Posted on 03/23/2021 12:03:33 AM PDT by RandFan
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is being compared by several conservatives to the late Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.), known for his communist witch hunt in the 1950s, according to a New York Times article published on Sunday.
The Republicans told the news outlet that Johnson’s promotion of false theories on the coronavirus, the COVID-19 vaccination efforts and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot remind them of Wisconsin’s infamous former senator, who in the 1940s and '50s publicly accused a number of government workers of being communists, leading to many losing their jobs.
Former Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who retired from Congress this year, told the newspaper that “Wisconsin voters love mavericks.”
“They really love mavericks — you go way back to Joe McCarthy,” he said. “They do love people who rattle the cage an awful lot and bring up topics that maybe people don’t want to talk about.”
Former radio host Charlie Sykes, a conservative who the Times says is credited for helping Johnson rise to prominence ahead of his election to the Senate in 2010, said last week that the senator has “turned into” McCarthy.
“I don’t know how he went from being a chamber of commerce guy to somebody who sounds like he reads the Gateway Pundit every day,” Sykes said, according to the Times. “He’s turned into Joe McCarthy.”
Johnson, who has still not announced whether he will run for reelection in 2022, dismissed any comparisons to McCarthy to the Times.
He also rejected the allegations that his remarks about never being concerned for his safety during the Capitol attack were racist. Johnson previously said the rioters were “people who love this country” and “would never do anything to break the law.”
“I didn’t feel threatened,” the Wisconsin senator told the newspaper. “So it’s a true statement. And then people said, ‘Well, why?’ Well, because I’ve been to a lot of Trump rallies. I spend three hours with thousands of Trump supporters. And I think I know them pretty well. I don’t know any Trump supporter who would have done what the rioters did.”
He also faced backlash after saying in a later interview about the riot that he "might have been a little concerned" had the mob been comprised of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters.
The Hill reached out to Johnson’s office for additional comment and did not immediately receive a response.
Johnson has come under scrutiny for his comments about the Capitol riot as well as about the coronavirus. The Republican senator told the newspaper that the United States’ “tunnel vision” of working on a COVID-19 vaccine instead of treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by former President Trump, cost “tens of thousands of lives.”
Trump had promoted the drug as a treatment for COVID-19 while he was in office, but the Food and Drug Administration has ruled the antimalarial drug is ineffective against COVID-19.
“Johnson is probably not running again (shame) “
Indeed!
Maybe the media’s lying “narrative” will inflame him to!
Must have conformity of thought.
Flush twice, it a long way to the GOP!
Right is right but we had sheep then as we have sheep now. I have learned that most people simply want to believe what they want and sit in the comfort zone. I have had it with the Covid BS. It seems like the GOP will sit back in the corner sucking their thumbs and letting their diapers get full....Getting back to McCarthy. Imagine if we listened to him and rid America of the Communist rot as we did to Nazism, Fascism and Imperialism just 10 years previous.
Johnson won in 2016 because of Donald Trump and he knows it guy was behind double digits in every poll before election night...if he decided not to run its most likely Sean Duffy or Scott Walkers if they want it
“The swHill”
Senator Joseph McCarthy was right.
He was not only right, it was far deeper than even he imagined.
So was Robert Welch.
We now know that McCarthy was wrong. He underestimated the extent of Communist infiltration. Media pukes can find someone to say anything. If not they just make it up. Want a “Republican” to praise Joseph Stalin? Max Boot, “I would sooner vote for Josef Stalin than I would vote for Donald Trump.” McCarthy was a hero. Johnson likewise.
McCarthy was right, he was proven by Soviet archives that became available for a short time in the 1990s.
Senator Joseph McCarthy was right.
Bears repeating.
McCarthy was a little late to the game but he was right. Communists infiltrated the US government heavily in the late 1940s & early 1950s.
Venona
Correct. Well documented in Blacklisted by History.
Michelle Malkin wrote a book on Senator McCarthy, saying he was correct about 🇺🇸 US Communists.
Now look at Schumer and Pelosi in that light.
commie witch hunt...bout time for another one
Wasnt it Ann Coulter?
This guy is g-o-o-o-o-d.
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