6.4 Place - Polls

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the fourth day of each month is "Place."
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Today is Election Day. I handed out "Fantasy Election" assignments to my class last week, gave the students the day off to vote (several of them stopped by my office while I was grading today to tell me that they had voted - so adorable), and headed to the polls myself.

There's a big gubernatorial race here in Wisconsin, as there are in several states today. But I feel like this one really is going to impact my life. If the incumbent, a college dropout, union hating, anti-intellectual, misogynistic, cold-hearted, uncompassionate individual wins the election, there is a high likelihood that we won't be able to stay here for much longer.

Salaries at the school where my husband teaches have been stagnant since before the 2008 recession. The guy who just got hired on as tenure track is making only $1000 less per year than the department chair. Salary compression is no joke when people are bitterly comparing salaries around the water coolers and throwing shade on the new guy. 

There's also no appreciation for the value of the intellectual economy.  Teachers here are not appreciated for all of their hard work and dedication, but are referred to as "thugs" who "consistently fail our children." The union busting of this governor's administration has weakened collective bargaining for public workers in this state so much that there's absolutely no reason young people should even consider going into public service over the private sector. It used to be okay to choose public work for less pay because you would get job security and great benefits, but that is no more. If we want Wisconsin to be great (and I most certainly do), sending the best and brightest fleeing the state and fleeing to the private sector is not the way to do it.

Yes, we want to stay here, but if the incumbent wins this election, I'm going to be seriously trying to convince my husband to go on the job market again next year.

I'm not usually a single-issue voter. I don't always think about how elections will impact my own personal life - the greater good is usually good enough for me.  But this time it's different.

Yes, we want to stay here, but if the incumbent wins this election, I'm going to be seriously trying to convince my husband to go on the job market again next year.  Fuck you, Scott Walker. Fuck you.
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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.