lilah80:

Went to the protest in Madison, Wisconsin, today instead of Chicago, because I’m visiting my mom. While Madison is the Austin of Wisconsin, i.e. the weird hippy city surrounded by a lot of red voters and cowmen, it’s still deeply, deeply Midwestern. Hundreds of earnest, mostly white people standing around in 98 degree heat, trying not to make eye contact and responding to the speakers’ attempts to start chants in the same volume and tone that Catholics mumble, “And also with you” during Mass.

When your region is settled by a bunch of Scandinavian Lutherans, you can’t expect them to be good at call-and-response in the absence of a Packers game and/or the lubricating elements of beer, brats, cheese and funnel cake. One of the speakers got a heartfelt ripple of applause for the line, “I don’t want to be here, but I had to come.”

But bless those awkward, reserved, sunburned people. They grimly packed up their kids in strollers with snacks and juice, trooped down to the state capitol, and held drooping signs as they gradually wilted sideways in the heat.

One popular sign motto said, “If you think you’re hot, imagine being in a tent city in the desert.”