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tight. bring

1:20

in nurses and teachers,

1:22

corrections officers, and cops.

1:24

In the end, their ranks

1:27

swelled to 100, maybe more.

1:29

and you have time,

1:31

energy, and resources about

1:33

to be unleashed on

1:36

those who supported the

1:38

attacks against us is

1:40

going to be enormous.

1:42

This was 2011 in

1:44

Madison, Wisconsin.

1:46

Like now, a Republican

1:49

executive had just

1:51

come to power. Like now,

1:53

one of the first things

1:56

he wanted to do was

1:58

undermine government employees. In the

2:00

years since, thanks in part

2:02

to this effort, the Badger State has

2:04

been called the GOP's

2:07

laboratory for dismantling democracy.

2:09

And stick with me for a

2:11

second, because Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's

2:14

moves back then, they were

2:16

different from what Trump is up

2:18

to today. But there are

2:20

these similarities. In 2011, protesters

2:23

were pissed because Governor Walker

2:25

was attempting to hamstring public

2:27

sector unions. He was jamming

2:29

through what he called a

2:31

budget repair bill, but it

2:33

was stuffed with rules that

2:35

were going to cut off

2:37

collective bargaining and make it

2:39

difficult to keep state workers

2:41

unionized at all. Like

2:43

Trump and his efficiencies are, Elon

2:45

Musk, Walker made his case in

2:48

part by claiming he needed to

2:50

rein in spending and he demonized

2:52

government workers in the process. He

2:55

called out a Madison-area bus

2:57

driver. who collected over $150,000

2:59

a year due to overtime.

3:01

He said public sector

3:03

employees were haves while

3:05

taxpayers were have-nots. The

3:08

governor himself said his

3:10

bill dismantling union power was

3:12

like dropping a bomb. Thank

3:14

you all for joining us.

3:16

We are introducing this morning

3:19

and about a half an

3:21

hour officially the budget repair

3:23

bill for the remainder of

3:26

fiscal year 2011. He sounds

3:28

soft-spoken, right? But Governor Walker

3:30

said he would call out the

3:32

National Guard if that's what it

3:34

took to get his bill passed.

3:36

Peter Rickman was a student

3:38

organizer at the time, a member

3:41

of the Teaching Assistance Association,

3:43

at the University

3:46

of Wisconsin-Madison. Right away,

3:48

he and the other TAs got to

3:50

work. February 14th was just

3:52

a few days away. So the

3:54

first thing they did was deliver

3:56

hundreds of valentines to the governor

3:58

expressing their support. for university

4:01

employees. I ran into someone who

4:03

I know and told him, hey, you

4:05

come into the thing? He's like, no,

4:07

I'm not. I mean, do you think

4:09

it's really going to do anything anyway?

4:11

And I just thought to myself, I

4:13

don't know. I'll get back to you

4:16

about that. After that, they planned a

4:18

people's filibuster. of the budget repair bill.

4:20

I was extremely nervous. I remember walking

4:22

up the street towards the capital thinking,

4:24

God, what if, you know, 100 people

4:26

show up, you know, a whimper, not

4:28

much of a bank. And so this

4:31

palpable heavy feeling of anxiety and dread

4:33

and nervousness happened in me. And so

4:35

when I was in the capital, they

4:37

got where the people were getting close

4:39

and how does it look? And they

4:41

were like, it looks pretty amazing. We

4:43

have 2,000 people here. Wow, really? I

4:46

stepped outside the doors of the Capitol

4:48

and there were 2,000 people showing

4:50

up. This is the beginning of

4:53

what would become a weeks-long

4:55

occupation of the state capital. At

4:57

the height of it all, there

5:00

was a children's play area

5:02

and a medical station

5:04

inside the building to

5:06

accommodate the encampment. Striking

5:09

was against the law, so

5:11

teachers who wanted to call

5:13

out sick. could get a

5:16

doctor's note from on-site university

5:18

physicians. And I can tell

5:20

you for those of us

5:23

who have been here for

5:25

the last two weeks, we

5:27

continue to be inspired by

5:29

your desire to set aside

5:32

everyday work to come out

5:34

and have your voice heard. Then,

5:36

like now, Democratic

5:38

legislators were outnumbered

5:41

by Republicans. and

5:43

theoretically powerless. But as

5:46

the occupation started

5:48

to build, 14 democratic state

5:50

senators threaded through the

5:52

crowds and got into

5:54

cars. And then they fled

5:56

the state entirely. Vacating

5:58

Wisconsin? meant the

6:01

legislature was lacking the

6:03

super quorum necessary to

6:05

pass the governor's bill.

