USA TODAY International Edition
Political battle lines clear for couple
Bushues get along by avoiding heated topics
CLINTON, Wis. – Meet Art and Barbara Bushue, a couple for our polarized times. America’s partisan divide runs not just through their marriage. It runs through their front yard. The Bushues have painted a white line on the grass outside their home in the southern Wisconsin village of Clinton, population 2,154. Art Bushue has placed Republican campaign signs on one side of the line. His wife has placed Democratic signs on the other. “She’s a ‘union thug,’ and I’m a ‘management moron,’ ” he said, joking about their conflicting world views. “It’s kind of nothing serious. We get along just fine.” Barbara Bushue jokes about it, too, though she described the partisan divide in their marriage as a challenge. “We fight all day long over the TV. Anybody that walks in, turns it to either Fox or CNN,” she said. “We’ve been known to hide remotes. We’ve been known to wrestle over the remote.” “If the TV is off, that helps. If we don’t talk about it, that helps,” Barbara Bushue said. “We can talk about other things, as long as we aren’t constantly reminded about (politics).” Neither is quite sure exactly when they drew the line. Barbara Bushue said she painted it after she went searching for Democratic signs to counter her husband’s Republican signs. “People kept saying (to me), ‘Signs don’t vote.’ I don’t give a (hoot). He’s outnumbering me!’ ” she said. “It was getting on my nerves,” she said. “I start getting my signs up. He starts getting a couple more. l go out and draw a line down the middle, putting my signs on one side and his on the other side.” Their Rock County village also was split down the middle in 2012, with Democrat Barack Obama winning by three-tenths of a percentage point over Republican Mitt Romney. But in 2016, Donald Trump carried the community by 17 points. “We’ve gotten a lot of attention … (it) being a small town,” Art Bushue said of their yard. While their solution to the yard-sign issue is unusual, the Bushues are hardly alone among couples in dividing their vote. They are a microcosm of many partisan divisions found in contemporary polls: ❚ Between men and women. ❚ Between public and private employees. (She’s a retired teacher and he worked in the private sector before he retired.) ❚ Between labor and management. (She was active in her union and he was a middle manager with a master’s in business administration.) ❚ Between consumers of conservative media and consumers of liberal media. Their political differences haven’t always been as pointed as they are now. Art Bushue said his wife has become more liberal over time though he praised her as a “realist” who “can see the other side of the story.” She said she voted Republican for both president Bushes, then for Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She became deeply opposed to Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, during the 2011 union wars and 2012 recall fight. “I’ve got stress in my life. It’s called Trump and Walker,” Barbara Bushue said. She said her husband has become more conservative over time. “He wears this damn red cap that says, ‘Make America Great Again.’ My son got it for him as a joke. He wears it everywhere, which is very embarrassing to me,” she said. “I have a little button that says, ‘If you hear crazy voices in your head, turn off Fox News.’ ” She made sure her husband got a hearing aid that allows him to listen to the television without it being audible to her, she said. “At least when (Fox) is on, I don’t have to listen to it,” she said. “I’d have to leave the room, especially when (Sean) Hannity was on. That would make me crazy.” Art Bushue is a longtime village trustee in Clinton, about 60 miles southwest of Milwaukee and less than 5 miles from the Illinois border. He said he has some mixed feelings about Trump but believes the president has accomplished huge things and might “turn out to be one of the greatest presidents in history.” He described himself as “anti-Democrat.” “I don’t think the Republicans have moved. I think it’s the Democrats who are moving left,” he said. Art Bushue said he is the only one in his extended family who is a Republican, so he is used to managing his partisan differences with loved ones. In a recent statewide poll from Marquette University Law School, 1 in 5 Wisconsin voters said they’ve stopped talking to someone because of disagreements about politics. Art Bushue said it’s not that dire in their case. “Barbara and I, we’re best buddies,” he said. “We joke with each other. She is my best friend.”