Senator Johnson, you can be critical of America and still love it. Your cheap shot shows you don't understand that.
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Ron Johnson just couldn't bring himself to do it. Given the chance to offer just an ounce of civility to what had been a heated debate with his opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Johnson went low.
And it's his cheap shot toward the end of their encounter Thursday night that a lot of us will remember.
Asked the softest of softball questions — “What do you find admirable about your opponent?” — Barnes called Johnson a “family man,” saying, “I absolutely respect that.”
Johnson praised Barnes' parents for raising him but couldn't find anything positive to say about Barnes himself. And then came this kicker:
“I guess what puzzles me about that is with that upbringing, why has he turned on America, and why does he find America awful,” Wisconsin's senior senator said, drawing a chorus of boos from the crowd at Marquette University’s Varsity Theatre.
Boos that were richly deserved.
More: Five takeaways from second Wisconsin U.S. Senate debate between Ron Johnson, Mandela Barnes
A flurry of racist ads supporting Johnson
It’s not surprising that Johnson turned what was supposed to be a positive answer into a negative one; it's reflective of the ads that groups supporting him have been running for weeks.
Racist ads that have darkened Barnes' skin and tried to scare voters by claiming the lieutenant governor is soft on crime.
With less than a month to go before the election, it looks like those ads have been effective. In the latest Marquette University Law School Poll, Johnson holds a 6-point lead among likely voters. The race was a dead heat in the previous poll.
I'm not sure what Johnson finds so un-American about Barnes. Maybe it's because Barnes has been outspoken on issues of race. He's said America is rich and powerful because of “forced labor on stolen land.” For years, Barnes has spoken out about the atrocities against Native Americans and African Americans in this country.
But acknowledging those cruelties does not make Barnes un-American. It makes him informed. Speaking out makes you a better American because it shows you want everyone to have a fair shot at the American dream.
Johnson either doesn't understand that or hopes that the people he's pandering to with his attacks don't.
I asked historian Reggie Jackson about what Barnes has said. Jackson is co-owner of Nurturing Diversity Partners and a Milwaukee historian. He's also a researcher with The Redress Movement, a national group whose mission is to begin the process of redressing the damage caused by decades of legal and illegal segregation policies and practices.
“I have traveled all across the country talking about these same things. We have to acknowledge the truth about America," Jackson said. "We have to be honest about our history, and just because you talk about the atrocities doesn’t mean you can’t love America. You can do both.”
Some people, like Johnson, would rather avoid the undeniable truths about our country.
“What good does that do?” Jackson asked.
I think the better question is where has it gotten us?
We should not be satisfied with the way things are
Milwaukee is known as one of the most segregated cities in the nation, and some studies have called it the worst place to raise a Black child.
Jackson hopes people research the history of segregation and agitate for change.
People who do that don't hate America. They just want the system to work better for everybody.
What bothered me the most by Johnson’s comment, is the fact that he seems to suggest Barnes should be satisfied with the way things are — that it was somehow unpatriotic to be critical of America's flaws.
But we all know equal opportunity is a myth. I live in a city where I constantly see people struggle against the odds to provide for their families. Working-class people have to have two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.
People facing those odds are justifiably critical of a political system that does little to make their lives easier. They are constantly told to pull themselves up by the bootstraps when they don’t even have boots.
Why shouldn't they be critical of America?
With less than a month to go before the election, millions of dollars are pouring into Wisconsin in attack ads designed to shade the truth or outright lie to you.
The purpose of these ads? To discourage you from voting.
Don't fall for it.
Exercise your right to vote.
I voted absentee two weeks ago, and it was an easy choice.
From his stance on the COVID vaccinations to his attempts to cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election, Johnson has been an embarrassment.
Johnson likes to point to his work with the Joseph Project, an anti-poverty program on Milwaukee’s north side, that helps get low-income people to work. I applaud him for that. But what else has he done to solve the nagging issues faced by the largest city in the state?
And now he seems to think it's un-American to talk about the problems facing people of color?
That's one of the most American things we could possibly do.
James E. Causey started reporting on life in his city while still at Marshall High School through a Milwaukee Sentinel high school internship. He's been covering his hometown ever since, writing and editing news stories, projects and opinion pieces on urban youth, mental health, employment, housing and incarceration. Most recently, he wrote "What happened to us?" which tracked the lives of his third-grade classmates, and "Cultivating a community," about the bonding that takes place around a neighborhood garden. Causey was a health fellow at the University of Southern California in 2018 and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2007.
Email him at jcausey@jrn.com and follow him on Twitter: @jecausey.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ron Johnson, being critical of America doesn't make you un-American