6:08

The legislation was

6:10

effectively put on ice.

6:12

I've been thinking a lot

6:14

about what happened in Wisconsin

6:16

back in 2011, because

6:18

here we are a month

6:21

into Donald Trump's second

6:23

term, and what else is

6:25

there to do? Do good lawyers

6:27

are hard at work filing

6:30

a blizzard of paperwork against

6:32

one departmental purge after another?

6:34

It's unclear though, if any of those

6:36

lawsuits are doing much to slow things

6:39

down. In Congress, most Democrats

6:41

seem wedded to this idea

6:43

of being the adults in

6:45

the room, while Republicans seem

6:47

wedded to Trump. Like a lot of

6:49

people, I see the president's self-cue,

6:51

that's what Dahlia Lithwick

6:54

calls it, and I think... Is

6:56

now the time folks are going

6:58

to hit the streets?

7:01

So today, we're going

7:03

to look back at

7:05

Wisconsin to see if

7:08

there's a case for

7:10

a similar protest.

7:12

Now, even a general

7:15

strike. I'm Mary Harris.

7:17

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8:51

credit card. Okay. I kind

8:53

of come clean here. These thoughts

8:55

about a strike. They're not coming

8:57

out of nowhere for me. My

8:59

husband was one of the people

9:01

fired in the gradual shuddering of

9:04

the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

9:06

His dismissal letter came through around

9:08

9 o'clock at night, and it

9:10

was so sloppy that his name

9:13

and job title weren't filled in.

9:15

But even if you think, who really

9:17

needs another government lawyer?

9:19

I know, I get it. It's worth considering

9:21

the CF BB's caseload. My

9:23

husband was suing to claw

9:26

back excess fees charged to

9:28

active-duty military, and he was

9:30

targeting financial services companies that

9:33

prey on folks with low

9:35

credit scores. Russ Vote, who is the

9:37

head of the Office of Management

9:39

and Budget, and the CFPB, he

9:41

spoken openly of wanting to

9:43

put federal workers in trauma.

9:45

We want the bureaucrats to be

9:48

dramatically affected. We want when they

9:50

work in the morning. This is him speaking

9:52

in 2023 to a pro- Trump think tank.

9:54

We want when they look up in the

9:56

morning, we want them to not want to

9:58

go to work because They are increasingly

10:01

viewed as the villains. We want

10:03

their funding. I can tell you

10:05

from personal experience. Russ vote

10:07

has gotten his wish. But

10:09

these workers, they're also angry.

10:12

The real question is whether

10:14

they're angry enough to pull a

10:16

Wisconsin. Because in the next few

10:19

months, there's going to be a

10:21

tiny point of leverage to lean into.

10:23

A looming government shutdown.

10:25

It'll take democratic votes

10:27

to fund the government. and raise

10:30

the debt ceiling, which is a

10:32

reality that's gotten a little lost

10:34

in Trump's blizzard of executive action.

10:37

Some have suggested that Democrats simply

10:39

refuse to work with the GOP

10:42

at all and send whatever's left

10:44

of the government workforce home.

10:46

But given their relatively toothless

10:49

actions so far, I think Democratic

10:51

leadership is going to need their

10:53

spine stiffened to play hardball.

10:55

That's where the idea of a strike

10:57

comes in, which in essence... would

11:00

be the government sending itself home.

11:02

Over the last year or so, this

11:04

podcast has covered protests all

11:06

around the world that have

11:08

seemed to actually succeed. These

11:11

are general strikes led

11:13

by workers, all of

11:15

them in smaller countries

11:17

experiencing democratic struggles. In March

11:19

of 2023, for example, hundreds

11:22

of thousands of Israelis pressed

11:24

pause on regular business. In

11:26

a bid to stop Prime

11:29

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from overhauling

11:31

the country's Supreme Court.

