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Ron Johnson knows his ‘ridiculous’ Capitol riot claims aren’t true – but he is desperate to keep his job: report
March 05, 2021
During his time to question members of law enforcement over the riot at the U.S. Capitol, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson (R) didn't ask many questions. Instead, he read excerpts from an article that claimed the mob at the Capitol were actually peaceful, and when violence broke out, it was partly being stoked by a contingent of "fake Trump supporters" who may have been "antifa or other leftist agitators."
In an article published by Wisconsin Public Radio this Friday, Shawn Johnson says that Sen. Johnson used the article to claim that it was the "fake" Trump supporters "who probably planned this" -- a comment that riled many in the room "who had only weeks earlier been whisked to secure locations when rioters overwhelmed police and overtook the Capitol, including the Senate chamber."
<p>Speaking to WPR, Real Clear Politics' A.B. Stoddard said that there's a reason Johnson is floating conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack. Like other Republicans on the ballot in 2022, Johnson is catering to Donald Trump and his supporters. </p><p>"I know the senator," Stoddard said of Johnson. "He is smart enough, and I know that he knows this stuff isn't true."<br/></p><p>"He's basically going where the wind is blowing," she added. "His voters are asking for this, and he wants that job."</p><p>Despite videos showing Capitol rioters wielding pepper spray, flag poles, and other objects, Johnson <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/15/ron-johnson-questions-whether-armed-insurrection-occurred-capitol/6753376002/" target="_blank">has questioned</a> whether it was accurate to describe the situation as an "armed" insurrection. </p><p>"They were out there with Trump merch, screaming 'Fight for Trump' and calling the cops 'traitors,'" Stoddard remarked. "So with the video that we have, Sen. Johnson's comments are ridiculous."</p><p><span></span>Read the full article over at <a href="https://www.wpr.org/insurrection-election-ron-johnson-courts-controversy-he-weighs-third-term" target="_blank">Wisconsin Public Radio</a>. </p>
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GOP's embrace of extremist Trump supporters is driving mainstream Republicans to become Democrats: pollster
March 05, 2021
According to the pollster who coined the 'Reagan Democrat" label applied to longtime Democrats who switched parties due to the appeal of former President Ronald Reagan, the current Republican Party is facing a similar exodus of voters who have been turned off by Donald Trump and the crowd he brought into the GOP.
In an interview in Politico with legendary pollster Stanley Greenberg, he revealed the subtle racism that led to Democrats joining the GOP in 1984 no longer appeals to the upper-middle class suburbanites who have been turned off by a party now steeped in what was described as "white grievance."
Describing "Reagan Democrats," Greenberg wrote, "the leaders who were supposed to fight for them seemed to care more about the blacks in Detroit and the protesters on campus; they seemed to care more about equal rights and abortion than about mortgage payments and crime. The old politics has failed them. What they really want is a new political contract — and the freedom to dream the American dream again."
That was then and this is now, he said, explaining: "In leaning too hard into white identity politics — and perhaps being too focused on what he thought Reagan Democrats wanted — Trump accelerated the rise of a new voting bloc that is, in many ways, the mirror image of the Reagan Democrats. Call them the Biden Republicans."
"Historically, they identified with the Republican Party as their political home," the Politico report from Zack Stanton elaborates. "But the leaders who were supposed to fight for them seem to care more about white grievance and keeping out immigrants; seem to care more about social issues and 'owning the libs' than about childcare payments and college tuition. They don't consider themselves Democrats — at least not yet — but they are voting for them, delivering them majorities in the House and Senate, and making Joe Biden just the fourth candidate in the last century to defeat an incumbent president."
According to the pollster, the loss of these voters could have a drastic impact on the future of the Republican Party.
"If you look at the trends in this election, [Trump's campaign] was able to, like, wage a race war with a massive increase in turnout in the rural areas and among white working-class voters. But the percentage of eligible voters who are older than Millennials dropped by 8 points. So for Republicans to be successful with this strategy while going against that demographic trend, you need a continually animating and increasingly intense and effective effort to turn out the vote," Greenberg explained. "They are going to have to lose a few elections before there can be a new dynamic within the Republican Party — just as the Democrats lost a lot of national elections before Bill Clinton was able to change the party."
"I think there's two kinds of Biden Republicans — two trends. One of them is you saw quite affluent, very Republican towns [in suburban counties], and Biden got a very large percentage of votes from those counties. They are more affluent college graduates voting for Biden. Will they stick? They may, given how Trump is defining the Republican Party," he added.
You can read the whole interview here.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) this week forced a reading of the entire COVID-19 relief package on the Senate floor, which took up more than ten hours and didn't conclude until early on Friday morning.
However, CNN's Lauren Fox reported on Friday that Johnson's stunt backfired spectacularly, as it resulted in giving Republicans a far shorter period of debate for the bill.
<p>
"They finished in the middle of the night and in the end, Sen. Chris Val Hollen, a Democrat from the state of Maryland, rose to ask for some consent to restart this debate beginning at 9 a.m. today in the U.S. Senate," she said.
</p><p>
The key, Fox explained, was that Van Hollen asked for three hours to debate the bill instead of the expected 20 hours of time.
</p><p>
Johnson was not in the Senate at the time of Hollen's proposal and could not object to it -- and so it was adopted.
</p><p>
"In the end, instead of having 20 hours of debate, because there wasn't a Republican there to object at the end of this process, they are now just going to have three hours of debate," she said. "Then they will start at noon with this vote-a-rama."
</p><p>
<em>Watch the video below</em>.<br/>
</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 100%; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" class="" data-tweet-id="1367824069438169088" frameborder="0" id="twitter-widget-0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1367824069438169088&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rawstory.com%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2650923968%23publish&theme=light&widgetsVersion=e1ffbdb%3A1614796141937&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 581px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe></div> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
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