As has been highlighted since Mandela Barnes won the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), and even before, this guy is a seriously progressive candidate. He looks to be particularly extreme on crime and public safety issues such as Defund the Police, bail reform, and the Black Lives Matter riots that rocked the country in 2020, including and especially in Wisconsin, where he's the lieutenant governor.
As Punchbowl News showcased in their Friday morning newsletter though, this also applies to the Second Amendment, and a whole other host of issues. He even dragged Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) into it. Scalise was nearly killed on June 14, 2017 when Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson shot up the baseball field where Republicans were practicing ahead of that year's Congressional Baseball Game.
Barnes' comments came in a tweet from October 3, 2017, less than a week after Scalise returned to Congress. The tweet in question, which is still up, links to an article by Cristina Marcos for The Hill, "Scalise: Shooting 'fortified' my view on gun rights."
Barnes added some editorializing, though, writing "Taking one for the team. I question how people vote against self interest but this is next level. He literally almost died on this hill."
Taking one for the team. I question how people vote against self interest but this is next level. He literally almost died on this hill. https://t.co/Xx8ZQXuvzM
— Mandela Barnes (@TheOtherMandela) October 4, 2017
The Punchbowl newsletter includes a statement from Barnes, who not only seeks to justify the language used in his tweet, but blame his opponent. "This is a very personal topic for me as someone who has experienced the pain of losing friends and loved ones to gun violence. My comments came from a place of frustration with politicians like Ron Johnson who see gun violence happen everyday and turn their backs on solutions that would keep people safe," his statement to Punchbowl read.
Not only is there no apology to Scalise, but Barnes blames Johnson as well.
Scalise also chimed in after he was shown the comments. "That’s disgraceful. It says a lot more about his lack of character to be in essence condoning political violence. All of us should be standing up against political violence," his statement to Punchbowl read. "To say something like that, [Barnes] really needs to look in the mirror and reevaluate his lack of character."
Barnes does not appear to have added any such statement to his Twitter feed.
Such is not the only eyebrow raising remarks that Barnes as made on Twitter. On February 14, 2017 he referred to then President Donald Trump as a "Russian spy," adding "Believe me." On December 11, 2019, he also tweeted a suggestion that George Washington was not a top president, since he owned slaves. Both tweets are still up.
Donald Trump is a Russian spy. Believe me.
— Mandela Barnes (@TheOtherMandela) February 14, 2017
Yeah. I mean, if slave owning is your thing, have at it! https://t.co/TLWCW0OSw5
— Mandela Barnes (@TheOtherMandela) December 12, 2019
Barnes served in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 2013-2017, and was elected as lieutenant governor in 2018. Such tweets came from his personal account.
The "Team RonJon" account tweeted out a question for Barnes asking when he would apologize. It was retweeted by Johnson's personal account.
.@TheOtherMandela Question of the Day:
— Team RonJon (@TeamRonJon) September 30, 2022
When will you apologize to assassination target Steve Scalise for saying that when he was shot, he was "taking one for the team"?
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) highlighted these tweets and more on Thursday in a post that included excerpts in a report by Daniel Bice for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from that same day. In addition to highlighting such tweets, Bice pointed to an interview Barnes gave in February 2021, muring which he acknowledged "I spend a little too much time online."
As Bice wrote about Barnes:
Early on, he demonstrated his liberal leanings by suggesting that progressives who move to the center are "compromising all integrity." He once jokingly referred to lefty U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, known by her initials AOC, as "my president." He imagined using the COVID-19 pandemic to revamp society.
"We should drastically reimagine society, our communities, and what quality of life actually means in a moment like this," Barnes tweeted in March 2020, just as coronavirus was starting to spread.
Barnes asked in November 2016 if the presidential election had been "rigged."Months later, the first-term Democrat declared Donald Trump, then president, a "Russian spy." More recently, he dismissed the notion that George Washingtonwas one of the country's top presidents.
Barnes once said he “really could not care less about a 2nd Amendment ‘right'” to bear arms. He also criticized House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana for not changing his position on gun control after being shot in the hip during practice for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017.
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In recent years, Barnes has ripped two moderate Democratic senators with whom he would have to serve if elected, even suggesting Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was a “missing vertebrae” in the Senate Democrats’ spine.
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He noted in 2015, his second term in the Assembly, that some Wisconsin lawmakers considered a Muslim caliphate as a real threat in America, but he added, "I try to remind them of their theocratic votes." A year later, he wrote, "So many terroristic enablers in churches, in Congress, and state houses. Whether by discriminatory policy or the love affair with guns."
Finally, Barnes acknowledged the difficulty in calling for an end to inner-city unrest in at least one case. He has repeatedly pointed out that he has had friends die as a result of gun violence.
During the Ferguson protests in 2014, he wrote: "It has to be as hard for the people of Ferguson to act peacefully as it is for myself and others to call for peace." Years later, he said it was "devastating" to watch parts of Minneapolis burn in 2020 after police there killed George Floyd, but he said the property damage "hardly compares to the implosion brought by systemic inequity and injustice.”'
He continued, "Like internal bleeding, you may not see it, but the outcome will be catastrophic if left untreated."
Johnson's campaign and Republicans have criticized Gov. Tony Evers and Barnes for their handling of the Kenosha protests after the shooting of Jacob Blake. Both Evers and Barnes have said they stand by their statements and actions during the unrest.
Barnes' campaign did not directly respond to a question of whether f his views have changed on any of the subjects he tackled on Twitter. Also left unanswered is whether Barnes campaign officials believe he is more liberal on social media than he is on the campaign trail.
All of the tweets in question are still up.
While Sen. Johnson had been considered something of a vulnerable Republican senator, polls continue to show him with a lead. Perhaps even more significantly, his polling has vastly improved as we get closer to the election on November 8.