State Democrats, meanwhile, are apoplectic about Protasiewicz’s potential removal. This week, Ben Wikler, the chair of the state’s Democratic Party, announced a four-million-dollar outreach campaign, called Defend Justice, to try to head off an impeachment. “This is a fundamental threat to the American system of government,” Wikler told me. “Essentially what Republicans are proposing to do is end judicial independence by sidelining or removing a judge based on their opposition to the decision that they think she would make. That has no precedent in the state of Wisconsin and would be a warning shot for every other judge in every other state. If Republicans do this, they will have created a new mechanism to short-circuit the judiciary.”