Part One: The Origin Myth and the Puppet’s Pageant
Fresh off of his “It-wasn’t-Russia-it-was-Ukraine” Deflection Tour,1 Wisconsin’s so-called Senator, Ron Johnson, evinces the pride of a stupid simple man who has finally mastered two-syllable words, two-bit talking points, and two-timing his constituents.
The tour, sponsored by the 4Chan Foundation and Americans For One-Percent-Only Prosperity,2 has cemented Johnson’s role as the Headless Helmsman who steers the RMS3 Trump through an impeachment trial.
A glance back at his rise to public ridicule reveals there has always been less to the man than meets the eye. Who is this Headless Helmsman, and how and why did he tangle himself in Russia’s successful efforts to rig the 2016 election, a coup that installed compromised Republican politicians, himself included, and the Mango Mussolini?
Wisconsin’s two-dimensional Senator was plucked from a plummy private sector “job” as the WalMart greeter of a plastics manufacturing concern. That alone is telling, as the man proves, time and time again, to be both plastic and manufactured.
Political con artists working for one-percenters spotted Johnson when he spoke at a Tea Party event. At the time he was posing as a “successful businessman.” The con men quickly realized his genial mask concealed, if barely, moronic ignorance and multiple deficits (clue: that vacant gaze, with its “there-is-no-‘there’-there” quality). To their delight, he also exuded congenital pliability.
Here then, they thought, was the ideal puppet-candidate, a frontman for the one-percent agenda, an empty suit sporting a cranial cavity that was ready to be inflated with all manner of wing-nut nonsense. All they had to do first was inflate his ego.
No mention here of intellect. All attempts to plumb the depths of his cognition4 confirm parity to, and the clarity of, an ephemeral mud puddle.
No mention of competence here either. Johnson married into money5 and was installed in a made-up position at Daddy-in-Law’s company, a ruse calculated to make him appear to be productive.
Is he a millionaire? Yes. But not because he made those millions himself. That telling detail was edited out of the campaign materials and the TV spots. This is no “successful businessman.” This is a hangnail-in-law.
Wisconsin citizens who vote Republican had no real say in who they could choose to represent them in the Senate. They’ve been conditioned to passively accept any party-proffered idiot for any elected office (see Scott Walker) (see Robin Vos) (see Glenn Grothman) (see Sean Duffy) (see John Nygren) (see Bryan Hagedorn). Capable, intelligent and ethical candidates were spurned, especially if they gave off any whiff of an inclination to public service, and showed any respect for ordinary Wisconsinites and their needs.
Nope. Had to be an apologist for laissez faire business practices6 (read: exploitation. also read: theft), a devotee of corporate welfare and a rabid believer in the fictional effect known as Trickle-Down Economics, an ideological carcinogen peddled by Fascists.
Johnson’s polished turd of a resume recast his failures as “achievements.” And with his ego sufficiently inflated, his cranium crammed with talking points sure to lure the attention of other one-percenters and corporate types, The Throughly Useless Man, strings now attached, became The Useful Puppet.
Schooled to be a tool by his one-percent handlers, this Johnson ignores constituents, ignores reporters’ questions and, when switched on, plows through his talking points like a runaway Robocall.
This is not “public service” in any way, shape or form. It is, however, monumental arrogance…and blatant disservice. “Oath of Office-Schmoffice! I take my marching orders from the people who manufactured me!”
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Senator Mud-Puddle Mind quickly proved more than capable of spewing stupidities when lured off-script.7
Asked about the proposed mosque to be built in New York City near the site of the twin towers, RoJo mustered his mud-puddle malevolence. He said: "Those folks are trying to poke a stick in our eye. I just hope the zoning officials and the city, the state revisit that, rezone that piece of property.”8
Nice bit of dog whistling to assuage your Islamophobic handlers there, Ronnie. “Those folks” you didn’t have the guts to clearly define include actual US citizens. You showed real provincial ignorance (is that what passes for “statesmanship” in that balloon-brain?), and revealed your handlers to be scum floating on the swamp water, buddy.
Also note the halting, stumbling canter of Johnson’s response. It mimics a halting, stumbling “thought” process…if you want to label it “thinking.” Liken it to a boulder, tumbling downhill. Random. Unguided.
More evidence of Johnson’s gift for spastic dancing at the low end of the puppet strings appeared (and still appears!) with disturbing regularity. This is to say that Johnson cannot stop spouting stupid. He cannot. C.a.n.n.o.t.
Ron-the-Unready on climate change: “The science is far from settled.” RoJo’s big mistake here was saying this to climatologist James Hansen, director of the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions at the Columbia University Earth Institute.
