Ron Johnson just unwittingly did the Democrats a favor
Wisconsin, a fairly purple state in the Midwest with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans is one of the states that offers us a prime chance to build our majority in the Senate – particularly when the Democratic nominee will face off against notorious insurrectionist Ron Johnson who was last re-elected on the same night as the former guy. Johnson has won two terms before – and also broke his campaign promise about not running for more than two, so defeating him will be a lot of work – but it’s also a fight that’s worth putting in the work for.
Fortunately, Johnson did us a favor on Tuesday by simply running his mouth again on the topic of guns. Like other Republican politicians, he’s doing everything he can to try and run out the clock and deflect from having to do anything on the issue – even when it comes to some measure as common sense as raising the minimum age requirement to purchase the AR-15. When pressed on the issue, Johnson tried the old canard of “enforcing the laws already on the books,” which is a non-starter since Republicans usually brag about using their power to get rid of a lot of these laws, particularly about guns, like they did under the former guy’s administration, leaving us worse off.
Johnson wasn’t finished however – as he somehow tried to turn the whole thing into a rant about Hunter Biden who isn’t an elected official, has nothing to do with the Uvalde shootings, and even worse, hasn’t really worked as an effective distraction for anyone outside of Trump’s demented base. It’s clear he’s lost the plot – and all but wrote the perfect ad to be used against him in the fall, while ensuring that Democrats and probably a good deal of voters in the middle can get behind whoever his opponent is.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making