Out of Control

 The GOP is Out of Control

 

With Timothy Ramthun, our State Representative from Campbellsport and Kewaskum School Board Member, joining the GOP primary for Governor, the fractures in the Republican Party are now on full display. The battle for the future of the Wisconsin GOP is now joined and is nowhere as rosy as fellow columnist Owen Robinson suggests.

 

Former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch was the first to jump into the race to unseat Gov. Tony Evers. She brings leftover baggage from her time as Scott Walker’s second in command. One need look no further than the failed policies of Act 10 which crippled Wisconsin public education and decimated the ranks of our professional educators.  The Foxconn debacle failed to produce anywhere near the number of jobs and economic growth she and Walker promised. Her calls to dismantle Milwaukee Public Schools and the Wisconsin Elections Commission don’t help her cause. She represents the Wisconsin GOP establishment which continues having difficulty finding a coherent platform to move us forward. 

 

Kevin Nicholson came to the race as the uninvited outsider looking to shake things up. He has tried to distance himself from the Cult of the Former President, but not so far as to alienate its remaining members which appear to form the activist GOP base. His calls for election reform and new GOP leadership offer little in the way of policy to get things done in Madison. 

 

Ramthun’s entry into the race calls for the Cult to fight a legally impossible battle to recall Wisconsin’s 10 electoral college votes and overturn the 2020 presidential election. He joins the MyPillow Guy and disgraced former General Mike Flynn groveling at the barred entrance to Mara Largo for crumbs of support. Ramthun offers no evidentiary support for any of his conspiratorial theories of election theft or fraud and nothing else of substance to establish credentials for leadership of his party, much less our state government. His apparent reliance on his God for guidance further demonstrates his lack of understanding of Constitutional supremacy as the law of the land, not commands from Scripture. 

 

Nowhere to be seen or heard are any of the remaining moderate Republicans from the Tommy Thompson era. They believed in conservative values and found ways to work with liberals and progressives to keep Wisconsin moving. The remaining fiscally conservative and socially liberal Republicans have gone to ground hoping to ride out the extremist elements of their party. 

 

Wisconsin Republicans are bent upon following the crumbling Republican National Committee as it loses all credibility by equating the January 6^th insurrection and invasion of the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.” Sen. Ron Johnson contributes to the RNC disfunction with continued COVID disinformation and quack cures. His approval rating has hit rock bottom and his eventual loss in November will help cement Democratic control of the Senate.

 

As much as one might enjoy the current GOP train wreck, its lack of constructive policy and willingness to participate in our democracy has given license to those who would promote violence to achieve the goal of dismantling our democratic institutions. Even while some in Congress are working to hold accountable those involved in the planning of the January 6^th insurrection and the violence that followed the former president’s invitation to “fight like hell,” most GOP members of Congress continue to abstain from the process. This gives tacit but clear approval for future violent extremism by those like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and others. 

 

We can only hope that state and federal prosecutors examining the former president’s actions and those of his co-conspirators will bring successful prosecutions to show the country that the rule of law in a democracy will always prevail. Only when those who would undo our democratic experiment by violence and sedition are brought to justice will our course be restored to a just path. With that rebuke, maybe our local GOP might come to find a more constructive and productive path than they currently follow. 

 

The results of the GOP primary for governor in August will show us which faction of their party will control its near-term future and where the active base wants to go. With the current slate of candidates as the only choices, the long-term future of the GOP looks bleak.