Wisconsin

Rural voters and their discontents • Wisconsin Examiner

Published

1 month ago

November 21, 2024

Rural voters and their discontents • Wisconsin Examiner

Is Wisconsin — or the country — really as divided as the maps make it look?

On the spreadsheet of unofficial election totals posted by each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties following the election Nov. 5, a handful showed a clear majority for the Democratic presidential ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Many more counties were won by the winning Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. Trump garnered enough votes to carry Wisconsin and enough states to return to the Oval Office in January.

A lot of those Trump-voting counties were rural ones, contributing to longstanding stereotypes about a monolithic body politic of deep blue cities and a bright red countryside.

But months before Election Day, on a mild August evening in a quaint round barn north of Spring Green, the writer Sarah Smarsh cautioned against oversimplifying the politics of rural voters — and against turning a blind eye to a part of the country that, she said, has too often been written off.

Sarah Smarsh speaks during a presentation in August near Spring Green, Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

“I grew up on a fifth-generation wheat farm in south central Kansas,” Smarsh said that evening. It’s a place of “tall grass prairie, which happens to be the most endangered ecosystem … and simultaneously the least discussed or cared about or protected. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that that’s the ecosystem of the place and people that I also happen to believe have not been given fair attention and due consideration.”

Smarsh made her mark with the book “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.” As a journalist and author she has straddled the community of her upbringing and the urbane, academic world that she entered when she became the first in her family to pursue higher education.

The child of a carpenter and a teen mom, Smarsh has explored the socioeconomic divide in the U.S., mapping it to the destruction of the working class, the demise of family farms and the dismantling of public services from health care to public schools.

“I write about socioeconomic class and I write about rural issues, but that’s because I grew up in working poverty, and that’s because I grew up on a farm,” Smarsh said. And while those identities “are enormously consequential,” she added, she seeks to break down the assumptions that people carry about them. Her message: “You don’t know who my family is, and especially if what we assume is that they’re white trash, worthless.”

It’s a story that gives new context to the election results from 2016 on, and takes on new importance after the election of 2024. The residents of those places dismissed as “flyover country,” Smarsh said back in August, have many of the same concerns of urban and suburban voters, including reproductive rights, public schools, gun violence and other subjects. And understanding them in their diversity and complexity casts politics, especially national politics, in a more diffuse and complicated light.

Where ‘people don’t care about political affiliations’

Concern about climate change and a desire to live more sustainably led Tamara Dean and her partner to move to western Wisconsin’s Vernon County in the early 2000’s, where they built a homestead, grew their own food and became part of the local agricultural community.

Climate change followed them. In their county, extreme weather events became almost the norm, with a 500-year flood “happening every few years or every year,” Dean said in an interview.

“A rural community really coalesces when extreme situations happen and they help each other out,” Dean said. “And when we were cleaning up after a flood, helping our neighbors salvage their possessions or even getting people to safety, no one’s going to ask who you voted for, and people don’t care about political affiliations.”

Dean has written a collection of essays on the couple’s time in the Driftless region of Wisconsin, “Shelter and Storm,” to be published in April 2025 by the University of Minnesota Press.

Distrust of the federal government

Residents, she found, had something of an ambivalent relationship with the federal government.

For all the complexity of agricultural economics, the U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that provide financial farm support were familiar and well-understood by longtime farmers and easily accessible to them, she said. But when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) promised recovery assistance for flooding in 2018, “it just took forever to come, and it took a lot of bureaucracy to try to get it,” Dean said. For individual applicants, “getting any kind of assistance might be so daunting that they just wouldn’t think it’s worth it.”

For Dale Schultz, a former Republican state senator who has been thinking at length about politics and government in recent years, the election outcome has prompted contemplation.

Schultz left the Legislature a decade ago after splitting with Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker over legislation stripping public employees’ union rights and weakening Wisconsin’s mining laws.

Since then he has campaigned for redistricting reform and supported the overturning of Wisconsin Republicans’ gerrymandered legislative maps. iIn October he went public as a Republican supporting the Harris campaign for president.

In his part of the state, he saw a distinct contrast between the Democratic campaign and the Republican one.

“I saw an extremely good Democratic effort to talk to people face-to-face,” Schultz said in an interview. The GOP campaign along with allied outside groups such as American for Prosperity, however, appeared to him to focus almost entirely on mailings, phone calls and media.

“It became clear to me that politics is changing from the time I spent in office, being less people powered and more media powered,” Schultz said.

