Democracy on line? Swing state Wisconsin offers a test

Michael Hovde has a lot he dislikes about Donald Trump's agenda. But when he votes in November in the electorally crucial state of Wisconsin, he believes the stakes are far higher than mere policy issues.

"Trump, I think, is an existential threat to democracy," the 36-year-old said as he strolled through the bustling downtown of Appleton, one of the most politically diverse areas of one of the most closely divided US states.

He pointed to the "terrifying" people around the Republican mogul and to Project 2025, the governing blueprint written for, but publicly disavowed by, Trump that would ram through his hard-right policies.

"They aim to truly just bypass and circumvent checks and balances, and really neuter the efficacy of our political system," Hovde said.

Not far away, past the verdant lawns and elegant Victorian homes in this comfortably middle-class city, Casey Stern, 58, sees the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris quite differently.

Above his neatly tended garden of corn and zucchini flies an imposing "Trump 2024" flag. Another banner calls for Biden's impeachment and says, "We the People Are Pissed."

If the message is in-your-face, so are the reactions. Stern recounts passers-by shouting profanities, while some critics jot down his address and send him letters.

He acknowledged that Trump's "mean tweets in the middle of the night" can bother people but believes the country needs a "strong-willed" leader to address inflation, immigration and crime.

"Every time you go to the grocery store, you can't even afford a steak," Stern said.

He scoffed at Democrats' charges that Trump puts democracy at risk, accusing President Joe Biden of stifling public debate over the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Biden has done more to harm democracy," he said.

- State of tumult -

If there is one state where the Democrats' message on Trump's threat to democracy may mobilize voters, it is Wisconsin.

Once known for clean, polite, left-tilting politics, Wisconsin has become an epicenter of partisanship -- an ultimate swing state that could tip the national election.

Trump stunned complacent Democrats by winning narrowly in 2016. Biden then took back Wisconsin by another razor-thin margin in 2020.

A turning point had come in 2010 when Scott Walker, a young Republican who many presumed would respect Wisconsin's mild-mannered political style, was elected governor and unleashed sweeping changes.

He stripped power from Wisconsin's once-formidable labor unions, and his Republicans drastically redrew election maps, virtually guaranteeing party control of the state legislature.

Democrats hope Republicans will have their comeuppance in the November 5 election, fought on less partisan maps after a ruling by the state Supreme Court's new liberal majority.

Kristin Alfheim, a Democrat who is seeking a state Senate seat, said competitive maps benefit democracy.

"It brings the opportunity for accountability from both sides, knowing they're going to need to work together," she said.

- 'Democracy' cuts both ways -

Biden and Harris have hammered away on the threat to democracy from Trump, who refused to accept defeat in 2020 and fired up the supporters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Arnold Shober, a government professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, said the democracy theme carried "special resonance" in Wisconsin after its experience with Walker, who was voted out in 2018.

But Shober said it cut both ways, with some Republicans still smarting over the boisterous, albeit nonviolent, protests that disrupted the state's capitol when Walker pushed through his anti-union measure, known as Act 10.

"When you talk about January 6 in Wisconsin, folks on the right will instantly say, well, what about those Democrats with Act 10?" Shober said.

"They see it almost as an equity issue. You did it -- we can do it, too."

- Countering vitriol -

The historic home to giant paper mills and now the base for major white-collar employers, Outagamie County, of which Appleton is the seat, was dominated by Republicans and produced the notorious anti-communist witch-hunter Joe McCarthy.

But in a microcosm of the country, an urban-rural split has deepened, with Democrats gaining in an increasingly cosmopolitan Appleton.

Outagamie County Chief Executive Tom Nelson, a Democrat sympathetic to socialist Bernie Sanders, has kept winning since 2011 even as he has seen coarseness in politics rising with Trump.

"He has animated that vitriol, that contempt, that hatred," he said.

Nelson said he has successfully reached across the divide on a more basic message.

Fundamentally, he said, people want "to be able to live in a community that is safe, that is healthy, that has a strong and vibrant economy."