Welcome to the new Capitol Punishments

Hi! Have you missed reading this column? I’ve missed writing it. So the good news is, there will be a lot more Capitol Punishments in 2024. But there will also be some changes. The biggest: Capitol Punishments (or Cap Pun, if you’re one of the cool kids) is moving to Substack. Some of the columns will be published on Tone Madison but if you want to stay up-to-date, subscribe on Substack to get every column in your mailbox. (And if you really want to help me out and see this thing grow, become a paid subscriber.) 

When I became the news and politics editor at Tone Madison, my goal was for Tone to showcase the many talented writers, researchers, and artists in this city. And as we’re working to get our financial house in order (Support Tone Madison), that is still my goal; therefore I’ve decided to prioritize Tone’s limited resources for publishing work from freelancers. 

To be fair, I also needed a bit of a break. Capitol Punishments was started because I had just been laid off, and, being a glutton for punishment, I was sitting on my couch watching an Assembly floor debate. I needed someplace to write about all the really bad ideas, takes, and policies that were being touted by our electeds. Not the healthiest foundation for a weekly politics column.

Plus, after writing almost a column a week, I felt like I was running low on opinions, at least opinions worth opining. Over time, Cap Pun morphed into an interrogation of not only the hypocrisy and lies behind these bad ideas and bad policies, but why they linger. Who’s benefiting from saying these bad ideas and who’s benefiting from believing them? It’s not every moral panic you get a Christopher Rufo holding a smoking gun and shouting “I shot him because I thought a gun was the best way to kill him.” Most people like to pretend that their moral outrage is genuine, not a political project. 

As Cap Pun changed, I realized that if I wanted to do the kind of work I wanted to do with this column well, I needed time to research and explore questions and ideas. Frankly, I think this should be a rule of thumb for all columnists because there are too many who are spouting unoriginal, unexamined, empty nonsense. (And no I’m definitely not talking about some former Madison elected with a misspelled blog url… not at all.) It’s good to take some time to read, learn, and let new ideas percolate. 

You’ll notice our updated Cap Pun art (shout out to Maggie Denman!) features yours truly skeptically examining some ghosts. We’ve got a lot of ghosts lingering around our politics and our culture—ghosts of lies that just won’t go away and ghosts of inconvenient stories and truths some people just aren’t willing to face. I’m going to do my best to interrogate how we got here and why so many of these ghosts are hanging around. (Also, if you’re someone who researches how we got here and the disconnects between discourse and reality, on any subject, really, I’d love to talk to you.) As we gear up for another historic election, we all need to examine not just what we believe but the assumptions behind why. 

No matter what the future is for Capitol Punishments, Tone Madison will always be in its DNA. (Hell, I somehow roped Scott Gordon into being my editor.) Tone gave a frustrated, burnt-out reporter on a couch a weekly column to vent about everything she saw wrong in politics. Now, I want to make space for the next Cap Pun, the next set of writers, reporters, and artists who want to voice their perspectives and insights. We need them if we’re going to figure out how to build a future Madison where people are not only surviving but thriving. 

All Capitol Punishments content will be freely available in January. Bonus content will only be available to paid subscribers (just $5 a month, $50 for a year) starting in February. Early subscribers will also receive a small, keychain-sized, handmade crochet item (dinosaurs, plants, mushrooms, etc.), on a first-come first-served basis. 

Also, to be perfectly clear, I’m not going anywhere. I will continue to be Tone Madison’s news and politics editor, working with our talented pool of writers and illustrators to make the sharp, insightful news coverage you’ve come to expect. Support Tone Madison.