It was a classic “Idiot-Puppet-meets-Expert” collision.
“DOH!!!” (The sound of stupid hitting a core sample.)
It took days for Johnson to wipe the permafrost off his dazed face.
He also opined that sunspots cause global warming. Sunspots. cause. it.
Okaaaay…..and no.
Because he is Senator Brain-Flit, that’s why.
Johnson’s brain skips over scientific concepts and processes like a stone skipping on the surface of a pond. He makes only the most fleeting and superficial contact with them. Any demand that he accurately recall and explain these same concepts and processes will engage his stream-of-consciouness speech production and cause him to lob his infamous “shrapnel-gaffes,” i.e., auditory incendiaries. Reporters in his presence now resort to wearing flak-muffs to save their ears and their careers. Yes, the stupid is that lethal.
But beyond any question of ability to understand, Johnson doesn’t even try, doesn’t even try, to understand.
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How would knowing the truth, and speaking it, advance his handlers’ agenda? Genuine knowledge, the kind an actual public servant needs to legislate wisely, is not filtered through an ideological sieve, especially one handed to you by megalomaniacs and sociopaths.
Ron Johnson is the airhead who, when asked what the government could do about homeless veterans, answered, “I don't believe this election is really about details. It really isn’t.”
(Note this generic response, unsuitable for every occasion. Johnson was ordered to memorize that little turd-pearl deflection, and use it whenever Senator Flat-Footed was caught…you know….)
So, in Ron Johnson World, homeless veterans are dehumanized to “details”…
What sterling “public service” commentary from our helium-headed “public servant.”
Ron Johnson is also the self-appointed “expert” on Gen X and Millennials who said, “Younger people have no expectation of having any Medicare or Social Security.”
Blatant lie, anyone? Anyone? This statement was so obviously lobbed at his Fascist, sociopathic, fringe-element, rich, white, narcissistic handlers that it qualifies as blatant ass-kissing.
A malignant passivity lurks in Johnson’s ideological diarrhea. Senator Can’t-Cite-His-Sources cannot grasp what representative government does, or should be doing, outside of enriching the already-rich. Social Security is solvent, and can easily be kept that way by raising the ceiling on taxable income. But Senator Spineless Ideologue has been ordered to misrepresent Social Security and other government success stories.
Why? “Well,” his handlers chortle, “wouldn’t want effective government legislating and enforcing fair taxation of one-percenters and corporations, would we? Or unrigging the economy and regulating Casino Wall Street! Such reforms would turn billionaires into mere millionaires!” The gnawing fear of losing so much welfare has one-percenters and corporate executives waking up screaming in the night, sweating hundred dollar bills.
Protect the nation from all enemies, foreign or domestic? Listen to actual constituents, and turn their needs into legislation? Far beyond the capability, and the Fascist agenda, of Senator One-Percent Puppet/Not-About-Details/Ignore-homeless-veterans.
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But back to the Puppet’s Parade of Stupid…
Ron Johnson is that hapless fool who insisted a “Secret Society” existed at the highest levels of the FBI. He had no evidence whatsoever to support this conspiracy theory, but orally evacuated this brain fart after FBI officials exchanged text messages in which they reminded each other that Donald Trump is an idiot.
Johnson: “What this is all about is further evidence of corruption. It’s more than bias, but corruption at the highest levels of the FBI and that secret society, we have an informant that is talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here, there is so much suspicion.”9
“…we have an informant…”
Nope. Nothing to inform about.
“…secret society…”
Nope. No secrets to keep.
“There is so much smoke here…”
Yup. And somebody keeps blowing it up Johnson’s ass…
Note again the halting, stumbling canter of his assertion. The conspiracy theory is birthed half-formed, and we’re expected to stitch the fragments together, wrap it in swaddling clothes, and adore it. Hair Fuehrer speaks this way, too.
The reader is confident Johnson had the integrity to admit he was duped, that he has a predilection to latch onto conspiracy theories, provided they meet a certain threshold (eye-roll stupid), and that he walked back his foolish assertion.
Nope. This is Sunspot Johnson.
And the stupid, it just doesn’t stop. It flows from this fool like a flaming river, to the swamp.
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“In an interview with Newsmax on October 16th, 2014, Ron Johnson participated in the GOP’s fear-mongering about the Ebola virus prior to the 2014 elections, claiming that it was a “clear and present danger” that ISIS might purposely infect its own followers with the disease, and come to the United States to deliberately spread it. The director of the FBI and the head of the Department of Homeland Security actually had to go on record to deny this ridiculous claim, which is not just paranoid, it’s medically and strategically ridiculous.”10
Floating hilarious conspiracy theories is Senator Ebola-Brain’s idea of “public service.”