Ignored by both parties

Schultz said he’s observed a level of anger among some of his one-time constituents that has alarmed and surprised him, a product, he suggests, of having been ignored by both parties.

One target has been regulation, to the point where “they’ve lost track of why regulations are important and why they should support them,” he said. Yet he sees the direct answer to that question where he lives in Southwest Wisconsin.

“In the last 20 years there has been a renaissance in trout fishing, like I could not even have imagined 20 years ago,” Shultz said. He credits the Department of Natural Resources and its personnel for working with local communities to ensure conditions that would turn trout streams into suitable habitat to support a burgeoning population of fish. “That doesn’t happen without water quality and water quality regulations, and land use and land use regulations.”

Schultz has been spending time in conversation with friends “who are like-minded and similarly curious,” he said. “And then you just watch and wait and see what happens, and try to voice concerns that are real and that need to be dealt with, and [that] we’re not going to be able to hide from as a country.”

He hopes for the return of a time when people like him, who consider themselves “just to the right of center,” can again “talk to everyone and possibly craft a solution.”

Back in August, Sarah Smarsh offered a gentle warning about the coming election to her audience in the round barn north of Spring Green.

“Whatever happens in November, everybody else is still here — the other side is still here,” Smarsh said. “And so there’s going to be some caring to do, and that’s probably going to be for generations, because we didn’t arrive at this moment overnight.”

Wisconsin red barn — Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

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Wisconsin

Wisconsin former four-star quarterback Mabrey Mettauer appears headed for transfer portal

Published

2 hours ago

December 22, 2024

Press Room

Wisconsin former four-star quarterback Mabrey Mettauer appears headed for transfer portal

MADISON – It appears that the Wisconsin football team will have almost a completely new quarterback room next season.

Mabrey Mettauer, the last scholarship player left at the position on the roster from this season, is expected to enter the transfer portal, according to 247sports. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound true freshman from The Woodlands, Texas, was a consensus four-star recruit coming out of high school.

This season he served as the top backup to Braedyn Locke after Tyler Van Dyke suffered a season-ending knee injury against Alabama. Mettauer appeared in one game and completed his only pass attempt.

He maintained his redshirt status and will have four years of eligibility remaining.

Mabrey’s departure was the last domino to fall from the firing of Phil Longo as offensive coordinator. Like Van Dyke and Locke, Mettauer came to Wisconsin with the idea that he would play in Longo’s pass-friendly offense.

Locke’s brother, Landyn, a member of the 2025 recruiting class, was also recruited by Longo. Landyn Locke has been released from his letter of intent and has re-opened his recruitment.

After 247sports broken the news of Mettauer’s expected departure he reposted the post on his X and Instagram accounts.

The loss of Mettauer means Wisconsin has three scholarship quarterbacks plus walk-on Milos Spasojevic on the roster for next season:

* Billy Edwards Jr., who started this season at Maryland and threw for 2,800 yards. He has one year of eligibility left.

* Danny O’Neil, who started at San Diego State as a true freshman and threw for 2,000 yards this season. He has three years of eligibility remaining.

* Carter Smith, a four-star prospect from Florida, will enroll early and participate in spring practice.

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Wisconsin

14-year-old killed in Wisconsin school shooting shared gifts of music and art with many, friends say

Published

10 hours ago

December 21, 2024

Press Room

MADISON, Wis. — Rubi Patricia Vergara was a talented young teenager who often handcrafted gifts for others and shared her musical talents with many, family friends recounted at funeral services held Saturday morning.

14-year-old killed in Wisconsin school shooting shared gifts of music and art with many, friends say

Vergara, 14, was a student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was shot and killed by a fellow student Monday. Teacher Erin West, 42, was also killed in the attack.

“She was a quiet, gentle spirit who cared deeply for others,” City Church lead pastor Tom Flaherty said. “But Rubi also had a faith beyond her years.”

Vergara’s services were held at City Church, which is adjacent to the school. West’s funeral is set for Monday at Doxa Church in Madison, according to her obituary.

Two other injured students remained hospitalized Saturday in critical condition but were stable, UW Hospital said.

A family friend, Dawn Moris, spoke about Vergara’s compassion and empathy. Vergara made personalized birthday cards for loved ones with digital artwork, origami and had started crocheting. Moris showed those in the congregation a small crocheted smiley face potato crafted by Vergara.

“She applied a caring and creative approach to everything she did,” Moris said.

Vergara played keyboard in a family worship band and could hear a song and pick it up on the piano, Moris said. As a singer, she had a special talent of harmonizing and “sang like an angel,” Moris said.

