The one downside of working on a campaign against a terrible person is that you have to track and watch appearances made by that terrible person on a daily basis. In this case, I’m talking about Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who every week finds a new despicable low in his race to the bottom.
After dabbling in racism with his comments on the Capitol insurrection, Johnson this week decided to go all-in on the overtly racist replacement theory that is all the rage amongst Republicans and Fox News:
This is no surprise — Johnson has been screaming about migrant caravans and the border since even before Joe Biden took residency at the White House. He was one of the GOP senators who went down to play soldier in a photoshoot down at the border a few weeks back and he continues to blair the false alarm and rile up racist sentiment.
That he said this on Fox News is no accident, either, considering Tucker Carlson’s incessant promotion of the radically racist replacement theory.
Johnson’s racism isn’t confined to Latinos, however. He’s been called out again and again for smearing Black Lives Matter — remember when he said that he wasn’t afraid of the Capitol rioters he helped incite, because they “love this country,” but would have been terrified of BLM protestors? What’s gone unreported thus far is that in the same interview in which he made those horrible comments, he also spread some disgusting lies about George Floyd’s death.
In short, he says Floyd may have died of a drug overdose, which has not only been disproven in the Derek Chauvin trial, but is the sort of lie that devalues a Black life and suggests that Floyd deserved to die.
These comments mark the latest evolution in Johnson’s de-evolution from right-wing creep to outright racist. Just look at all the horrible things he’s said over the past year — casting doubt on COVID, promoting quack medicine dismissed by the FDA, promoting Trump’s Big Lie, helping incite an insurrection, and then saying incredibly racist things about Black Lives Matter.
I’m working with Tom Nelson, a Democratic candidate for Senate against Johnson. He’s the former Assembly Majority Leader and current Outagamie County executive, a progressive Democrat in a deep red territory who keeps winning thanks to his clear values and personal touch. He’s also not afraid to get tough — we have been mocking Johnson with billboards near his house, which he openly hates.
Clearly, it’s working, because Tom is leading Ron Johnson in a new poll. It was conducted for the campaign, but it wasn’t biased — that would be pretty useless.
Tom is about as scandal-free as it gets (and believe me, I’ve dug around to make sure that’s the case). So, we made this video to highlight that fact in contrast to Ron Johnson’s many scandals.
Tom Nelson is an authentic guy with working-class roots and deep union connections, which he’s been emphasizing with a new 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. There is a new story in the American Prospect about him and that fight to save the mill with the union, in fact, and it’s a great read.
He’s won six times in a deep red district because he’s fair-minded, gets things done, and is true to the values of helping working people. But you know how politics go — he is the financial underdog in this race since he doesn’t have huge family wealth, even if he’s clearly the candidate built to win in Wisconsin at this moment. Any help you can offer would be amazing:
CLICK HERE to Donate to Tom Nelson’s Senate Campaign Via ActBlue!