Photo: Ron Johnson - Flickr
Ron Johnson making a speech
Ron Johnson
Here’s the reason Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s relentless barrage of racist television attack ads flooding Wisconsin’s airwaves to falsely accuse his opponent Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes of supporting violent crime might fail miserably this time.
Republicans have trotted out that old standby for decades to frighten voters, but many Americans now realize it’s MAGA Republicans like Johnson, not Democrats, who are on the wrong side of preventing the most horrific crimes threatening our nation right now.
Johnson and other Republicans will fight to our children’s deaths for the right of civilians to possess military assault weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that mass murderers repeatedly carry into America’s schools to slaughter as many children as they want.
Republican extremists, who also dominate the U.S. Supreme Court right now, claim that was the original intention of America’s founding fathers when they passed the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment guaranteeing “a well-regulated militia” although no such weapons of mass destruction had been invented yet.
Johnson Says ‘Yes’ to Mob Violence
Then there’s the refusal of most Republicans including Johnson to distance themselves from their defeated president who ordered his violent mob of supporters to attack Congress to overthrow President Biden’s election. Republicans seem to think Americans will forget about it if they pretend it didn’t happen.
It happened. History won’t forget and neither will most Americans, Democrat or Republican, who watched on television. They’ve seen videos of the savagery that killed at least seven police officers and injured more than 140 others, many with brain damage from being brutally beaten with clubs and American flagpoles. Republicans can no longer claim to be the party of law and order.
It's obvious why Johnson and other Republicans have launched their torrent of baseless attack ads on Barnes in Wisconsin and other strong Senate candidates around the country, claiming Democrats are “dangerous radicals” who support crime. With November rapidly approaching, Republicans are suddenly threatened with an angry public backlash against their Supreme Court’s destruction of women’s reproductive rights and their terrible roster of pro-Trump candidates.
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Republicans are desperate to recreate the racist Willie Horton attacks on Black crime that worked so great for President H.W. Bush in 1988 and Trump supercharged again in 2016. Anything to change the national conversation in the midterms from all the crimes that were committed by Trump and his violent White supporters. They’ve forgotten both Bush and Trump lost re-election.
Johnson’s attack ads on Barnes are particularly cringeworthy. The ads created by a super PAC funded by two of Johnson’s billionaire supporters include a photograph of Barnes in which his skin tones have been artificially darkened to transform him into an ominous film noir villain. The “dangerous” policies on crime Barnes would unleash upon civilized society include reducing the massive overincarceration of Americans for low-level, non-violent crimes and finally ending the unjust cash bail system for non-violent defendants awaiting trial.
A growing number of prosecutors in both political parties support ending the archaic, social unjust cash bail system. Indiana humorist Kin Hubbard once wrote: “Being poor is no crime but it might as well be.” Cash bail is the definition of unequal treatment of the rich and poor in criminal justice.
Without being convicted of any crime, poor Americans awaiting trial can be jailed for months for being too poor to pay bail. Even if they’re ultimately acquitted, jail often creates even worse punishments including losing their jobs or custody of their children. Barnes wants judges to decide whether to release defendants awaiting trial based on actual risk to community safety.
Budget-Busting Prisons
Many voters realize these days decades of expensive, budget-busting prison building by “tough-on-crime” Republican politicians making America the most overincarcerated nation on earth was counter-productive. Instead of creating safer communities, the criminal justice system destroyed businesses in Black and Brown communities through mass incarceration of working-age adults. Returning from prison with criminal records, many ex-offenders were unable to find legitimate employment increasing crime.
No one should ever want to repeat that socially destructive cycle. The good news is hard as regressive Republicans are trying, they can’t stop social progress in America. As the son of a union auto worker and a schoolteacher, Barnes would be a far more credible U.S. Senator representing the working-class interests of Wisconsin than Johnson.
Two years ago, Johnson read aloud on the floor of the Senate a lovely description of the violent insurrection by Trump’s mob as a happy Republican family picnic on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. Now there’s a politician who’s soft on crime.
Johnson’s other senate interests include holding out for a bigger tax cut for himself before supporting Trump’s enormous tax cut for the wealthy, abolishing the rights of women, spreading lies about vaccinations killing people, peddling fraudulent Trump electoral votes from Wisconsin and Michigan and urging Republicans to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits every year. Stop the madness.
