Christian Schneider examines whether Gov. Scott Walker is divisive:

Before Gov. Scott Walker began his sweaty presidential announcement speech at the Waukesha County Expo Center on Monday, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was looking to put his future ambitions on ice. Signaling the attacks Walker will endure from the left, party chair Martha Laning said the governor was guilty of “unprecedented corruption, division” and “extremism.”

Of course, the charge of “division,” is merely a placeholder for saying, “Walker has enacted policies we don’t like.” The Journal Sentinel Editorial Board followed with an editorial titled, “The ever divisive Scott Walker,” which claims Walker is “the most divisive Wisconsin politician in living memory.”

Well.

Set aside the cranial gymnastics necessary to portray a governor who has won three elections in four years in the birthplace of progressivism as “divisive.” (Also, whose “living memory”? Nobody alive remembers Joe McCarthy?) In fact, even after the left has thrown the kitchen sink, the plumbing and a bucket of rubber duckies at Walker, Wisconsin seems to have come to the conclusion that it might actually like the guy.

But “divisiveness” is a charge reserved for Republicans who are actually governing in a manner consistent with their campaign promises. The “divisiveness” charge is especially cynical, as it assumes the GOP has passed much of its landmark legislation solely to irritate Democrats. In reality, Walker and the Republican-run Legislature are simply enacting policies they earnestly believe benefit the state.

Of course, Democrats are never portrayed as “divisive.” Like when a president rams a bill that takes over 16% of the American economy through Congress using a procedural gimmick, leading to electoral bloodbaths for Democrats in 2010 and 2014. Or when a president circumvents Congress to enact amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, fully in opposition to public opinion.

But Walker is painted as “divisive” because he enacted a bill that all but eliminated the indefensible practice of public sector unionization. Thanks to Act 10, taxpayer money no longer will be shoveled into Democratic campaigns, electing representatives who ratify friendly union contracts. In staking out the anti-public union position, Walker joins famous other “divisive” figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, who opposed collective bargaining for government employees.

Instead, Democrats will continue to get a free pass, even when they enthusiastically support the most polarizing policies in the nation. Amazingly, Walker is portrayed as “divisive” because he signed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks. According to Gallup, banning abortions after the first trimester has been supported by no less than 64% of Americans over the past two decades.

This issue has been given stark immediacy in the past few days, as a video has surfaced that shows Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical research, discussing the barbaric practice of harvesting organs from aborted fetuses and selling them for profit. Such a practice may run afoul of laws preventing the selling of human organs; at the very least, it confirms the grisly, immoral business in which Planned Parenthood traffics.

Of course, Planned Parenthood’s unwavering supporters never will be declared “divisive,” because their victims never get the chance to march on the Capitol, blow loud horns and hold homemade signs. (Plus, human fetuses are notoriously poor spellers.)

But in the Walker world, we have to pretend that bare-knuckled “divisive” partisanship was invented in 2011, when Walker took office. Ironically, it seems that calling Walker “divisive” is itself simply meant to be divisive.

Independent of the obvious double standard Schneider notes, I’m not sure that Walker isn’t divisive. Because Barack Obama is also divisive. In fact, every politician is divisive when politics is, as it has always been and always will be, a zero-sum game — one side wins, therefore the other side loses.