The Block Party and the Death of Dissent

Yesterday I walked into a block party. My neighborhood is “historic” and even has a Frank Lloyd Wright amongst other famous architects to prove it. Everyone was over fifty, everyone was white. These were my neighbors. The credentialed liberal elite of Madison. Lawyers, professors, nonprofit leaders, Democratic operatives. The people who run the city, try to run the state and imagine they are saving the country.

They live in a tight little monoculture. If you don’t look like them, talk like them, dress like them, garden like them, and most importantly, think like them, you don’t belong. You barely exist.

At the party stood one of many Big Women on Campus. She tells people who to vote for on TV. She pulls strings behind a quarter of the decisions made in this city. I’ve been on a board with her. I’ve met her at least twenty times in my deep dive into local Democratic politics through the school board. I said hello and she ignored me. Again. She has done it before in stores where we both shop. I was used to it.

What I wasn’t used to was the reaction from the people I was walking with. They had seen it. But their first impulse was to protect her. “She’s old.” “She’s just like that.” Said in low, sympathetic tones. To be clear, I’m not playing the race card here, I’ve done that before and mastered that game. This is about America today.

I told them we should not support leaders who treat people they think are unimportant this way. I was met with silence. And then I vanished to them too.

This is what happens when you say something outside the script. I said the same thing to senior Democratic leaders in Wisconsin four years ago. I told them Biden should only serve one term. He campaigned as a transitional president. It was time to groom the next one. They said “He’s a good president.” I pressed harder. They said “He’s a good man.”

That was the end of the conversation. They didn’t want a plan. They wanted comfort.

This is why I do not trust the Democratic Party. I do not trust Madison. I do not trust my neighbors. And I do not trust the unchallenged liberal consensus that defines this place.

To be clear the Black establishment here and the Republicans are even worse. They all retreat into their own flavor of tribal purity. They all shut out ideas that don’t flatter their identity.

This is not about race. It is about power. It is about who gets to be heard. And who gets erased.

Call it bigotry. Call it cowardice. Call it self-congratulating sameness. It’s American democracy in action.

If you cannot tolerate dissent, if your empathy only flows upward, if your politics cannot survive a neighbor saying something unscripted, then you are not building a movement. You are building a cult.

When it breaks, and Trump or someone worse takes over, do not ask what happened. You know what happened.

You handed it to him.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not complaining. This is the bed I made. I love the real estate value. And I’m enjoying shitting in it. My hope (and joy) is that the stench of my shit wakes them up.