NOTE: First time diarist. Be gentle.
So me, Mrs. Boy, and The Boy (our ten year old son) got in the car early Saturday morn, and drove the 3 hours from our place in Western Wisconsin to Madison for the festivities on Saturday. It was the second time for each of us. Mrs. boy had been to Madison that fateful Tuesday in February, when a few thousand gathered at the capitol to lament the BRB, before our senators fled for Illinois the next day. I went to Madison on Feb 27, for what (until yesterday) was the biggest rally. Wherein lies our tale...
So you see, Mrs. Boy and I have some basis for comparison. Having been involved in the goings on in our neck of the woods, we've been talking, FBing, writing letters to our paper and our state reps, the Governor, and yes, attending rallies, shouting and holding signs. Mrs. Boy even participated in a union vote at our campus. (Result: faculty voted the union in.)
About those signs: They've changed, and it's how that change reflects the changes in the collective state of mind of Wisconsinites, that is the main topic of this diary.
Let me explain. In my other job (the one that I am paid some small portion of the state budget to do) I teach Psychology and Cognitive Science. Not the psychology of "sit here on this couch and tell me about your problems" but the psychology-as-behavioral-science. One of the more interesting methods of our field is sometimes called "content analysis." Basically, this means analysing the things people say or write, in order to draw inferences about their state of mind.
I've done it so often that it has sort of become second nature for me to do it wherever I go. So the two rallies I've now attended (yesterday and two weeks before) offered ample opportunity to do some (informal) content analysis of the protest signs. Why bother? For the same reasons to do any content analysis: to find out what people are thinking.
What have I learned? Let me lead with my conclusions: 2 weeks ago, in the cold and with an inch of snow accumulating on our heads, and the governor stymied by 14 absent senators, people were, in a few words angry but happy. Yesterday, with circumstances having changed considerably, people were plain old angry.
Basically, it comes down to this: if you were there to read the signs two weeks ago, you got the basic idea that yes, people were angry, but the anger was leavened by considerable jocularity. Humorous and creative content dominated. Two weeks ago, the cultural references were considerable. There were the Star Wars themed signs (Lando Calrissian quotes, pics of "Imperial Walkers", etc), Harry Potter signs (Slytherins for Walker), Simpsons signs (Worst. Governor. Ever), Spongebob signs (image of Plankton yelling "You're maniacal, Walker!), Big Lebowski signs ("Abide" and "Scotty, your out of your element!"). "Out, damned Scott! -Macbeth Local 1606." And on and on and on... The level of creativity was astonishing. To an old fashioned liberal academic, it was frankly heartwarming.
So in anticipation of the rally yesterday, I started thinking about my sign. I settled on an Angry Birds theme ("Angry Birds: Wisconsin Edition" on the front, with the King Pig on the back hoarding four eggs and the words "King Walker, We've Come For Our Eggs"). It was much remarked upon by individuals in the crowd, if I may say so myself. I got asked for a lot of pictures. Don't ask me how I got there, but if you've spent some time playing the game, you'll probably get it.
But here's the thing: having arrived with my Oh-so-culturally-hip sign, and walking around for about ten minutes, and mentally noting the content of the signs around me, I realized this: my sign was right for the rally two weeks ago. Yesterday, it was outside of the norm.
You see, the norm had shifted. We psychologists love to talk about social norms. Where two weeks ago the norm was angry-but-funny, yesterday, the norm was "angry all over (a little funny on the side)*". Without going into the firm numbers of formal empirical data, I'll leave it at this: the funny signs were still there. But angry had taken over.
At some point over the last two weeks, Wisconsinites went from angry but still basically happy, to just plain pissed off. Mrs. Boy (also a trained psychologist) noticed the same thing.
Other diarists have summarized yesterday's events much better, so I won't attempt to do so here. I just wanted to put a little bit of interpretation on it for you all.
What does it mean? One can't say for sure, but my own conclusion is this: it's going to get worse, perhaps much worse, before it gets better. I think that as deeply ingrained as it is in Wisconsin culture to be nice and polite to each other, we are in the process of re-embracing our "inner rabble" Tune in next week, and you might just see us descending on the capitol with pitchforks and torches.
Let's hope it never gets to that.
*apologies to Frank Zappa