MARCH 2021 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. This is becoming a habit. In a Senate hearing investigating the security breakdown at the capitol, instead of asking the witnesses questions, as senators are expected to do, Johnson pulled out a statement from the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group, to explain why his “eyewitness” testimony was more valuable than that of any of the police officers on the scene, or the 300 million Americans who watched the tragedy unfold in real time. That’s because this witness had magic calibrated eyeballs, making him capable of discerning real Trump supporters from fake Antifa infiltrators.

Real Trump supporters are “jovial” and “friendly” people of the “working class.” But others don’t fit in. These people are, quoting now: “plain clothes militants, agent provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and disciplined uniformed column of attackers.” These are the people who, according to Johnson, planned the attack on the Capitol.

But Johnson wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. According to his expert not-appearing-at-this-hearing witness, marchers were thrilled by the “courtesy gesture” of not seeing Capitol Police on every corner. With this invite, the Trump supporters “surged” toward the Capitol. In a good way. In a “talkative and happy” way. Because, after all, if they didn’t see any police trying to stop them, that was a perfect reason to step over, around, or through four levels of barricades between the street and the Capitol grounds.

Everyone was in “high spirits” until what “seemed like a scuffle” broke out between people in “ordinary clothes.” However, even though these people were wearing ordinary clothes that “fit right in with MAGA people,” Johnson’s expert could tell they were “plain clothes militants.” How he could tell is unexplained. Maybe he had X-ray specs. These people that looked exactly like regular Trump supporters but were clearly not as happy, talkative, jovial, or friendly got into a brief “tussle” with police. Then one of the police officers “fired a tear gas canister, not at the plain clothes militants at the front line, but into the crowd itself.” Apparently, police were unable to see the very subtle difference between good Trump supporters and evil fake Trump supporters that was obvious to Johnson’s pal.

This “changed the crowd’s demeanor” because “all of a sudden pro-police people felt like the police were attacking them,” read Johnson. “The pro-police crowd went from confusion, to anger.”

Then, having explained that the police were actually responsible for the deaths and injuries to police because they made all those jovial pro-police people angry, Johnson tried to enlist the police officials gathered in front of him in his claims that the police were to blame for Jan. 6. Shockingly, this did not go well. He started off asked former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund if it wasn’t true that Trump supporters were pro-police. Sund’s reply was that he didn’t know about that. However, he did note that some of the people shoving their way through police lines and assaulting his officers actually claimed to be police themselves. Somehow, that’s a lot more believable than Johnson’s claims about “agent provocateurs.” Funny how the people who have been arrested so far look like Trump supporters.

If you know any “jovial” and “friendly” Trump supporters, please forward their names to me. I’ve been searching for over four years now.

2. More Senator Ron Johnson. He’s not the only one, of course. For instance, I’m convinced Matt Gaetz has the largest head-to-brain-size ratio in the animal kingdom and that Louie Gohmert is the lamentable result of a failed attempt to breed a white supremacist lemur with a bowl of beets. Then there’s Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Green, who would be your evening’s Tinder dates if you used a cursed monkey’s paw to swipe right.

But none of these characters are part of the venerable upper chamber. Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, on the other hand, very much is.

In a recent wide-ranging New York Times story about Johnson’s boundless stupidity, one section jumped out at me. You see, Johnson thinks he understands history and science, when in fact his only connection to anything marginally “scientific” is the baking soda volcano inside his head.

The Times story starts out by delineating some of Johnson’s recent sins against the brain-endowed community—i.e., his reference to the Trump troglodytes that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “friendly” and “jovial” (see above), and his eager acceptance and dissemination of Russian disinformation, etc.—but when the topic of climate change came up, I nearly spit green tea all over my computer:

But there were signs in that first campaign of Mr. Johnson’s predilection for anti-intellectualism. On several occasions, he declared that climate change was not man-made but instead caused by “sun spots” and that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “helps the trees grow.” He also offered a false history of Greenland to dismiss the effects of global warming.

“You know, there’s a reason Greenland was called Greenland,” Johnson told WKOW-TV in Madison back then. “It was actually green at one point in time. And it’s been, you know, since, it’s a whole lot whiter now so we’ve experienced climate change throughout geologic time.”

In the interview on Thursday, Mr. Johnson was still misinformed about the etymology of Greenland, which got its name from the explorer Erik the Red’s attempt to lure settlers to the ice-covered island.

Okay, sure. Parts of Greenland were green, but it’s not like it was a vast verdant island in the 10th century that has since become swathed in ice.

To be fair, Johnson also said, “I could be wrong there, but that’s always been my assumption that, at some point in time, those early explorers saw green. I have no idea.”

They did see green, Ron. And you also have no idea. Both can be true.

Sure, there’s some green in Greenland, but it’s still mostly white. Why else would Donald Trump want to trade Puerto Rico for it?

I recall when Wisconsin was represented by the progressive stalwart Senator, Russ Feingold. To be replaced by an imbecile like Johnson is like ordering a baked Brie wheel and getting a crockpot full of Velveeta dumped in your lap instead.

