Public sector unions — which even FDR thought were a travesty — create a special class of voters who can manipulate elected politicians and unelected bureaucrats in ways that disadvantage the taxpayer and the public generally (see Hunter Baker’s contribution to the NRO symposium). They have access to the machinery of government, the schools, and politicians in ways no other interest group does. They are the vanguard of the Crolyite vision of democracy. Their defeat both, real and symbolic, is a monumental victory…

This is a big deal beyond the presidential election or even the issue of public sector unions. Conservatives have a tendency to be fatalistic. They often think things only get worse. It’s slippery slopes for as far as the eye can see. Well, this is an example — a major example — of conservatives pushing History up the slippery slope, rather than being dragged down it. It’s a demonstration that the country still has the capacity for self-correction (the theme of my column today, written well before the polls closed), and that active engagement with the democratic process can actually restore the democratic nature of our system, even in such hotbeds of Crolyism as Wisconsin.