How the Politics of Resentment Corrupted Wisconsin’s Culture of Nice

Savvy Candidates Spent the Last Decade Pitting Rural Voters Against City Folks

The April 5 presidential primaries in Wisconsin are expected to be close in both parties, and critical to deciding the Republican contest between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. And the winners will be determined by whoever best harnesses Wisconsin’s politics of resentment.

This is still a shocking thing for lifelong Wisconsinites like me. Wisconsin is not typically characterized as resentful. We are supposed to be nice—“Wisconsin nice” is a special version of Midwestern polite.

But there is now some deep resentment in Wisconsin, driven by economics, and propelled into politics …