Ron Johnson, U. S. Senator from Wisconsin, has gone on national TV advancing the crackpot theory that the mob attacking the U. S. Capitol on January 6 was a false flag operation. The attackers, according to Johnson, were left-wing agitators impersonating Trump supporters. He spouted this idiocy in the full knowledge that the rioters had posted photos, selfies, and videos of themselves to social media accompanied by their boasting.
Even without the evidence just cited, why would left-wingers attempt to stop the inauguration of their chosen candidate, Joe Biden, who indisputably won the November election? The whole idea is preposterous.
Johnson has also made false claims in public regarding COVID–19 treatments. Referring to existing medicines scientifically determined to be useless in treating the coronavirus, he stated “They’re safe and they’re cheap and they just might be incredibly effective.” He claimed with no evidence whatever that “tens of thousands of people have lost their lives” because government agencies have focused on expensive “silver bullet” solutions instead of medications already in use for other diseases.
He inveighed against the federal budget deficit until he suddenly reversed himself and supported Trump’s $2 trillion tax cut, the benefits of which mostly went to wealthy individuals and corporations.
Johnson suddenly and miraculously regained his opposition to deficits in December of 2020, when he blocked a bill authorizing the Treasury to pay $1,200 relief checks to lower and middle class Americans, rather than the wealthy. He invoked the old discredited saw that deficits are “mortgaging our children’s future.” Apparently, payments to folks whose homes are in foreclosure are too much like “welfare” to be allowed.
Is Johnson crazy, stupid, or just plain dishonest?
I have concluded that while he may be somewhat crazy and stupid, he has found that his constituents are sufficiently crazy and stupid to willingly accept his lies and distortions as gospel truth. If Trumpers are gullible enough to be convinced on no evidence that Trump lost the election because the Democrats cheated, it follows that they would believe almost any cock and bull story which Johnson may feed them.
Why would Wisconsin voters entrust their well-being and their nation’s welfare to this arrogant fool?
Unfortunately, I don’t have to look beyond the borders of Mississippi, my native state, for the answer. One of our senators, Roger Wicker, is an intelligent and pleasant person, at least as I remember him when we were on opposite sides of a medical malpractice trial in Tupelo many years ago. Since he became a Senator, however, he has shown neither leadership nor vision. I am not aware that he has even once stood against the prevailing Republican winds, even when he knew full well that his blind acquiescence to the Republican party line was detrimental to his state and nation. For Roger, holding on to his senatorial seat has not been the most important thing; it’s been the only thing. He has been a big disappointment.
Our other senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith, is an embarrassment. That she won the election last November against the infinitely more intelligent and qualified Mike Espy is proof positive that white Mississippians, the base of her and Trump’s electoral support, haven’t gotten over the Civil War and certainly not Jim Crow. Their sincere belief—despite all evidence to the contrary—that they are being victimized by a federal government that takes their hard-earned tax dollars and gives them to lazy blacks who refuse to work, seems to be ineradicably etched into their consciousness, impervious to reason and reality. Hyde-Smith is a creature spawned by the most despicable elements of our society.
By the way, it should be obvious that race is a constant pedal point underlying all of Mississippi politics[1].
I had hoped that attitudes would be changed by now, but I still find myself listening to the same myths about race that I heard in the ’50s and early ’60s. Despite my own efforts to change for the better, that is, to purge my mind of racial stereotypes, I found long ago that they are permanently baked into my thinking. The best I can do is to remain sensitive to this weakness and to ask for forgiveness when I slip.
I am disappointed with my fellow Mississippians and our leaders. It looked for a while (in the 1970s) that we would cast aside this albatross that has doomed us to a mental and spiritual sickness and that has imprisoned all of us in a cage of prejudice and even hatred towards people who are different. My illusions that racial relations and attitudes were improving evaporated as soon as I saw unprincipled demagogues with southern accents still bestowing legitimacy upon the devils that have always lurked in our southern psyche. Were they living today, Theodore G. Bilbo, Ross Barnett, Sr., and James Vardaman[2] would feel perfectly comfortable.
Donald Trump’s unexpected success in stirring up the same devils north of the Mason-Dixon Line has left me deeply pessimistic. Racism is not just a southern malady.
I expect to carry this disappointment to the grave.
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Pedal points get their name from the pedals of an organ, although they appear in all styles and periods of music. If you are curious, listen to the 3rd part of Brahms’ German Requiem, which ends in a choral fugue (Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand). A continuous pedal point on D two octaves below middle C underlies the remainder of Part 3. (The YouTube link above begins shortly before the fugue enters.) ↩
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These three politicians were typical examples of the hundreds, if not thousands, of prominent white citizens that engineered and carried out the oppression of blacks by means of fear and violence from the end of Reconstruction to the present. ↩
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