The Hoax Master of Wisconsin

What the hell has happened to Ron Johnson?

He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010 as a Republican “citizen legislator,” a real-life version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the political neophyte who would bring purity to politics. His “first task is to save our nation from bankruptcy,” he soberly explained. America’s freedom is threatened by “unsustainable levels of spending and debt.”  

He was a businessman who would bring fiscal discipline to Washington. “Washington D.C. doesn’t have an ideology problem; it has a math problem,” he declared. Johnson became Washington’s premier deficit scold, with endless charts on America’s debt and a Power-Point presentation he foisted on members of both parties. “Some Republican leaders reported hearing the same presentation on the subjects—delivered via PowerPoint—three times,” as a story in the Atlantic reported.

In short, a harmless wind bag obsessed with the debt. There are far worst sorts to be found in Congress.

But something happened after Johnson was reelected and Donald Trump took over the presidency. The man for whom debt was like a disease supported a massive tax giveaway to corporations and wealthy taxpayers that would drive the deficit to levels unseen since just after the massive spending on World War II. But he didn’t just jettison his stated reason for seeking office — to trim the debt. He also obliterated his “citizen legislator” image, making sure the tax bill added a benefit for “pass-through” or limited liability companies that would personally benefit him.

The ideologue who promised he had “the backbone” needed to help members of Congress develop a spine turned out to have no principles at all. And since then he has, year by year, turned into a peddler of countless hoaxes and conspiracy theories. He colluded with a disgraced Ukrainian official to spread disinformation on Joe Biden, promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine to combat COVID-19 though it was proven to have no benefits and perhaps harm those who took it, and repeatedly claimed with no evidence there were irregularities in 2020 election.

Little more than a week ago he suggested House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was somehow responsible for the January 6 Capitol riot. The claim made no sense. Why would Pelosi want to allow a riot by people who were threatening her life? In fact, the House Speaker has no oversight role over the Capitol police, as Forbes noted.

But marshaling facts and logic to respond to Johnson’s conspiracy mongering ends up giving it far more dignity than it deserves. Johnson offered no evidence, admitted he had none and merely said he was “suspicious” of “what the speaker knew and when she knew it.” In short, pure demagoguery.

This week Johnson had a new lie to peddle, denying the Capitol riot was violent. On Monday he went on WISN radio and said this: “This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me… When you hear the word ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms? Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask: How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired?”