On Wednesday night in the heart of downtown Platteville, Wis., just hours after the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the state’s stay-at-home order, Nick’s on 2nd was packed wall to wall, standing room only.
It was sometime after 10 p.m. when “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” by the Hollies came over the sound system and a bartender took out his camera. In a Twitter broadcast, he surveyed the room of maskless patrons crammed together, partying like it was 2019. A few were pounding on the bar to the beat. Some were clapping their hands in the air and some were fist-pumping, a scene so joyous they could have been celebrating the end of the worst pandemic in a century.
Instead, as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) knew, they were just celebrating the apparent end of his power over them — at least for now.AD
“We’re the Wild West,” Evers told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Wednesday night, reacting to the state Supreme Court’s ruling and the scenes of people partying in bars all across Wisconsin. “There are no restrictions at all across the state of Wisconsin. … So at this point in time … there is nothing that’s compelling people to do anything other than having chaos here.”
Chaos it was.
Right after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued a 4-to-3 ruling, invalidating the extension of the stay-at-home order issued by Evers’s appointed state health chief, the Tavern League of Wisconsin instructed its members to feel free to “OPEN IMMEDIATELY!”
I saw some footage of one Wisconsin official saying that it’s all up to the individual now. If you don’t want to kill yourself, don’t go out.
Apparently, they’re now at a point t which the advice is: to hell with the health care workers, first responders and taxpayers who have to pay with their lives and treasure to take care of these idiots who just had to own the libs. And if your own friends and relatives die, it’s their own fault for being related to an idiot like you.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that most people are not going to go out and put themselves or their families at risk which means the economic effect is not going to be everything these suicidal Trump lovers want it to be. Are they going to start dragging customers out of their houses? If they would wait until the testing, tracing and social distancing protocols could be in place, the economy could recover more effectively. But these folks don’t believe in science and reason so that’s not going to happen.
Good luck to us.