Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has notoriously downplayed the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, lending credence to conspiracy theories that there was a large contingent of left-wing actors involved and falsely claiming there was no violence on the Senate side of the building. He also claimed there were no Trump supporters in the mob.
Writing for The Washington Post, Eugene Scott points out that Johnson is up for reelection in 2022, and "his decision to defend Trump supporters while running in a state that went for President Biden in 2020 shows he's placing his bets on appealing to some of the state's most conservative voters."
Speaking to the Post, Marquette University's chair of the political science department, Paul Nolette, said that Johnson's rhetoric has changed a lot since he ran in 2010, and that likely has to do with shifts in his state's GOP.
"For the most part, the Republican suburbs have stayed Republican here in Wisconsin but the things that a lot of the suburban voters — particularly around Milwaukee — don't particularly care for is Trump's style and his politics," Nolette said. "And Republicans have seen their support drop in those surrounding counties during the Trump era."
"So Johnson, who was kind of the perfect fit back in 2010 for those Republican suburbs, is much less of a good fit now for those suburbs and a much more of a good fit for some of the rural areas in the state, which have turned quite a bit more Republican in the last few years where Trump remains popular," Nolette added.
According to former adviser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and Trump critic Stuart Stevens, the Republican Party "has become very comfortable with the formalization of becoming an official white grievance party."
"It's a moment not unlike same-sex marriage where Republicans are just completely on the wrong side of the cultural war. And they just don't understand this," he said, alluding to Johnson.
In the Post, Scott says that comments from GOP lawmakers like Johnson show that his party is "leaning into its perception as the party of White voters anxious about the changing cultural landscape of America."
Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post.