Ron Johnson is a propagandist who manufactures false claims against his enemies and distorts plain truths in order to paper over the errors or corruption of his allies. It is a form of corruption that strikes at the nation's very heart, and it deserves more press attention as something more than filler or sideshow.

3. Eric Trump. The Neanderthal Trump son appeared on Fox & Friends with Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade. It wasn’t exactly the Algonquin Roundtable. During the conversation, they passed the lone brain cell they share together to whoever wanted to speak next—like it was the tribal conch in Lord of the Flies or a group therapy leader’s Koosh ball or something.

And like a little boy who thinks the world disappears when he closes his eyes, Eric decided magic happens whenever his daddy steps into or out of the White House.

To wit: Eric Trump thinks Texas is freezing right now because of Joe Biden. Because, you know, Joe Biden has a Thor-like sway over the weather.

After Doocy asked Trump about his dad’s upcoming CPAC speech, Tweedledee said this:

ERIC TRUMP: “Listen, I say it every day, but there’s 75, 80 million people who would follow my father to the end of the Earth. They love him, they love what he stands for. They love that he goes out and he fights for America. They love that he’s not scripted and he’s not the typical politician. He’s not a career politician, and, you know, they’re incredibly proud of him. They love that he's hugging the American flag like you’re seeing right there in the B-roll, right? I mean, they love that about him, and you’re seeing less and less of that every single day, and so there’s no question he’ll play a pivotal role in politics for a very long time to come.”

Yes, you are seeing less literal flag-hugging from our POTUS every single day. That is accurate.

Instead, our president wants to rebuild our alliances, cease coddling our enemies, and bring competence back to our federal agencies. Instead of dry-humping flags into oblivion. Outrage.

Oh, but Eric wasn’t done. After saying he believes his dad “is the modern Republican Party” and that anyone who crossed him will likely get primaried, he disgorged this nonsense from his tumescent, sputtering Trump head.

ERIC TRUMP: “I think every single day Biden makes people miss Donald Trump more when you see these policies that are literally destroying jobs, that are destroying industries, that are causing Texas to freeze, that are cutting off our power to our energy grids, and all these other nonsensical policies.”

Okay, he can't really be this stupid, can he?

I mean, granted, this is the Trumpian way. Take credit for anything good that happens while Trump was in office while disclaiming responsibility for anything bad. And the cutoff point is immediately when you or the other guy takes over. So, Trump took credit for Obama’s recovery moments after he entered the White House, but a pandemic that he let spiral out of control and kill more than 500,000 Americans? Oh, let’s not look at that. It's a trifle.

Of course, what we must focus on is Joe Biden’s alleged role in a Texas deep freeze that had literally zero to do with Joe Biden. Did Biden insist on deregulating Texas’ energy system and maintaining an independent grid that would keep it out of the clutches of “typical” politicians like Joe Biden?

Nah, that was Texas. In fact, what we’re seeing now is a conservative Republican hellscape whose paternity cannot be questioned.

But hey, when your followers think like children, you can speak like a child and get away with it. Particularly when you’re talking to a Fox News brain trust that can’t manage to cobble together a human brain between them.

4. Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Republicans know exactly what they’re doing in pushing for a raft of voter suppression laws, and it has absolutely nothing to do with worries about voter fraud. Let Cancun Ted Cruz tell you about it.

Cruz was caught on tape saying there should be no compromise on implementing harsher voting restrictions, warning that the GOP’s future is at stake if the Democratic-backed H.R. 1 legislation becomes law. The Associated Press obtained a recording of Cruz’s comments from a participant in an invitation-only call with state lawmakers organized by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-backed conservative lobbying group that produces model legislation for to Republican state legislators.

“H.R. 1′s only objective is to ensure that Democrats can never again lose another election, that they will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century,” Cruz said.

Asked if there was room to compromise, Cruz was blunt: “No.”

Cruz previewed the lines of attack that Republicans are likely to push in the coming weeks by branding H.R. 1 as the “Corrupt Politicians Act.” He claimed the bill would lead to voting by millions of “criminals and illegal aliens.”

“H.R. 1 says America would be better off if more murderers were voting, America would be better off if more rapists and child molesters were voting,” Cruz said.

It reflects the intensity of Republican support for voting restrictions which they consider an existential matter for their party.

H.R. 1 would require states to automatically register eligible voters, offer same-day registration, limit states’ ability to purge registered voters from their rolls, and restore voting rights to former felons. It would also mandate that states offer 15 days of early voting and allow no-excuse absentee voting.

Since the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have introduced measures to suppress the votes of People of Color and young people  by introducing such measures as  voter identification requirements, closing down polling places, stifling early and mail-in voting, and making it more difficult to register—all aimed at making it more difficult for likely Democrat voters to vote.

