How Tom Tiffany Falsifies History

Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, at Gov. Tony Evers’ first State of the State address in Madison, Wisconsin, at the State Capitol building on Jan. 22, 2019. Emily Hamer/Wisconsin Watch

Last week was the most significant holiday of the year for Black Americans, and perhaps even more important for Milwaukee’s African American community: June 19, or Juneteenth Day. It celebrates the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that the Civil War had ended and that all enslaved people were finally free. And Milwaukee was one of the early cities to officially recognize this with a Juneteenth celebration.

The importance of this event was signified by the U.S. Congress, which voted overwhelmingly to make this day a federal holiday, a measure signed into law by President Joe Biden on June 17, 2021. The vote in the U.S. Senate was unanimous. Not even Wisconsin’s radical Republican Ron Johnson, who initially offered objections, voted against it.

The vote in the House of Representatives was 415-14, with mostly a smattering of Southern representatives voting no. Just one Midwestern member of the House opposed it: Wisconsin’s Tom Tiffany, putting him in opposition to 515 members of Congress.

“My vote reflected my belief that America has one Independence Day, and that is July 4th,” Tiffany said in a statement at the time. “Juneteenth and other historic events should be celebrated… but I do not support the premise of establishing another Independence Day when July 4th serves as a unifying moment for all Americans and reminds us of our ongoing work to build a more perfect Union.”

But Juneteenth is not “another Independence Day.” July 4 celebrates the American colonies’ independence from Britain. And while it celebrated that “all men are equal,” this most definitely did not include America’s enslaved people. They were left as property of their white owners, with no upgrade whatsoever in their rights.

Juneteenth is not a celebration of independence from another country, but of freedom from slavery after 246 years of bondage in America, including 89 years since the Declaration of Independence had been written. As the former slave and famed orator Frederick Douglas declared in an Independence Day address in 1852, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

To ask Black Americans to celebrate July 4 as their day of freedom is to ignore our Constitution, which gave no rights to enslaved people and counted them as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of giving Southern slave states more political power. It was a bloody Civil War that gave Black Americans their freedom, not the Constitution.

All of this is history Tiffany must know. If he doesn’t, he lacks the knowledge and wisdom to serve as governor. And if he does, he is offering a misleading and essentially false version of American history. Some of his other stands suggest the latter is the case.

Tiffany and Republican Rep. Scott Fitzgerald were the state’s only lawmakers voting to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory in the key swing states of Arizona and Pennsylvania. Wisconsin Republican U.S. House members Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil and Mike Gallagher all voted to affirm Biden’s election. Even Ron Johnson, an election conspiracy theorist himself, switched his vote to support the Arizona election.

Grothman condemned the attempt to overturn the election. “I am sure that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are spinning in their graves. The idea that the President would be determined by a vote of Congress is both absurd and dangerous,” he said.

Gallagher was equally alarmed, writing a column for the conservative National Review declaring “The idea that Congress — not the people in the states — gets to choose the president and the vice president would surprise the Framers. It would stun millions of Americans.”

Tiffany claimed that “unscrupulous” officials in Dane County and Milwaukee County allowed “hundreds of thousands of illegal votes to be cast and counted,” a blatant lie that has never been proven by him or anyone else. He also said he would have voted to overturn the election in Wisconsin had Congress chosen to vote on this.

Tiffany initially offered some resistance to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, saying “violence is unacceptable,” but soon changed his tune, dismissing the House’s Jan. 6 committee hearings as an attempt “to distract the American people from the damage that’s being done to our country right now. Inflation, energy prices out of control, southern border out of control, crime.”

Tiffany has since gone on to support the Jan. 6 attempt to overthrow the government, backing the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund Trump sought to create and which could have rewarded the Capitol rioters. Tiffany embraced the fund, saying, “I would want to take a look at what was the harm that was done to those victims. If it’s significant enough, perhaps they should receive compensation.” He offered an exception only for “anyone who harmed a law enforcement official.”

Ultimately Trump faced so much opposition from Senate Republicans that he backed off on creating the fund. But had it been up to Tiffany, the Jan. 6 rioters would have been given financial awards for trying to overthrow the government. Need I add that the Founding Fathers would have been horrified at this? One of their paramount concerns was to assure the peaceful succession of one president after another.

Tiffany’s comment about Juneteenth Day was made back in 2021, but he has made no attempt to change or clarify it now that he is running for governor. Indeed, his recent comments about Trump’s anti-weaponization fund suggest his views on the 2020 election have gotten even more radical.

Tiffany has falsified our nation’s history, lied about our elections, supported attempts to overthrow an election and supported financial rewards for rioters who attempted to bring down our government. And he wants our vote to serve as governor? As Grothman once put it, America’s founders must be spinning in their graves.