"This Is Our Moment"

"The ferment in the Midwest—a place that many people on the coasts assume just waits around for revolutionary ideas to be flown in, like day-old sushi—exists in part because the region has been the center of so much of the industry where the union movement first took hold.
"'That environment bred very different ideas of political freedom and justice,' said Michael Kazin, a professor of history at Georgetown whose book 'The Populist Persuasion' traces the growth of populism both left and right. 'On the one hand, there were the business conservatives who believed that their skills and entrepreneurial energy had enabled the country to become rich. On the other hand, the people who worked for them thought they were leeching from them.'"

In The New York Times, Kate Zernike explores Wisconsin's labor history.