Conservatives are going all in on the meme that “union thugs” are rampaging through Madison and turning the streets of the capital into a bloody nightmare. It’s a pretty effective meme, too, since lots of people are predisposed to believe that union members tend to be violent folks. (Historically, it was management that was largely responsible for the most famous violent encounters of the past, but never mind that. The legend is better than the facts in this case.) However, Dave Weigel is in Wisconsin and says the whole thing is baloney: “I just spent four days in Madison and the state Capitol, reporting, and saw absolutely no violence. There were no arrests on Saturday….There were no arrests last night….There are no arrests, so far, in Madison.”
Dave’s initial post is here, and a followup is here. Bottom line: this has been an amazingly peaceful protest. There’s been virtually no violence to speak of, no matter how hard Michelle Malkin and Fox News try to pretend otherwise.
