In Wisconsin, our racial caste system is exceptionally brutal. It is more invasive, restrictive, and more racially targeted than most other states. Police are the front line of that caste system, pulling people into it, and keeping them churning through it. 

Mayor Johnson is making a cynical calculus that is unfortunately typical with liberals: that tacking to the right’s benefits outweigh the political costs. He’s doing what the Milwaukee Police Association and Republican legislators want, maybe gaining him a bit of credibility with Wisconsin’s power structure –but losing only a few principled, abolitionist voters/elected officials/organizations/etc in the process.

As Milwaukee Beagle has said since our beginning, the RNC was not the overwhelmingly positive experience that Mayor Johnson and Visit Milwaukee sold it to us as. Economic underpromises aside, we must also discuss the violence of cops and Republicans. Despite the efforts to chill free speech, folks were able to rally in resistance. The RNC is behind us and now the real fight to keep the fascists out of office begins.

Everyone with a brain and a heart knew that inviting the Republican National Convention to Milwaukee was a bad idea. We were promised an economic boon and safety (for the fascist attendees, at least.) We’ve gotten shuttered stores and put up checkpoints out of a shitty World War II film. And now a loved and well-known member of our community is dead – at the hand of out-of-state police who shouldn’t be “working” outside of the state-mandated “safety zone.”

Silence in the face of racist murder is a form of violence. The convention media spectacle eclipsing the national spotlight Mr Crump and D’Vontaye’s family are drawing unto his death is an example of this silencing violence already occurring here thanks to the RNC.

As the old saying goes, if it looks like a fascist, walks like a fascist, and talks like a fascist, chances are it is a fascist. The most difficult part of writing this article was not finding evidence of Wisconsin Republicans’ embodiment of fascism but rather deciding which examples to use. And this was just Wisconsin Republicans, imagine the endless examples if we examined all Republicans. We must not shy away from calling Republicans what they have become: fascists.

While efforts to gather, hold each other safe, and defend our city are vital and encouraging, they don’t address the core problem: this should never have happened. We cannot let the people who put us at risk off the hook. The community response to the RNC needs to include holding the elected officials who invited the fascists here responsible for what goes down during their party in our city.