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Sen. Ron Johnson isn’t done proving how deep his racist notions lie, after he stood his ground on recent statements he made.
On Monday evening The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed written by Johnson titled, “I Will Not be Silenced by the Left,” where he held on for dear life to sentiments that rule out the harsh realities of systemic racism, especially in regards to Black communities and social justice issues.
The controversy began after he said the following during a recent interview: “Now, had the tables been turned—Joe, this could get me in trouble—had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned,” Johnson said Thursday on talk radio’s “The Joe Pags Show.”
In the op-ed Johnson, a Republican who has represented the state of Wisconsin for the last 10 years, shared deeply troubling opinions around the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where hundreds of Trump supporters violently stormed the grounds, resulting in the death of five people.
“I said ‘this could get me in trouble’ because I have been repeatedly attacked for challenging the left’s false narratives. I had no idea they would so thoroughly twist my words and reflexively play the race card,” he wrote.
“This isn’t about race. It’s about riots,” he continues.
Throughout the piece Johnson dives into the standard talking points which seek to demean Black communities who are withheld advantages due to 400 years of systemic oppression. He blames the media, downplays key information regarding Capitol attack and the aftermath, and frames protests around the deaths of Black community members as inherently violent and unethical. It’s all within the words he chooses and the words he omits.
“Leftists who want to memory hole last summer’s political violence immediately started lecturing me that the 2020 protests were mostly peaceful. Apparently they’ve forgotten that, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, 570 leftist protests became riots last year. Twenty-five people lost their lives and 700 law enforcement officers were injured,” Johnson wrote.
However, he conveniently leaves out an important caveat around the uprisings across the country in the name of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and countless others, through social media accounts and witness video, many of these peaceful demonstrations don’t turn violent until police employ tactics amping up use of force. In major cities like Los Angeles and New York, police departments are being investigated over mishandling the demonstrations.
In the end Johnson calls for objectiveness and free speech.
Johnson needs a lesson on how words mean things. His retelling of events lays blame and violence on Black Lives Matter protests, while not employing that same energy for the legions of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol in open defiance of democracy is laughable.
You can’t demand law and order when the system that created the social contract remains broken.
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