, a year later, I gently doze in my perfectly placed hammock and fall asleep to the gentle sounds of my wife’s chainsaw in the distance while counting the profits from Dave’s Best Boat Storage Slide, only $99.99 at better hardware stores everywhere.
