David Crowley's victory in the August Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary has created a deeply dysregulating somatic response across our progressive ecosystem. We must immediately pause to center the valid grief of Francesca Hong's supporters, whose lived experiences were violently erased last night by the fundamentally colonial construct of "counting votes."
As we previously noted, the deeply avoidant, unobservable undecided voters in this shifting race have finally manifested a consensus reality that many of us are finding frankly unsafe. I want to hold space for that. It is profoundly triggering when the polling apparatus fails to provide a trauma-informed, predictable environment, instead forcing vulnerable populations to confront the systemic violence of an unexpected electoral rupture.
"We are transitioning away from the ongoing harm of traditional ballot-casting," announced Dr. Sage Willow-Bender, Director of Somatic Electoral Healing at the Madison Institute for Restorative Demographics. "Instead of accepting this aggressive numerical outcome, we are inviting all Wisconsin residents into a mandatory, six-month statewide listening circle to unpack the toxic, exclusionary binary of 'winning' and 'losing'."
Until this restorative emotional labor is complete, any attempt to formally certify a nominee will be treated as a non-consensual boundary violation.