It shows the stakes in the battle within in the Senate over passing H.R. 1. Democrats must themselves make an all-out effort to pass the Senate version of H.R.1 because the 250+ voting restriction measures under consideration across the country could suppress the Democratic vote and ensure that an increasingly authoritarian GOP gets a firm grip on power for years to come. The post-2020 measures introduced by GOP lawmakers amount to the greatest assault on voting rights since Jim Crow held sway over much of the South. Make it perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy in our history.

This is a call to arms for Democrats, and if it takes eliminating the filibuster specifically for voting rights legislation then Democratic senators must take such action.

5. Arizona State Rep. John Kavanagh. Staying with the voter suppression, let’s visit Arizona’s latest restrictive action. Republicans in the state legislature are trying to pass a large slate of anti-voting laws, including ones that would: drop people from the state’s permanent early voting roll if they don’t vote for consecutive election; require people to mail in identification with their ballots; and, not simply cut back on early voting but require ballots to be postmarked by the Thursday before Election Day. This in a state where voting by mail has been widespread for years, with 61% of votes in 2012 cast by mail. 

State Rep. John Kavanagh, the chair of the Government and Elections Committee that recently advanced the bill clearing the way for purges of the permanent early voting roll, explained why he thinks people should have to jump through a series of hoops to vote.

"Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they're totally uninformed on the issues," Kavanagh said. "Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well."

Don’t even get me started on someone from the party of Donald Trump and Fox News—the network that makes its voters less informed—talking about people being “totally uninformed on the issues.” Just don’t.

But we need to talk about “quality.” Being a citizen of the United States legally eligible to vote is not enough to be “quality.”

You have to vote regularly or else take action to prevent yourself from being caught up in a purge. You have to photocopy and mail in identification, and you have to get that in the mail by the Thursday before Election Day or your ballot doesn’t count even if it arrives by Election Day. These things might not seem like a lot to people with time and easy access to printers and photocopiers, but make no mistake, they are intended to get in the way of voting by people these Republican state legislators don’t think are “quality,” with all the racial and class undertones and overtones you could possibly attach to that term.

It’s a message from the same party that, in Georgia, is moving to restrict early voting on the days Black churches turn out the vote and to restrict no-excuse absentee voting to the age groups in which the majority of 2020 absentee voters were white.

It’s a message from the party that is pushing literally hundreds of bills suppressing the vote in dozens of different ways in states across the country. The backers of such bills should be pariahs, trying to exclude eligible voters from casting their ballots because they’re Black or brown or young or poor or otherwise seen by Republicans as likely to vote for Democrats, but instead these backers continue to get corporate funding from too many companies and they may be on the brink of getting a big assist from the Trump Supreme Court.

Democrats have the legislation to fix all this and end partisan gerrymandering, but of course it won’t pass the Senate as long as Republicans have 40 votes and the filibuster is in place. Krysten Sinema, where are you?

6. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green. I don’t want to waste my time with this sick example of a human being, so I offer just this brief morsel to underscore her profound ignorance and unfitness to represent even her Trump-country district.

In a recent press conference, Green referred to Guam as a foreign land undeserving of American aid. Maybe someone should remind her that Guam has been a U.S. territory for 122 years. How about requiring Green and Senator Tommy Tuberville to go back to elementary school as a condition for keeping their jobs?

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And the winner is:

I must give the March IGGY to the ignominious propagandist, Senator Joe McCarthy—er! Ron Johnson. Let me explain.

Senator Johnson has become the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation, an all-access purveyor of misinformation on serious issues, one who uses his powerful perch to mislead the American public on critical subjects and in dire ways. He is a propagandist and a shameless liar.

Johnson's lies are all to a purpose. He lies to boost his party's ideological stances—even when those stances were merely blundered upon, as with his continued boosting of hydroxychloroquine as anti-COVID treatment. Johnson’s lies are part of a brickheaded campaign to sow distrust in all things non-Republican, be they in science or in government. It is the same for climate change, and for his backing of Russian-backed conspiracy theories about Ukraine and the Biden family; there is no invented fiction that he will not endorse in service to a long-term partisan campaign demonizing non-conservative, non-Republican figures as something close to vampires.

Similarly, he lies to absolve his own party and ideological tent from even proven violent acts, as with his incessant new explanations as to how the violent insurrection that targeted lawmakers inside the Capitol was not violent, or that the violence was caused by non-conservatives who had secretly infiltrated the conservative crowd, or take-your-pick. It does not seem to matter to him that each of these lies is provably false on their face. He continues, undaunted, even as profiles of those arrested for the violence paint each as rabid far-right partisan.

There was a point when it seemed possible that Johnson was lying so prolifically because he was genuinely stupid, as I insinuated above. The current pattern seems to put such thoughts to rest, however; he is lying about things that he himself has seen with his own eyes, and about things that have been so prolifically debunked that he, an alleged United States senator with his own dedicated staff, could not, in good faith, possibly still be confused about. The man is a liar and a provocateur, nothing more.

Johnson not only well deserves a monthly IGGY, he has taken a major step toward induction into the IGGY Hall-of-Fame, where he will join Donald J. Trump. Now that is a notable achievement.