Madison took a knee
So we don’t blame Satya Rhodes Conway for calling it quits. Well, actually, we do! Instead of confronting intolerance head on, the mayor, the Common Council, and Madison civic leaders have bended their collective knee to the bullhorn bullies for too long. Now they had come for their due.
When did it start? The rot was well underway when Dean Loumos, chairing a school resource police officer study committee, apologized to the mob for letting Blaska speak on a government issue seven years ago. It continued when the current sheriff referred to inmates of the county jail as “residents.” When the city arts department paid for murals depicting police as blood-thirsty pigs. When Satya herself demanded the immediate release of a downtown shakedown artist who weaponized race in demanding restaurateurs “Venmo Me the Money.” (“Free Yeshua!”)
It continued when the mayor and council did not give Chief Mike Koval and his officers their full support. When Madison shrugged at the removal of a 42-ton glacial boulderfrom the university campus after the inanimate object was accused of racism. When council progressives railroaded Ald. Paul Skidmore despite forensic evidence proving that the police supporter never uttered the C-word. When Satya herself thanked police for enduring the long hours, the verbal and physical abuse at which the statue of a Civil War abolitionist was decapitated and city hall itself was fire-bombed. Then, mau maued by the mob — she took it down! When city leaders created a superfluous and powerless police monitor as a ransom payment to the very mob that drove her off the ballot.
