Ron Johnson is the worst

Ron Johnson is a threat to democracy

Even after the Electoral College confirmed Joe Biden’s victory and numerous courts rejected claims of vote fraud, Ron Johnson used his position as chairman of the Homeland Security committee to promote Trump’s false claims.

Then one of Ron Johnson’s top aides even attempted to hand off a list of fake electors to Vice President Mike Pence minutes before Pence began counting electoral votes on January 6, 2021. Confronted about this, Ron Johnson kept changing his story.

Now — after attempting to trash the votes of over 1.6 million Wisconsinites — Johnson is asking for our votes and another 6 years in power.

Ron Johnson is a threat to Americans’ health

Despite COVID-19 killing more than 1,060,000 Americans since 2020, Ron Johnson has been a firehose of dangerous disinformation throughout the pandemic. As recently as May 2022, he suggested that COVID-19 vaccines may cause AIDS. In January 2022, he talked about “All these athletes dropping dead on the field” after COVID vaccination.

When he was Homeland Security chairman during the Trump administration, Ron Johnson used his position to promote the wrong drugs, ridiculous theories, and debunked claims.

Ron Johnson willfully ignored January 6 crimes

Ron Johnson tries to present himself as a “law and order” candidate, yet has repeatedly played dumb regarding the January 6, 2021 insurrection by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol — even asserting that he “knew those were people that loved this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law.” Johnson even used a congressional hearing to promote conspiracy theories that the Trump supporters were fakes.

Ron Johnson wants to cripple Social Security and Medicare

Rather than keeping Social Security and Medicare as mandatory items in the federal budget, Ron Johnson has said he wants them to be voted on annually.

Millions of Wisconsinites pay into Social Security with every paycheck — and the basic health of more than 20 percent of our state’s residents depends on Medicare.

Ron Johnson wants to turn these crucial programs (and others) into political footballs for Congress to pass or punt every single year.

Ron Johnson helped rig the Supreme Court

After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the outrageous and anti-democratic move of completely blocking President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, Ron Johnson voted to confirm three of Donald Trump’s nominees — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — despite serious questions about Kavanaugh’s fitness and despite a presidential election only 8 days after Barrett’s confirmation.

This Republican rigging of our nation’s highest legal authority — giving Trump three appointments when he should only have had one — has produced record-low confidence in the Supreme Court and quickly overturned Roe v. Wade, outlawing abortion in many states — with bold hints that same-sex marriage and birth control may be outlawed next.

Ron Johnson thinks climate change is “bullshit”

Droughts are frying the landscape. Floods are washing American citizens away week in and week out. Major water reservoirs are drying up. Global warming threatens Wisconsin’s agriculture and tourism industry. An extreme heat belt will extend into Wisconsin within 30 years.

But to Ron Johnson, it’s simply bullshit. This is the sort of wilful ignorance you would expect from a 4-year-old.

Ron Johnson opposes every bill aimed at reducing gun violence

Ron Johnson has a long history of opposing gun safety laws — even the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. He voted against even debating that bill.

It became law anyway — with the support of Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 13 other Republican senators.

But not Ron Johnson.

Ron Johnson promised he would not run again

One of the big selling points Ron Johnson emphasized during his 2016 campaign was that if he won, the 2017-2022 term would be his last.

Ron Johnson is not chairman anymore. By his own assessment, he can no longer accomplish things. And yet despite his promise to step aside after 12 years, he’s running for yet another 6-year term — and still insists he’s “not a career politician.”

Ron Johnson thinks you’re an idiot about inflation

The inflation that followed the COVID pandemic has caused serious pain, so Ron Johnson has tried to pin it on President Biden and the Democrats — ignoring that inflation has been a problem around the world over the last two years, and it’s much worse in many other countries (25% in Israel).

Ron Johnson blames Democratic spending packages like the American Rescue Plan for driving inflation — but we could have had a double-digit recession in spring 2021 without it.

Worse, the hypocritical Ron Johnson voted for an even bigger stimulus bill — the $2.2 trillion CARES Act signed on March 27, 2020 by Donald Trump. Surely you remember that stimulus payment: President Donald J. Trump insisted on having his name appear on the checks.

Ron Johnson wants you to think government spending only causes inflation when the Democrats do it.

Inflation is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — and here is the Consumer Price Index for Ron Johnson’s entire 11 years and 9 months in office:

Ron Johnson exploited the Kenosha riots for his own gain

Ron Johnson has run commercials portraying the August 2020 unrest in Kenosha as part of the “radical left’s agenda” and himself as our savior from riots.

But who was our senator when the riots occurred? Ron Johnson.

And who was president? Donald Trump — the same Donald Trump who made “American carnage” the theme of his inaugural address while the crime rate was actually falling to a 27-year low.

Police brutality (and the perception of police brutality) have historically resulted in riots — from the Ferguson, Missouri unrest in 2014 back to the 1967 Milwaukee riot and beyond.

When multiple incidents of police violence dominated the news during the summer of 2020, is it any surprise that the police shooting in Kenosha escalated into a riot?

Is it any surprise that Trump then used Kenosha as a stage for his own photo op?

Ron Johnson voted against a $35 insulin cap

Over half a million adults in Wisconsin are living with diabetes. The average list price of insulin tripled between 2002 and 2013 and doubled again from 2012 to 2016.

Nevertheless, on August 7, 2022, Ron Johnson voted to remove a $35 insulin cap from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Ron Johnson is not “new leadership”

If we have “crippling inflation” and “record gas prices,” those things happened on Ron Johnson’s watch. Now — after 12 years on the job — he’s suddenly going to “restore the American dream”?