Serving his actual constituents? Not so much. Did he walk back this lunacy? Not one inch.
If Johnson refuses to be a public servant, because his handlers never intended him to be a public servant, and because he is quite incapable of being a public servant, his incompetence and his deficits nonetheless infect all aspects of his pathetic impersonation of a public servant.
This string-dangled fool is an incoherent, syntactical disaster when he attempts to speak in public. He’s a deer in the headlights when attempting to engage intelligent and informed citizens in the marketplace of ideas (so he doesn’t), and so he falls back to regurgitating his masters’ ideological swill.
In short, Senator Secret Society is a clot. He is most useful to the cretins who tell him what to think, and the trolls who stomp memes into his ears with their tiny feet, when he is gumming up the operation of what is supposed to be representative government.
Make that representative, transparent, effective and accountable government. Those are concepts far beyond Senator Not-About-Detail’s comprehension. And they are the very things his handlers do not want.
Some oxygen-starved cluster of cells in the near-vacuum of his cranium might, just might, perceive that his machinations on behalf of the nations’ one-percent parasites, on behalf of palpably sociopathic corporations, and on behalf of Putin, are injurious to the security and prosperity of the nation…
…but Johnson is addicted to the illusion that his empty, aimless life now has “meaning” and “purpose.”
…and he doesn’t give a damn about the wellbeing of the nation that tolerated and sustained him. (See: Candidacy-to-sidestep-psychotherapy) (Also see: Scott Walker)
Because the elephant in the room is that there is something wrong with Johnson.
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When Senator Word-Salad materializes in front of a media microphone, sane Wisconsinites shiver with dread. What pandering pap will the fool drool in defense of Fascism now!?!? What lunacy will el estupido espouse to deflect attention from Administration corruption? Why is the Ron Johnson Circus Sideshow given any airtime at all?
Well, aside from the fall-down funny, “I-can’t-believe-this fool-is-a-United-States-Senator-you-gotta-be-shittin’-me” appalling stupidity he demonstrates, of late Senator Putin Stooge has emerged as an unabashed apologist for foreign interference in national elections…that is, when the beneficiaries of such meddling are Republican politicians, One-Percenters and corporations.
You see, Johnson’s handlers placed their puppet in key committee positions. Senator Not-About-Details is chairman of the Europe subcommittee on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and a member of the Senate's bipartisan Ukraine Caucus.
These committee positions are all about…you guessed it…details. Some of the details in question have emerged as impeachable details. And what tack has Senator Foreign Interference been ordered to take on these impeachable details?
From those committee posts, Senator Russian Puppet has rationalized, denied the very existence of, and attempted to deflect attention away from, the rampant and runaway corruption of the Trump Administration. He also attempts to deflect attention from Russian meddling in the 2016 election cycle.
That very meddling helped Senator Kompromat get reelected. Small wonder then, that Johnson returned from his July 4th, 2018 trip to Russia (Yes, read that again!) to “dismiss the entire intelligence community's evidence that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, saying, ‘We've blown it way out of proportion.’”11
Jud Lounsbury expands on the evolution of Johnson’s collusion. In a 2015 Crossfire interview Johnson lamented that then-President Obama had “not taken the time to explain why Vladamir Putin’s aggressive expansion threatens our national security and the world order.”
Around the same time, Johnson also said the “megalomaniac” Putin was “a danger to the civilized world.”
But all that was before Trump.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Johnson—as chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs—became aware of Russian efforts to tilt the election toward Trump. Johnson not only sat on the information but, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, put the kibosh on what could have been a bipartisan effort to warn the American people.
Nevermind that the “meddling” included official-looking communications from Russia targeting likely-Democratic voters with fraudulent instructions of how to vote online. Never mind that Johnson’s home state of Wisconsin was a key beneficiary of this Russian heavy lifting and Johnson also faced re-election in 2016.
Johnson did nothing—except to downplay the seriousness of this attack.
In response to former Chief Intelligence Officer James Clapper saying that the Russians “turned” the election in Trump’s favor, Johnson said those sounding an alarm about Russian meddling had “blown it way out of proportion,” adding, “it’s not the greatest threat to our democracy.”12
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Senator Flip Flop, I want you to repeat, very slowly, that last statement….
Foreign interference in our election process, especially from a hostile nation, is not the greatest threat? What then, oh, Herald of One-Percent Brain-Farts, is a greater threat?
“Russian Ron” Johnson says: “Obamacare (The Affordable Care Act) is the single greatest assault on freedom in my lifetime.”13
This guy, this Ron Johnson: he is a certifiable idiot.
