Socialists Are Back In The Wisconsin State House

by John Nichols, The Nation

When a pair of newly elected Democratic legislators from Milwaukee—the city that elected three Socialist Party mayors in the 20th century—took seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly last week, they promptly announced that they would be forming a socialist caucus.

“We wanted to make sure that we were uplifting bolder ideas and solutions,” said Darrin Madison, a democratic socialist who won a competitive Democratic primary in August before his victory in November. “That’s something that democratic socialists have always done in Wisconsin.”

Madison’s fellow Assembly Democrat Ryan Clancy, who has been a high-profile member of the Milwaukee county board for several years, said, “It’s important that we do this. We are both Democrats and we are both democratic socialists. We’ll often vote with our Democratic colleagues, but we also think it’s important to emphasize that we have a socialist perspective.”