“Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.”
“Now, had the tables been turned — Joe, this could get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President [Donald] Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.” (Ron Johnson – 3/13/21 – People)
Gaslighting
The Headline should have been shouted in the streets by newsboys like the 1920’s. “EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT – SENATOR DOESN’T BELIEVE HIS OWN LYING EYES!”
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson wasn’t concerned on January 6, 2021, as the Insurrectionists erected gallows outside of the Capitol building. He wasn’t concerned when they took over the Senate chamber, or grabbed the Speaker’s dais and walked out the door. And Senator Johnson wasn’t concerned that Capitol Police Officers were being attacked, beaten, sprayed with chemicals. To use my favorite quote from the MSD kids – “I call BS!”
“Gaslighting” is a term used to describe: “a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality”(Psychology Today). Our reality – the REAL reality – is what we watched in horror on January 6th. We saw thousands march on the Capitol, smash through the barricades, attack the police, and break into the building. We watched as they defiled that building, the House and Senate Chambers. And we saw them search for the Vice President, Speaker of the House and others. America saw the “…people that love this country, (and) would never do anything to break the law”. We all saw this with our own eyes: no lying.
And they weren’t Black Lives Matters protestors, nor Antifa. So to what purpose is Senator Johnson try to convince us that it didn’t happen. Why does he think that the Insurrectionists weren’t “of concern”, when we all know different?
Play to the Base
So here’s a couple of possible reasons for Johnson’s behavior, statements that he has “doubled-down” on in subsequent days. First, there are a significant number of Americans, perhaps twenty percent, who are so “gaslighted” by right-wing media that they really believe that there was no Insurrection. They accept all of Johnson’s (and others) alternative explanations. That it was just a few “crazies”. That ANTIFA somehow infiltrated the legitimate protestors (there was that one guy from Utah), and that the “mainstream media” simply made it all up. Johnson’s statement certainly plays directly into those beliefs.
But why would Johnson feed into that? If he’s running for re-election in 2022, he’s already anchored himself with the Trumpian wing of the Republican Party. He has been a Trump stalwart. Ever since that weekend in October of 2019, when as an eyewitness to Trump’s illicit pressuring of Ukrainian President Zelenskiy, Johnson recanted earlier statements and pivoted to attack NBC’s Chuck Todd and the national media (Business Insider).
To put it more bluntly, why is he trying “to get what he’s already got”?
US Intelligence
US Intelligence issued an unclassified report on foreign interference in the 2020 election yesterday. They noted that there wasn’t any direct interference in actual voting. But that there was an “influence campaign” by Russia for Trump and against Biden. The report specifically noted actions by Rudy Giuliani, spreading Russian generated propaganda that Biden was somehow corrupt in his dealings with Ukraine (and Biden’s son Hunter). Johnson, among other Republican Senators, amplified that propaganda.
One of Russia’s goals: to get Americans to lose confidence in the professionals in the US Intelligence services, particularly the CIA and the FBI. Certainly Trump’s actions towards those agencies followed the Russian game plan. Even today, some Republican Senators and Congressmen still spit-out the names of Comey, McCabe and Strzok like curse words in Congressional hearings.
Rubles or Kompromat?
Johnson is one of several Republican Senators who made amazing reversal in statement and action in the past several years. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who on January 6th was “done with Trump” soon reversed his position and fell in line with the Trump narrative. John Kennedy of Louisiana, early a more “moderated” voice in the Republican Party, became a hardcore Trump defender. And Mike Lee, always a reasoned though strict conservative voice from Utah, has become more strident and extreme as the Trump Administration continued.
It’s easy to say that they simply “saw the writing on the wall”; that Trump dominated the Republican Primary voters and they had to be on “his side” to keep their seats. But these Senators already have their Trump bona-fides, and like Johnson, continue to defend even the Trumpian extremes.
Several Senators, Johnson and Kennedy among them, went to Moscow for the Fourth of July in 2018. Others, like Rand Paul of Kentucky, have had multiple contacts with Russian legislators. It is nothing but circumstantial evidence: but why do those Senators who are the most vehement Trump defenders also those with links to Russia? Why are they the ones who amplify the Russian propaganda?
And why are they gaslighting the rest of us? The answer might be written in Russian.
