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Descent into Madness
A cranky old South Side alderman baffled by the political changes taking place in the world around him when I began my reporting career covering city government in Milwaukee used to grouse in the vernacular of the times: “The loons are taking over the asylum!”
But aging conservative Milwaukee Democrats could never have imagined the total flight from reality state Republicans are taking today. Even Wisconsin’s most extreme rightwing legislative leaders need to keep scrambling to keep up.
Believe it or not, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos who hired unethical former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to find the faintest evidence of election fraud to justify overthrowing President Biden’s victory in Wisconsin is now under attack by angry Republicans demanding to know why he doesn’t simply reverse Trump’s election defeat in the state. Who needs evidence?
Courts in Wisconsin and in every other state where the election results were challenged and the U.S. Supreme Court threw out every lawsuit for lack of evidence. Everybody knows there’s no evidence. Just do it.
Flock of Crazies
A flock of several hundred Republican loons descended on the state Capitol rotunda last week waving signs screeching “Toss Vos” and “Decertify Now!!” They welcomed the latest entry into the Republican race for governor, a little-known State Representative from Campbellsport named Timothy Ramthun. Little known until now, possibly.
Operating on the theory it’s never too late to illegally overthrow a presidential election, Ramthun tried for months to convince Vos to allow a vote on his absurd bill to decertify President Biden’s election and award Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes to the defeated president. He argues it could inspire other Republican legislatures to do the same and suddenly end Biden’s presidency returning Trump to office.
That’s nonsense, of course. A president can only be removed by impeachment or a 25th Amendment vote by the vice president and majority of the cabinet declaring the president incapable of performing the duties of the office. But that hasn’t stopped Trump and his sleazy gang from enthusiastically embracing Ramthun’s fantasy.
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Hawking Conspiracies
Mike Lindell, famous hawker of pillows and election conspiracies, introduced Ramthun at his gubernatorial announcement at Kewaskum High School a week ago. The event included a call-in endorsement from Michael Flynn, Trump’s fired national security advisor granted a presidential pardon for lying to the FBI during the investigation of Russia’s election interference on Trump’s behalf in 2016.
Former Trump political advisor Steve Bannon, another recipient of a presidential pardon for pocketing more than a million dollars in funds fraudulently raised to continue building the US-Mexico wall, interviewed Ramthun on his podcast.
Ramthun occasionally drops hints of an association with QAnon, the crazed, conspiratorial cult deifying Trump for protecting America from cannibalistic Democratic pedophiles who devour children. In other words, he’s Trump’s kind of guy. One of Ramthun’s election fraud videos was titled “The Calm Before the Storm.”
Still Fighting Reality
Wisconsin is one of the last states in the country where Republicans are still fighting over how to overturn the 2020 election instead of organizing for November’s midterms. Ramthun’s entry into the governor’s race continues that battle into the midterms. Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has his party united behind him to protect democracy by vetoing every election subversion measure Wisconsin’s heavily gerrymandered Republican legislature can concoct.
There’s no question Republicans are totally out of step with most state voters who have moved on from 2020. In October’s Marquette University Law School poll, 65% of voters expressed confidence “the votes for president were accurately cast and counted.” Party identification shows the opposite for Republicans. Only 33% of Republicans were confident and 64% were not. That compares to 67% of independents who were confident and 30% not and 99% of Democrats confident and only 1% not.
The best-known Republican candidates for governor—former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Kevin Nicholson, a former Marine and failed primary candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2018—who have tried to raise doubts about the 2020 election themselves are warily watching Ramthun’s entry into the race.
Ramthun says he’s questioned the legitimacy of every state presidential election but Trump’s since 1996 when President Clinton beat Bob Dole. He advocates scrapping voting machines and using paper ballots even though machines are primarily used in Wisconsin to rapidly count paper ballots.
The Republican Party of Langlade County was the first to call for Vos’s resignation for blocking decertification of Biden’s election. Several other rural counties have done the same since.
Republicans throughout the state will be watching what Vos does in the days ahead. Like U.S House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Vos specializes in constantly shape shifting to satisfy even the most extreme lunatic fringe of Trump supporters.
Langlade County Republican chairman Terry Brand, who chartered a bus to Ramthun’s rally, said: “People are foaming at the mouth over this issue.” That sounds like a terminally ill party.