Vergara’s aunt played her niece’s favorite song, “Shoulders” by for King & Country, on the guitar during the service. Her uncle, Andy Remus, thanked the people of Madison for supporting his family this past week.

Police say the shooter, 15-year-old student Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, shot herself at the school and died at a Madison hospital. Police have said she was in contact with a man in California who authorities say was planning to attack a government building. Rupnow’s motivation for the attack remains a key part of their investigation.

Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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Teenager accused in Wisconsin school shooting had a tumultuous family life, court documents show

Published

18 hours ago

December 21, 2024

Press Room

Teenager accused in Wisconsin school shooting had a tumultuous family life, court documents show

MADISON, Wis. — A 15-year-old girl who police say killed two people and wounded multiple others at a private Christian school in Wisconsin endured what appeared to be a tumultuous home life marked by divorces, custody battles and a series of court-mandated mediation sessions to resolve disputes over her care, according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

Jeff and Mellissa Rupnow married and divorced twice, during which their daughter Natalie Rupnow would at times travel between her parents’ homes every few days and attend therapy.

They married in 2011 and divorced for the first time in 2014, according to court documents.

The two agreed to joint custody of Natalie, but she would live primarily with her mother, the documents state.

They remarried in 2017, according to their marriage certificate obtained by NBC, but filed for divorce a second time in 2020. Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow again agreed to share custody of Natalie, but this time she would spend “equal time with both parents,” the court documents show. A divorce certificate obtained by NBC News shows their divorce was finalized in 2021.

Natalie Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, shot and killed a teacher and a student and wounded six others during study hall on Monday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, before dying from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said. The victims were identified as Erin M. West, 42, and Rubi P. Vergara, 14.

Two students who sustained life-threatening injuries during the shooting remained in the hospital and the other four injured have been discharged, police said.

The FBI detained Alexander Paffendorf, 20, in California earlier this week and ordered him to temporarily surrender his firearms after he allegedly communicated with Natalie Rupnow. Authorities say Paffendorf admitted to discussing plans with Rupnow to arm himself with explosives and target a government building. The FBI uncovered messages between the two but did not disclose their alleged plans.

Paffendorf and his family could not immediately be reached for comment.

A makeshift memorial at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., on Dec. 17.Jamie Kelter Davis / New York Times via Redux

The apparent turmoil in Natalie Rupnow’s family life, as documented by court records, offer a glimpse into events that may have shaped her path before Monday’s tragedy.

In 2022, Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow sought mediation for custody of Natalie. That May, Dane County Family Court Services notified the parents of a requirement to attend a “mandatory parent education program via Zoom” due to a “disagreement concerning child custody and/or physical placement.” A month later, according to court documents, Mellissa Rupnow had “been scheduled to attend on June 2nd and June 16, 2022, but did not appear” for the Parent Education Program. Shortly after, the couple was asked to appear for a “mandatory mediation session in person appointment.”

In July 2022, an agreement was reached, granting them joint legal custody of Natalie, who would primarily live with her father, according to court documents. The documents also indicate that the parents agreed to “consider Natalie’s therapist’s recommendations regarding placement” for Natalie during the weekends.

Natalie’s mother agreed to connect with her therapist and “participate in therapy to the extent recommended by the therapist,” according to the court documents. Natalie’s father would make “every effort to schedule therapy appointments” to accommodate the mother’s schedule.

The court documents noted that “the parents report a generally positive co-parenting relationship and will continue to communicate with one another by text messages and phone conversations.”

Jeff and Mellissa Rupnow did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said the two are “fully cooperating” with investigators, who are still trying to identify a motive and have not released many details on the teenager.

“Identifying a motive is our top priority. But at this time, it appears that the motive was a combination of factors,” Barnes said at a news conference.

Trish Kilpin, the director of Wisconsin’s Office of School Safety, said on Monday that “targeted violence is preventable.”

“When somebody decides to use violence, it’s often to redress an upset or a grievance, and they progress down a pathway towards that violence,” Kilpin said. “And when they do that, they often study previous school shooting incidents.”

A neighbor of Jeff Rupnow’s who spoke to NBC News expressed shock when he learned about the shooting and described Jeff as a “kind person.”

“He really helped us out,” said the neighbor, who did not want his name used out of fear of publicity about the case. “I know we’re still trying to piece everything together.”

The neighbor indicated he didn’t know Natalie, saying “the very limited things we knew, it’s horrifying for everyone, obviously, and just horrifying for the families of the school and those kids.”

Selina Guevara reported from Madison, and Chloe Atkins and Daniella Silva reported from New York City.

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