Is Ron Johnson the worst senator? That’s what The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast wants to know. Naturally, she asks Mandela Barnes, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin and Johnson’s opponent in next year’s Senate election.
“I could say that he is very far away from doing the best job,” says Barnes. “It’s just the constant disregard for not just the will of the people, but the needs of the people. I think that’s the most frustrating for me, whether it is providing relief and support to middle-class families, whether it is the constant denial of climate change, whether it is the denial of the pandemic and some of the very absurd suggestions that he’s made over the last couple years.”
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So how will Barnes be better? For starters, he says, he wants to focus on climate change and to get out-of-touch-rich people out of office.
“We have to reduce the influence of corporations in our governing institutions at every level,” Barnes tells Molly, which includes congressional stock trading, “especially when people are legislating and regulating these industries.” He just has to get past Johnson first.
Then, Run for Something co-founder Amanda Litman makes a plea to The New Abnormal followers to run for office before it’s “too late” to stop the GOP from taking over local politics. Otherwise, she says, “we can run and we probably will run a billion dollars worth of advertising in 2024. And it won’t matter.”
Finally, Barack Obama’s former education secretary, John King, talks about the two biggest ways Republicans fuck over our education system.
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