The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War

by Jeff Sharlet

In Ashippun, Wisconsin, I pulled over for a display of American flags and a yard sign, rebecca for governor. That meant Rebecca Kleefisch, a GOP candidate, the “moderate” who merely agreed with another politician’s declaration that pregnant rape victims should “turn lemons into lemonade” by bearing a rapist’s child. In the minds of the abortion abolitionists—those who would outlaw it in every instance—it’s a matter of finding beauty even within suffering. To Peggy Morrisey, who’d put up the sign, it was the liberals she said drove by and yelled foul things at her flags who brought ugliness into this world. There is so much ugliness, said Peggy. They shouted even when her daughter was in the yard. As a mother, Peggy feared that the ugliness was growing. Getting closer. Milwaukee, Madison, cities threatening her immaculate lawn. Ugliness, everywhere. “Education,” she said, by which she meant indoctrination. “The border,” she said, by which she meant—we were close to Canada—the other one, 1,500 miles south, across which, she said, “they waltz.” I didn’t ask who “they” were.