11:33

All takeoffs from Israel's

11:35

main airport were halted

11:37

for several hours. Restaurants

11:40

closed. The country's largest

11:42

port stopped working. The

11:44

country's biggest union, hisstrid

11:46

route, was behind the

11:48

action. And in the

11:50

end, Netanyahu blinked. At

11:52

least temporarily. Netanyahu tonight forced

11:54

into a partial concession agreeing

11:56

to delay his legislation at

11:58

least for now. in December,

12:00

after South Korea's president

12:03

declared martial law, unions

12:05

pressed for consequences. Pretty

12:07

chaotic right now, here in the

12:09

halls of the National Assembly. When

12:11

an initial effort to impeach

12:13

the president failed, a strike

12:16

effort gained steam. The Korean

12:18

Metal Workers Union called off

12:20

work at a KIA plant,

12:22

joining the Korean Confederation of

12:24

Trade Union's calls to oust

12:27

the president. And in the

12:29

end... The impeachment seems to

12:31

have succeeded. It's

12:33

an extraordinary day

12:36

here in Seoul,

12:38

South Korea. The

12:41

president has been

12:43

impeached. It's the

12:46

second attempt to

12:48

impeach him. So,

12:50

could it happen

12:53

here? And if so,

12:55

how? On the one hand, when I

12:57

dug up my old calendar from

12:59

senior of high school, I had

13:01

definitely marked the march for women's

13:03

lives on it. I think my dad

13:05

took me. On the other hand,

13:08

I still remember my initial reaction

13:10

to Occupy Wall Street as a young

13:12

news producer. I rolled my eyes. Occupy

13:14

started on of all days a

13:16

Saturday, which struck me as goofy

13:18

as hell. No one is even on

13:20

Wall Street on a Saturday. I

13:22

remember telling a colleague. This take

13:25

didn't really age all that well.

13:27

My beef has always been with

13:29

the limits of protest, what

13:31

marching around can actually

13:33

achieve. And for a long time,

13:35

I really didn't have to think about

13:38

protest. I'm a journalist. I don't

13:40

do things. I write them down.

13:42

I note that with a bitter chuckle.

13:44

But this is why the strikes

13:47

in Israel and South Korea

13:49

stood out to me. They weren't

13:51

performative at all. Unlike,

13:53

say, the women's march that

13:55

greeted Trump in 2017, these

13:57

worker actions were associated.

14:00

with demands. At its root,

14:02

what's happening in the United

14:04

States is about labor. Trump

14:06

is firing people, or threatening

14:08

to, tens of thousands of

14:10

federal workers, sure. But there are

14:13

also people who rely on federal

14:15

grant funding, who now are out

14:17

of work. They're going to be

14:20

cuts at universities and hospitals

14:22

that depend on money

14:24

from places like the

14:26

National Institutes of Health.

14:28

But it's all of the people

14:30

that are employed by academic medical

14:32

centers, not just scientists, but it's

14:34

the security guards, it's the janitors,

14:37

it's the folks in IT support.

14:39

You're going to see a lot

14:41

of job cuts. Every day, there

14:43

are a few more stories. Catholic

14:45

Charities in Houston has reportedly

14:47

fired a quarter of its

14:50

staff. A research nonprofit in North

14:52

Carolina is temporarily laying off

14:54

more than 200 workers. A tree

14:56

planting organization in New Orleans is

14:58

worried it's going to need to

15:00

close its doors. My boss actually

15:02

cried on the phone. She said

15:04

she felt so guilty recruiting me

15:06

or getting me to, you know,

15:08

talking me into coming here. I

15:11

just moved here from Alabama to

15:13

call a significant amount of debt

15:15

to do so and I had

15:17

only been there for a month.

15:19

And then of course I was

15:21

terminated. My team, we did so

15:23

much great work. You know, over

15:25

half of our team was cut. The

15:27

question is how to bring these workers

15:29

together. The United States is

15:31

far bigger, geographically than Israel

15:33

or South Korea, and unions

15:36

just aren't as baked into our culture

15:38

as they are in Israel, where

15:40

history root was fundamental to

15:42

the founding of the country.

15:44

Then there's the fact that even

15:47

if government workers are unionized,

15:49

and many are, they're prohibited

15:51

by law from striking striking.

15:54

In fact, the Office of Personnel Management

15:56

can decide that a federal worker who

15:58

strikes can never have a... job with

16:00

the U.S. government again. Still,

16:03

there's this energy building.

16:05

The head of the

16:07

American Civil Liberties Union

16:09

just said that if legal

16:11

efforts to constrain Trump fail,

16:13

we're going to need to

16:15

shut down this country. And

16:18

every time a government agency

16:20

closes its doors, staff

16:22

members download signal so they

16:25

can chat and then they hit

16:27

the streets. Imagine

16:29

if the government

16:32

shutdown in March

16:34

isn't driven by

16:37

the Democrats. It's

16:39

driven by the workers.