When Johnson’s handlers feel threatened by democracy, when the spoils they acquired by theft are threatened, they squeeze Johnson’s head and the ideological pus spurts from his mouth.
And this idiot-puppet, in his position as a so-called “Senator,” this tool who cannot store more than one bite of word-salad in his head at a time, wants to sit as a juror on Dolt45’s impeachment trial in the Senate.
Johnson’s handlers make him use his committee positions to control what gets investigated about Russian interference in the 2016 election and, of course, what does not get investigated. Putin’s Senator-Puppet also censors what gets investigated about the “Arms-for-Phoney-Dirt-on-Biden” scandal.
Johnson is already telegraphing his intent to thwart Constitutional protections, and will do so to serve his Masters’ political ends…which align handsomely with Putin’s ends.
Not the actions of a public servant. Johnson’s spastic puppet dance on behalf of his masters now has his strings twanging and tangling.
Blogger Chris Liebenthal summed it up perfectly: “Ron Johnson, already an accomplice, wants to be witness and juror in (the) Trump impeachment.”14
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The conflict of interest is blatant. The conflict of interest is so palpable, so brazen, that an actual public servant(!), even one with only the dimmest notion of duty to those he serves, would acknowledge his conflict of interest and recuse himself from the Senate trial.
You’ve learned enough about the modus operandi of Senator Empty-Suit, the Badger State Buffoon, Putin’s Useful Idiot, to know what Johnson said when asked if his glaring conflicts of interest would cause him to recuse himself.
Nope.
We’ve dissected and given the lie to Ron Johnson’s laughable origin myth, exposed his actual function as a mouthpiece and apologist for one-percent and corporate hegemony, and recalled just a few lowlights from his burgeoning catalogue of stupidities and wing nut conspiracy theories. This pile of offal dresses the stage for a tragic farce: Puppet Johnson now assures his “constituents,” and by that I mean “the people he represents” (we know who they are), that he is ready, no, eager, to sit as accomplice, witness and juror in the Trump impeachment trial.
His handlers are soooo happy. The fix is in.
Sane and patriotic Wisconsinites, and they are the majority, must speak up, must now demand that Senator Stooge recuse himself for his wanton conflicts of interest. Better yet, he should resign. This puppet is no public servant.
Not since Senator Joe McCarthy has Wisconsin been so shamed, and so justly vilified, for defacing the Senate with such ideological, ethical and intellectual scum.
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In Part Two, “The Pageant of the Fascist Fool,” watch Senator Flip Flop/Secret Society, who is only too happy to pollute the airwaves with looney conspiracy theories, spin around and assert with absolute (if vacuous) sincerity that the whistleblower’s sources “exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed. This would have been far better off if we would have just taken care of this behind the scenes.”
Because when it’s Republican corruption, “Move along now, folks. Nothing to see here.”
Johnson espouses the I.O.K.I.Y.A.R. tenet of the Fascist Faith.
Readers may well deduce from this fresh ideological pus that Johnson’s handlers once again felt the need to squeeze the head of their pimple.
1. AKA the “Breathe in the Swamp Gas” Tour, or the “CrowdStrike Conspiracy Theory” Tour.
2. Members note with pride that their organization Acronym, AFP, also signals their simultaneous membership in the American Fascist Party.
3. Acronym for “Republican Manure Spreader.”
4. “Johnson Cognition” is now a recognized syndrome with a paragraph in the DSM. It is also an oxymoron.
5. See Paul Ryan. An ideological parasite can be said to “love” its host.
6. Party leaders take their marching orders from Fascist organizations such as Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, The Heritage Foundation, Americans For Prosperity and the like. These cults share an anti-democratic ideology and agenda, preach a laissez faire approach to business and finance, and worship at the altar of Trickle-Down Economics.
7. Johnson graduated magno cum ludribio from the Woody Johnson School of International Relations.
8. https://journaltimes.com/news/local/article_38bd2992-acac-11df-988e-001cc4c03286.html
9. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/johnson-informant-said-fbi-secret-society-meetings Senator Selective-Attention failed to mention these same FBI officials didn’t speak highly of Bernie Sanders either.
10. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/andrewkaczynski/gop-senator-isis-using-ebola-is-a-clear-and-present-danger
11. https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-senators-tell-contradictory-stories-about-moscow-trip
12. https://progressive.org/dispatches/ron-johnson-trump-scheme-lounsbury-191122/#.Xdk2Afp_3H4.twitter
13. http://archive.jsonline.com/blogs/news/115147619.html
14. https://www.cogdis.me/2019/10/rojo-already-accomplice-wants-to-be.html