It feels strange to say this, but something not-terrible finally happened in my broader political scene. My state, good ol’ Once-A-Bastion-Of-Progressive-Policies Wisconsin, has managed to vote done a pair of proposed constitutional amendments that would have radically altered the way the state government works in what is a naked grab for power by the Wisconsin Republican party (which holds about two-thirds of the state senate and state assembly despite routinely losing popular votes) now that their horribly gerrymandered maps have been deemed unconstitutional and rewritten. They’re going to lose power over the next few elections and the massive voting power that Wisconsin has managed to mobilize in recent years despite the largely pessimistic outlook of its citizens can go from desperately denying them a supermajority to actually feeling represented by the political powers of the state. It sure would be nice to have a functional state government again, since almost nothing happens any more because the Republicans who control the senate and assembly just show up and immediately adjourn rather than actually do anything. They’re slowly losing their grip on the state’s governance and, thankfully, the voters of this state have seen through their transparent attempt to once again deny power to the governor (they tried to do something similar as the previous Republican governor, Scott Walker–may he suffer the same indignities he visited upon others–was on his way out) and voted against it. It is a relief and I’m glad it has been avoided, but even this moment of relaxation is overshadowed by just how precarious the future still looks. I wish I could just enjoy this win, but I can’t even think about it without being aware of just how we got to this point in the first place.

I’m not going to rehash all of Wisconsin’s political history, but let’s just say that we went from being one of the best, most appealing states in the US (by more metrics than my own preference) to being somewhere in the middle-to-back of the pack as a result of terrible conservative policy, gerrymandering to retain power, and the sort of reactionary backswing that seems to be hitting any political entity with a significant amount of rural area within its geographic borders. It’s been difficult, to put it simply, to move here knowing what a great state it was and then to watch as it slowly sunk into disrepair and nigh-hopelessness as everything that made it great was slowly tossed into the garbage heap by politicians more interested in their personal power and larger political machinations than in the actual work of governance or doing right by their constituents. I grew up in Illinois and spent a lot of my summers in Wisconsin, traveling to visit family or to stay at up north where my dad’s family has vacationed for at least four generations now (five, as soon as any of my cousins have kids). I’ve known about Wisconsin and cared about it, at least abstractly, for my entire life, and it feels good to see that more and more has begun to change for the better in recent years.

There is still much to go, though. We can’t get complacent, either, since these changes have only happened thanks to herculean efforts by everyone involved. It has taken time, money, and tons of effort to elect a better governor, to end the stranglehold the conservatives held on the judicial system, and to get the gerrymandered maps fixed. More time, money, and effort are required to keep things moving in that better direction. Even if things go well in this upcoming election (for Wisconsin Democrats, specifically), there might not be enough of a change in seats to undo the majority the conservatives currently hold. It might take another election after that for enough seats to change hands to restore some kind of balance and yet another election after that for everything to have fully and finally shaken out. Maybe more, depending on how federal elections go. After all, conservative power at the federal level will continue to have an impact on my state since there’s no escaping the meddlesome “work” of the conservative US Supreme Court. It’s still a work in progress and progress will take time. No amount of repeating the state’s motto (“Forward”) will overcome the logistical difficulties of the staggered election cycles. It wouldn’t do to potentially change out the whole government at once, would it?

I still don’t feel particularly hopeful. I feel like some of the worse paths into the future have vanished, following the dismissal of these two egregious amendments to the state’s constitution (one to give the legislature control over federal money granted to Wisconsin and the other to prevent that power from ever being given away in the future, which feels like a particularly egregious and obvious power grab, as I’ve said above), but not enough for me to properly hope that things will turn out alright. The on-going disasters of the last decade (and my entire life, really) have taught me not to hope that things will go well more often than not, but I can’t deny that it feels like a sea change is coming. VP Harris’ campaign, the clear victory of the efforts to prevent these horrible amendments in Wisconsin (58% against to 42% supporting were the last numbers I saw as of writing this, which is a pretty big margin considering how close a lot of recent election results have been), and Trump’s slow fade from public activity following the attempt on his life at a political rally–these all suggest that some change might finally be happening. I don’t know how long it will last or what it might mean in the grand scheme of things, but I no longer feel like I need to prepare myself for things to go poorly. I feel like some of the decent or ever good-ish options are actually options now.