“Plastics”, a word of advice given to Benjamin Braddock, the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the classic 1967 film The Graduate. A decade later, Ronald Harold Johnson, with no experience, took that advice and married into the artificial world of plastics and polyester. With a simple “I do” he became a very rich man.
In 2010, with no political experience, he was elected to the U.S. Senate representing Wisconsin. Encouraged to run by the Madison Tea Party-linked Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and riding on Koch brothers’ money as well as $9 million of his own, he ran on classic Republican credentials: opposing reproductive rights, denying climate science and against raising the minimum wage. He defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Russ Feingold.
Having established himself as a model senator for the right, he won reelection in 2016, again against Russ Feingold, and again with millions of dollars of AFP and Koch financial support. Added to his pitch for reelection were his attacks on Obamacare and his support for blocking then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
Ron’s Mission to Moscow
Now a dutiful acolyte of Koch brothers’ interests, his ascent to power would be bolstered by the Republican presidential victory in 2016. While his bill sponsorships such as the Stop Dangerous Sanctuary Cities Act and Stop Illegal Reentry Act among many others would be nothing out of the ordinary for a servant of the right, his special moment came when he joined seven other Republicans on a junket to Moscow in early July 2018. On the Fourth, our nation’s highest holiday, delegation members would dine as guests of our world adversary.
Ostensibly, the purpose of this Kremlin pilgrimage was to raise a spectrum of foreign policy matters, including election meddling, with the Russian leadership. Denied an audience with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Republican supplicants were only allowed to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The delegation’s pre-departure tough talk melted into a meek conciliatory tone upon its return with Johnson claiming Russian election meddling was not a threat to our democracy and “blown way out of proportion.”
But no wonder, less than a fortnight later, at the Helsinki summit, President Trump would disgrace and humiliate the nation in a kowtow to Vladimir Putin and, before the world press, absolve him of any guilt of election interference. "President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," Trump replied when asked.
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What Pandemic?
Then, beginning early in 2019 and continuing to today, events would give Johnson even more opportunities to exercise his uncanny sense of irony, giving him ample moments to contradict logic, science and sanity to his heart’s and party’s content.
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Johnson to again play Russian roulette, but with the gun to the heads of his constituents. He aped the administrations skepticism of the threat of the pandemic itself, and later, of the measures taken to control it. He then embraced the ineffective and debunked treatment, hydroxychloroquine. A year later, despite over 600,000 deaths due to COVID, along with validating vaccine hesitancy, he still does. This shouldn’t be a surprise. As Johnson said of the virus, “We have grossly overreacted to this.” Johnson has stated that he won’t get vaccinated.
Then, there’s the Republican stolen election Big Lie and its orchestrated attempt to violently overthrow the American democracy on January 6. Johnson has endorsed the former and dismissed the insurrection, despite well over 550 arrests of Trump’s terrorists participating in it, countless hours of videos made by the attackers themselves, as a “peaceful protest.” He did admit, however, that had it been Black Lives Matter protesting, he would have felt threatened.
Meanwhile, on an unrelated but related note, with Republican near-singular reliance on the white male vote, it was no surprise when Johnson recently made a clarion call to that base “to take back our culture.” Ironically, after having objected to a Juneteenth federal holiday a year ago because he didn’t want to pay federal workers for a day off (better than admitting his constituents wouldn’t stomach a holiday celebrating Black emancipation), he didn’t object this year. When he mustered the gall to show up in Milwaukee for the Juneteenth Holiday, he was heckled and booed.
Political Theater
The litany of such Johnson affronts goes on and on and on. Ultimately, one asks why he can’t act on behalf of the good of the country rather than politicize absolutely everything from public health to the health of our democracy. Nowadays, we tend to politicize any issue, especially artificially created ones like election fraud. So, it should be of no surprise when, what would otherwise be considered deranged imbecilic ranting, becomes the stuff of political discourse. After all, there’s a fundraising opportunity in every act of political theater.
Besides, although Johnson has not yet stated his intentions to run for another term as senator, each of his outrageous remarks adds fodder for an upcoming campaign. The very deliberate strategy is to undermine public confidence in democratic government, whether it be voting rights, climate science or public health. His campaign can now call up a quote on any of those myriad issues to prove his fealty to Trumpism. Should he lose, he can play the stolen election card. Setting up the likelihood that any Republican who legitimately loses an election in 2022 will shamelessly contest it, is all part of the election fraud Big Lie. Meanwhile, by making democratic systems dysfunctional, Republicans will argue for the privatization of everything from basic services to the security or even the armed forces.
Ironically, the so-called party of Lincoln willfully ignores its namesake’s most important quote, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It seems Ron Johnson’s role in the greater GOP mission, is to contribute to and exacerbate the division. Reminding us, once again of another quotation made infamous by our former Gov. Scott Walker, “divide and conquer.”