16:42

We'll be back after

16:44

a quick break. This

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podcast is brought to

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18:26

apply. Here's

18:30

a fun fact. A general strike

18:33

never got called in Madison

18:35

back in 2011. Instead, the

18:37

tens of thousands of workers

18:39

who showed up at the

18:41

capital were volunteers. Early on,

18:44

Wisconsin's South Central Federation

18:46

of Labor, it goes by

18:48

scuffle for short, they actually

18:50

went so far as to authorize

18:52

a general strike, which would have

18:55

forced employees to stay home

18:57

or better yet join a picket

18:59

line. They didn't have the

19:01

authority to enforce it though, so it

19:03

never happened. And a couple weeks

19:05

later, the protests in Madison

19:08

failed. Governor Scott Walker found

19:10

a way to modify his union

19:12

busting bill. He passed it without

19:15

the Democrats. After they took

19:17

their vote, GOP state senators

19:19

left the capital through an

19:21

underground tunnel to avoid facing

19:24

protesters. Four weeks after announcing

19:26

his budget repair bill proposal,

19:28

Governor Walker signed the amended

19:30

version into law on Friday.

19:32

We just had a ceremonial

19:35

signing. I officially signed Act

19:37

11 into law, excuse me,

19:39

Act 10, into law this

19:41

morning, approximately 930. Labor leaders

19:43

who look back on this moment

19:46

have different views on how it

19:48

went down. Some say workers themselves

19:50

decided what would happen next. What

19:53

really got the crowds going,

19:55

they say, weren't calls to

19:57

strike. They were calls to recall.

19:59

Walker. A recall election was

20:02

mounted the next year and the

20:04

governor was forced to campaign to

20:06

stay in office. Though he did keep

20:08

his job, Donald Trump contributed

20:11

15,000 bucks to help Walker

20:13

survive. It's so hard not to

20:15

wonder how things would have played

20:17

out differently if workers had gone

20:19

on strike. One GOP state senator

20:22

I spoke with, he

20:24

actually said protests ended

20:26

up consolidating Republican votes.

20:28

Like once they felt cornered, the

20:30

GOP was resolved to sign this

20:32

anti-union bill into law no matter

20:34

what. It's possible a general strike

20:37

would have made the public feel the

20:39

same way, turning them against the workers,

20:41

once their garbage sat outside for

20:43

a few days, or nurses refused

20:46

to show up for shifts. It's possible

20:48

some contingent of workers would refuse

20:50

to call out of work at

20:53

all. They had legitimate concerns that

20:55

they'd be punished. But it's

20:57

also possible. A general strike

20:59

could have been the

21:01

leverage workers needed, and

21:04

Scott Walker's legislation

21:06

would have collapsed. It's a

21:09

small possibility, but

21:11

it's real. I'm not

21:13

ignorant of the enormity,

21:15

perhaps even

21:17

impossibility, of what

21:19

I'm proposing. A general

21:21

strike requires a degree

21:24

of aggressiveness and

21:26

coordination. I'm not sure

21:28

exists. Not to mention a strike

21:30

fund to rival the size of

21:33

Kamala Harris's $1 billion election fund.

21:35

Union officials told me that

21:37

the time for government workers to

21:39

organize was, frankly, yesterday, and that

21:42

they do well to reach out

21:44

across sectors and class to involve

21:46

as broad a group of Americans

21:48

as possible. Organizers also

21:50

warned of all the ways

21:53

the government would try to

21:55

manipulate and misrepresent. what protesters

21:57

get up to. In Madison

22:00

The governor openly mused about sending

22:02

infiltrators into the occupation to

22:04

stir up trouble. In court, he

22:06

claimed the protests were doing

22:08

millions of dollars of damage to

22:11

the capital building when they

22:13

were not. Punishment is real too.

22:15

In Wisconsin, university doctors who handed

22:17

out sick notes to teachers

22:19

so they could call off work,

22:22

got disciplined by their bosses,

22:24

find thousands of dollars, put on

22:26

administrative leave. The punishment this

22:28

time could be worse. Russ vote,

22:31

that same Trump appointee who talked

22:33

about putting government workers in trauma,

22:35

has advocated for turning the military

22:38

on American citizens to control what

22:40

he calls riots. We want to

22:43

be able to shut down

22:45

the riots and not have the

22:47

legal community or the defense

22:49

community to come in and say

22:51

that's an inappropriate use of

22:53

what you're trying to do. Before

22:56

Trump assumed office last month.

22:58

before I knew how bad

23:00

or personal this administration would

23:03

get for me. I called

23:05

up journalist Barton Gelman. He's

23:07

been working with the Brennan

23:10

Center for Justice to game

23:12

out what the resistance to

23:14

Donald Trump might look like.

