Resistance: a watchword for our times.

The state of Wisconsin is showing us how, above all 49 others.

In Washington, a senator and congressman heeded the call.

To inspire us, first Wisconsin stood up to the Trump-Musk blitzkrieg in a state Supreme Court race. Elon Musk spent $20 million to back a right-wing Republican.

That obscene outside sum landed as an insult on the state where the Progressive Party was born. Liberal Susan Crawford won going away, by 10 points.

Not even close, Elon. Mars makes a better habitat for you than Madison, Wisconsin. Washington is walking wounded from a chainsaw you so proudly used to cut more than 100,000 federal workforce jobs. Very nice.

Voter resistance to Musk caused national waves and gave a ray of hope to Democrats for the 2026 midterms. Wisconsinites knew a lot was on the line to show money isn’t everything.

Then came the Milwaukee judge who defied Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in her courtroom. They showed up to arrest a man, with no judicial warrant.

Judge Hannah Dugan, displeased at the bald show of force, is charged with aiding an undocumented immigrant to “escape” from the building. To arrest a judge in handcuffs is wrong, a threat to a coequal branch of government.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) also challenged President Donald Trump’s regime. Tom Homan, Trump’s border boss, hinted at arresting Evers, too, for efforts to ensure state employees knew their rights.

The governor’s calm, clear statement on his “chilling” concerns about the rule of law is a study in rational resistance. (The struggle over borders is not new to Wisconsin. Dred Scott, an enslaved man who was taken to Wisconsin, a free territory, made for the most infamous Supreme Court case ever, in 1857. The court ruled that black people could never be citizens, even if free, and lit a match for the Civil War.)

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) took direct action to stand up for the right of due process.

On his own, he boarded a plane to El Salvador to visit a Maryland resident, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was abducted here and imprisoned there for no reason, at our taxpayer expense.

The Supreme Court ordered the president to “facilitate” his freedom in a 9-0 ruling. Abrego Garcia is a sheet metal worker with a family, including a young son with autism.

Trump ignored the high court. So now what?

Nothing is given in this moment when it comes to government and human rights. The president and the Constitution are getting a divorce.

A silence fogs society — the parts that are still breathing. Publicly funded arts, humanities and news are hit especially hard.

Trump’s White House fired the Library of Congress leader overnight, with a curt email. Dr. Carla Hayden is the last person who deserved that.

Citizens are facing “times that try men’s souls,” as American revolutionary Thomas Paine put it. There is never a convenient time for a rude awakening.

Tomorrow will be like yesterday, so we thought: Democracy’s rules and habits will endure at the end of the day.

We never foresaw we’d fall so fast from grace in the world’s eyes.

Yet here we are.

Nonviolent resistance is not easy, meek nor mild. But it works.

Pieces of resistance: a way forward.

Jamie Stiehm can be reached at JamieStiehm.com.