Ron Johnson Finds His Inner-Fascist
It’s hard to find a “Worst of Ron Johnson,” especially given the Wisconsin Republican senator once traveled to Moscow for the Fourth of July (an inexplicable action made all the worse, and yes, that’s possible, since it was on the same day as news reports of two people being poisoned by what is believed agents of Vladimir Putin). However, an interview he gave on Sunday with far-far right extremist Mark Levin has to be high on his list of Hall of Fame moments. It’s not just bad, it’s scary bad. It’s crazy bad. It’s “This is what President Biden was talking about in his ‘the MAGA extremist wing of the Republican Party is fascist” bad.
“The left has infiltrated every institution of this country…They’ve infiltrated every agency. They’ve infiltrated religions. They’ve infiltrated everything,” he raged. To quote the great Molly Ivins in another context, this probably sounded better in the original German.
Yes, Ron Johnson (R-WI) actually said all this. “Infiltrated.” Infiltrated, infiltrated, infiltrated, infiltrated. Everything!!!
The only hope is that by “infiltrated,” Ron Johnson meant “participates in, as is every American’s right according to the U.S. Constitution because we don’t live in an oppressive, authoritarian fascist dictatorship.”
But of course, he doesn’t mean that, because Ron Johnson is the demagogue who travels to Moscow on the Fourth of July and carries insurrection papers to the Senate floor. So, “liberals infiltrating religion, infiltrating every institution, infiltrating every agency, everything” means exactly what you know it means to this fascist.
The sense I get is that, as a Wisconsin senator, he’s doing his best to channel another Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy. (Whose henchman lawyer Roy Cohn was, of course, the mentor to Trump.) All he left out was “I have in my hand the name of 57 liberals who have infiltrated the third grade.” And “Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Democratic Party?”
Actually, he sort of did say some of that. Because one of his many other fascist rants about liberal infiltration was, “So they control college of education and journalism and law.”
(Fun Fact: Six members out of the nine Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republican presidents. But I’m not going to dive deep to disprove all of his hate-filled rant. You either get how fascist and profoundly un-American this all is by the first “infiltrate,” or you’re okay with fascism.
And making this even worse – and yes, with Ron Johnson, that’s always possible, if not likely – Ron Johnson was so worked up during the interview because he said this coming election was about…”freedom.”
Freedom, as you know, is the Republican Party’s far-right buzz word. When in doubt, when in trouble, when going down for the third time, cry out “Freeeedommmm!!!!”
In fairness, the election sort of is about freedom. It’s just it’s not from the perspective that Ron Johnson thinks. Or as the character Inigo Montoya says in William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
Today’s Republican Party wants to expand on the Supreme Court taking away the constitutional right to an abortion and ban it nationwide. They are talking about taking away the constitutional right to same-sex marriage. They have begun discussing taking away the constitutional right to contraceptives. They have been passing laws throughout Red states to limit the right to vote. They still cry out about building a wall on the U.S. southern border. They have passed laws about banning books. They have passed laws about what schools cannot teach.
And Ron Johnson – and so many other Republicans – want you to think they are the party that cares about protecting your freeeeeeeedommmm.
I’m going to stop there, because my typing fingers will begin to clench in fury if I kept going on the fascism that Republicans want to impose on American democracy, all in the fake name of their “faux freedom.”
And here’s the kicker – this clip of Johnson saying all that is even worse. Because, hey, that’s how Ron Johnson rolls. It’s repulsive, sicky and crazy.
“We've got to push them out of these institutions,” Ron Johnson rails in his most fascist way.
At the moment, Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com has Johnson leading Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes, but only by 0.2 percent. But in the four most recent polls covered by Silver, all from services with A-level ratings, Barnes is up by an average of about four points.
It’s much too close. But I have to believe – and hope – that statements like this from Johnson will have the very opposite effect he’s hoping for.
Here in full is that passage on Sunday. If you have any impressionable children nearby, you might want them to leave the room.
I know that Republicans hate it when their MAGA wing gets called fascist. But this is why. This is Ron Johnson. This is pure fascism. And Republicans will not call him out on it.
This is what President Biden and so many Democrats -- and people who grasp the pretty basic concept of democracy -- are talking about.
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