 Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has been having a difficult couple of months. We learned earlier this year that he was implicated in the fake-elector scheme to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election. And now he is facing an uphill battle in the Senate as his progressive Democratic opponent Mandela Barnes is currently leading in the polls. So what is he trying to do? Well, he's trying to salvage his dying political career. So he's trying to really feel out what his supporters are going to want, what his constituents in Wisconsin are going to want more broadly. So one issue that has kind of been a thorn in his side is the issue of marriage equality. So he's been riding the fence for months now agonizing over whether or not he'd support this, signaling to both sides that, you know, he's with them. Because what do you do? Like, you know, you're losing currently. So do you support this overwhelmingly popular policy that your constituents want in supporting marriage equality before the Supreme Court has the opportunity to shoot down gay marriages? Or do you side with a vocal minority, evangelicals who are a reliable voter for your party? What do you do? Well, he opted to go against popularity, and he came out against marriage equality, stating he will not be voting in support of the bill when it comes up for a vote in the Senate. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains, US Senator Ron Johnson's vote on a bill to codify same-sex marriage has been in question since the Wisconsin Republican initially said he saw no reason to oppose the legislation. Johnson in recent weeks has noted he never said he would support the bill and indicated he has reservations over how the legislation could impact religious protections. But speaking at a public meeting in Hartford last week, the Oshkosh Republican was definitive saying he would not support the Respect for Marriage Act in its current form and indicating he believes the Supreme Court case, giving same-sex couples the right to marry, was wrongly decided. He put out his July statement saying he wouldn't oppose the legislation. He said to get the press off my backs. So after weighing out the pros and the cons, he's like, 70% support marriage equality, 30%. I'm going to go with the 30%. That'll help me get elected. Okay. Now, he's kind of leaning into the homophobia here, agreeing with Thomas that Obergefell was wrongly decided, but he's insisting that it will never be overturned. So really, this vote is unnecessary. But assuming that there is a vote, he is trying to work with GOP colleagues to produce an amendment that would better protect religious liberty as if that's an issue currently. You already have religious liberty. There are already protections. So he's very clearly just trying to pander to evangelicals because I think he believes that they're going to be more conducive to his success than independents who will be turned off by his lack of support for marriage equality. But either way, it's just one of many dumb things that he's done that has led to him now trailing his progressive Democratic opponent, Mandela Barnes, who you should definitely support all linked to his campaign in the description box. But last Wednesday, he brought up how he had a solution or he heard a really good solution to address the labor shortage. What is that solution? Well, he thinks that if we were to coax his words, not mine, senior citizens out of retirement, that might be one way to address this issue. Let's listen. I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal. You can go online November 2, 2021, saying that we need about 2.6 million additional workers added to our labor force. And our birth rates aren't producing that. So their number of innovative ideas I would support. Former Senator Phil Grant came to the Senate. We were talking about our labor shortage, and one of his suggestions was to coax seniors that could reenter the workforce, don't charge them payroll tax. They're not paying it anyway, so they want to get back and earn a few extra bucks. Let them start working and don't charge them payroll tax. Ah, yes, that's exactly what I'm assuming all senior citizens want to do. Leave retirement to work at Ruby Tuesdays to deal with rude carans. That's exactly how they want to spend their golden years. Now this isn't the only thing that he said that is not going to be too popular with seniors, but recently he floated making cuts to Social Security in a really insidious way. Now let's look at what he said not too long ago. Just last month he proposed making Social Security and Medicare part of our discretionary budget in order to adjust it annually, which would allow Congress to make cuts to it more easily. But don't you worry, he doesn't want to cut Social Security, he just wants to make it not part of our mandatory budget. Nothing to worry about here. Now obviously Democrats rightfully pounced on that statement with even President Joe Biden singling him out, warning that these maggot Republicans in Congress are coming for Social Security at a rally in Milwaukee. And after getting called out for saying the dumbest possible thing that will turn off all of his older constituents who rely on Social Security, well he went on Fox News to whine about Democrats capitalizing on his stupidity by basically playing the victim and assuring everyone that he would never cut Social Security. Take a look. They can't defend their record. I'm in a tough race here in Wisconsin. All the Democrats can do is lie about me, assassinate my character, engage in politics of personal destruction. Probably the most outrageous lie they're telling now is I want to cut or end Social Security. I mean, just give that a second of a thought. What elected official would ever want to cut Social Security, it is absurd on its face. It's the third election they've accused, falsely accused me of the exact same thing. I want to save Social Security. We need to stop all this death that's spending, we're $30.8 trillion in debt, but it's just disgusting. It's just exhausting. All this division hate, but I have to say it's coming from the left. We're not the dividers. They are. You see, when you respond to the Republican Party's attacks on Social Security, Medicare, gay marriage, trans rights, you're actually the one who's being divisive, not them for attacking these things. You're divisive if you call it out. Interesting how that works, right? Now, he says here, what elected official would ever want to cut Social Security? Um, you, you just told us your intent to make it part of our discretionary budget. You wouldn't want to do that unless you had the goal of cutting Social Security, because if it's mandatory in our budget, there's nothing that you can do to change that. It's more difficult to do that. But if it's part of our discretionary budget, you can easily make adjustments to it every single year, which he definitely wants to do because he's talked about how before we need to save Social Security. Now this relies on him fear mongering about Social Security becoming insolvent. And the quick solution to that is to lift the tat or lift the caps rather on taxable income. So that way wealthy people who make more than $400,000 per year are also paying into Social Security. But really what he does by saying he wants to save Social Security is, you know, floating, uh, raising the retirement age, for example, or, you know, potentially cutting it. Now, this is what Republicans have been doing for a very long time. And to be fair, Democrats have done this as well. Many Democrats want to privatize or cut Social Security because this is what their donors on Wall Street wants. So for him to say, you know, what elected official would ever want to cut Social Security? Is that really a question that you're going to ask with a straight face? Many of them want to do that. But you want to know who doesn't want to cut Social Security? Ron Johnson's Democratic opponent, Mandela Barnes, who again, I will link to his campaign website in the description box. As I stated earlier, he's currently leading according to real clear politics pulling averages. So this is a really good sign, but don't take this race for granted. You have to support him if you want to see him win. But I just love how as his polls go down, as he loses popularity, as he gets implicated in fake elective schemes, rather than trying to like opt for some policy that's even somewhat popular. He's leaning into the most unpopular policies. Gay marriage, I'm against that. You know, changing Social Security to part of our discretionary budget. I support that too. I mean, it's like he's trying to lose the selection, but I absolutely hope he continues with this trend, because if he does, it will result in Mandela Barnes winning, which would be really great because Mandela Barnes is a progressive Democrat who actually supports saving Social Security, who supports marriage equality, who supports Medicare for all. This is someone who we need in Congress, not someone who is implicated in the fake elective scheme to overturn the 2020 election. So I hope Ron Johnson loses. And because I hope he loses, I hope he keeps talking because he's making it more difficult for voters to want to support him come November.