MADISON, Wis. — In Wisconsin, where freezing temperatures or clouds have never deterred noisy political protests, and where rallies that have attracted thousands of people have been occurring with increasing frequency, Sunday’s expected pro-Trump rally was all but a no-show.
Police vehicles and military Humvees were stationed all day at the entrances of the Capitol, a massive dome with four stately wings.
Ground-level windows had been boarded up with plywood ahead of expected protests. Temporary concrete barriers and red anti-ramming devices were erected near the entrances. Police had temporarily blocked off streets closest to the Capitol. But morning came and went, as well as mid-afternoon, and not a Trump flag was in sight.
Only groups of news reporters and a few curious residents and students from nearby University of Wisconsin-Madison strolled about in lightly falling snow. On the park-like lawns between the Capitol wings, which had teamed with crowds on a chilly day last April in protest of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home and mask-wearing orders, and in February 2011 in protest of then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 orders, which stripped most public-sector employees of bargaining rights, as well as numerous other rallies since, only a few squirrels were scampering about in the snow.