23:17

I don't think it's possible

23:19

to be fully prepared for

23:21

an authoritarian want to be

23:24

president. The powers of the

23:26

presidency are so awesome. and

23:28

the flexibility of the president

23:30

to do what he wants

23:33

is so great. Barton engineered

23:35

a series of tabletop games

23:37

with thought leaders and politicians,

23:40

law professors, but also people

23:42

like New Jersey's former governor,

23:44

Christie Todd Whitman. When this

23:47

group tried to figure out

23:49

how protests were going to

23:51

go down, they thought the

23:54

only thing that would stop

23:56

troops from firing on civilians

23:58

was a group of faith

24:00

leaders. in full clerical garb.

24:03

They essentially dared the soldiers

24:05

to shoot... them first. If

24:07

the president doesn't mind breaching

24:10

longtime norms or even breaking

24:12

the law, that it's going

24:14

to be impossible to stop

24:17

abuse entirely. If this does

24:19

not sound appealing, the alternative

24:21

may sound worse. Over at

24:23

Foreign Affairs, you can read

24:26

an article by Stephen Levitzki

24:28

laying out what happens now.

24:30

Levitzki wrote a book called

24:33

How Democracies Die. He calls

24:35

the path run now, the

24:37

path to American authoritarianism. I'm

24:40

floating this general strike idea

24:42

for a simple reason. Workers

24:44

are running out of options.

24:47

Unions are too. Unions are

24:49

too. Because if they represent

24:51

a population of government employees

24:53

who can be summarily dismissed

24:56

for political reasons. then who

24:58

exactly are they protecting anymore?

25:00

My husband loved being a

25:03

federal employee. He thought a

25:05

lot about what he put

25:07

up in his office to

25:10

make it feel like his

25:12

own. There was this triptych

25:14

of album covers, one red,

25:16

Ray Charles, one white, that

25:19

was Elvis, one blue, Joanie

25:21

Mitchell, obviously. And there was

25:23

an enormous print of Faith

25:26

Ringgold's painting, known as Freedom

25:28

of Speech. It's an American

25:30

flag, inscribed with the First

25:33

Amendment. Congress shall make no

25:35

law abridging the freedom of

25:37

speech or of the press

25:40

or of the right of

25:42

the people peaceably to assemble.

25:44

The flag is studied with

25:46

the names of people who

25:49

have pushed those freedoms to

25:51

the brink. From Harriet Tubman.

25:53

to the John Birch Society.

26:01

We're at the brink now too,

26:03

but the First Amendment still exists.

26:05

I think it's time to use

26:07

it. And that's our show. What

26:09

next is produced by Paige Osborne,

26:12

Elena Schwartz, Rob Gunther, Madeline Dusharm,

26:14

and Ethan Oberman. This audio essay

26:16

was edited by Susan Matthews, and

26:18

produced by Anna Phillips. Ben Richmond

26:20

is the senior director of podcast

26:22

operations here at Slate, and I'm

26:25

Mary Harris. Go track me down

26:27

on Blue Sky, if you'd like.

26:29

I'm at Mary Harris. Thanks for

26:31

listening. Catch you back here next

26:33

time. I'm Leon Nefak, and I'm

26:35

the host of Slow Burn Watergate.

26:38

Before I started working on this

26:40

show, everything I knew about Watergate

26:42

came from the movie All the

26:44

Presidents Men. Do you remember how

26:46

it ends? Woodward and Bernstein are

26:48

sitting with their typewriters clacking away.

26:51

And then there's this rapid montage

26:53

of newspaper stories about campaign aids

26:55

and White House officials getting convicted

26:57

of crimes, about audio tapes coming

26:59

out that proved Nixon's involvement in

27:01

the cover-up. The last story we

27:04

see is Nixon resigns. It takes

27:06

a little over a minute in

27:08

the movie. In real life, it

27:10

took about two years. Five men

27:12

were arrested early Saturday while trying

27:14

to install eavesdropping equipment. It's known

27:17

as the Watergate incident. What was

27:19

it like to experience those two

27:21

years in real time? What were

27:23

people thinking and feeling as the

27:25

break-in at Democratic Party headquarters went

27:27

from a weird little caper to

27:30

a constitutional crisis that brought down

27:32

the president? The downfall of Richard

27:34

Nixon was stranger, wilder, and more

27:36

exciting than you can imagine. Over

27:38

the course of eight episodes, this

27:40

show is going to capture what

27:43

it was like to live through

27:45

the greatest political scandal of the

27:47

20th century. With today's headlines once

27:49

again full of corruption, collusion and

27:51

dirty tricks, It's time for another

27:53

look at the gate that started

27:56

it all. Subscribe to Slowburn now,

27:58

wherever you get your pot. cast.