While the House of Representatives is the home of more than half a dozen outspoken and unambiguous GOP white nationalists, the Senate has its own faction of increasingly blunt fascists. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are perhaps the most prominent faces of this proudly toxic crew, for my money, Sen. Ron Johnson is perhaps the most consistently and egregiously awful.
These past few days alone have seen the Wisconsin Republican issue a string of unconscionable — and yet at this point unsurprising — atom bombs of evil and cruelty.
Let’s review:
On Tuesday, Johnson went on Newsmax, everyone’s favorite far-right propaganda streamer, to again insist that the MAGA maniacs that stormed the Capitol in January 6th were actually not that dangerous. The headline to their interview, “Sen. Ron Johnson to Newsmax TV: 'Armed Insurrection' Was Fake News,” inadvertently sums it up perfectly: An isolated and cynical lawmaker using a hackneyed and discredited old phrase from the Trump era to push a tired and pathetic lie.
Johnson had the temerity to say that no guns or explosives were recovered on the scene of the Capitol, despite the many firearms seized by the FBI and Capitol police that day and the huge number of explosive devices and Molotov cocktails found nearby in vehicles belonging to the Trump dead-enders that stormed the Capitol building.
And then he said this racist garbage:
Today, Johnson went on a local right-wing radio show in Wisconsin and tried to stir up rumors about Joe Biden’s mental health:
It’s truly remarkable that he would say this — not only is it insulting and off-base (did anyone see Biden’s great speech tonight?), it comes after Johnson spent four years licking the boots of a now-former president who offered little evidence of his own sanity. Johnson himself has continued to go off the deep end, as well, with his obsession with conspiracy theories, voter fraud, and the quack Covid medicine that he continues to promote even after YouTube took it down for being medically disproven.
And on the topic of bad Covid medical advice, today Johnson said that he wouldn’t be getting the vaccine because he already had the virus, as if that guaranteed immunity to repeat infections or other strains (to be clear, the CDC has said that it very much does not).
Johnson is up for re-election next year and one of his Democratic opponents in particular has been unrelenting in his criticism of him. Former State Assembly Minority Leader and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson just posted this today:
Now, full disclosure, I am working with Tom on his campaign, but he doesn’t know I’m posting this. He’s probably asleep, to be honest, because the guy gets up at 4 am to start his day as the top county official (currently working hard on the Covid vaccine rollout, with no help from Sen. Johnson) and then gets his kids ready and off to school.
He’s going to be the most progressive and electable candidate in the race, given his support for Medicare for All and workers rights as well as his appeal to rural and red voters — he’s been elected six times to lead an otherwise Republican county. Tom on Tuesday came out with a Kirkus star-reviewed book about how he worked with a local union to save a paper mill that had powered the local economy for more than a century, which helps underscore his credentials.
As you can see from this fun video below, he’s going to be the only candidate in the race who can’t self-fund — he’s facing Johnson and the son of a billionaire hedge fund founder thus far:
If you want to help the most progressive and appealing candidate win the Democratic nomination, any donation would be super helpful.
CLICK HERE to donate to Tom Nelson’s campaign for Senate via ActBlue!
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