Nearly a year ago, The New York Times described Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson as “the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation.” It was an accurate description the GOP senator earned in a wide variety of ways.
As regular readers know, Johnson has spent the past few years becoming a far-right caricature who’s increasingly seen as more of a partisan clown than a serious policymaker. The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has said he’s “unfit” for office and called him “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s.”
The scope of his troubles is almost impressive. Johnson has, for example, cultivated a dreadful record on Covid-19. And the Jan. 6 attack. And support for foreign autocrats. And Russian disinformation.
There was, however, an exception. Last summer, as too many Republican voices peddled bizarre conspiracy theories about Donald Trump’s defeat, Johnson actually seemed willing to accept the results as legitimate, especially in his home state.
“There’s nothing obviously skewed about the results,” the senator conceded. Noting the results from other Wisconsin races, Johnson added, “If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he would have won. He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.”
Alas, Johnson has apparently abandoned this fair-minded approach with a new line, which HuffPost highlighted overnight: “Our concern is Milwaukee…. This is one of these big Democrat strongholds that just can’t seem to get their votes counted until they know exactly how many votes they need,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said during a tele-town hall on Wednesday. “Whether anything’s happening or not, this just looks suspicious.” Remember, as recently as August, the senator seemed to know better. He said over the summer that the election results weren’t “skewed.” But now he’s peddling conspiratorial nonsense on this front, too. To the extent that reality still matters, there’s no evidence of election irregularities in Milwaukee. If Johnson has anything to substantiate “suspicions” about the city’s election results, he’s kept it to himself. What’s actually suspicious is that the Republican targeted his home state’s most racially diverse city with claims of election irregularities that he hasn’t even tried to prove.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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