CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) Well isn’t that clever.
Two political action groups – NetGen.org and Moveon – have created a statue of animal dung in the likeness of Senator Ron Johnson. They’re hauling the “scat-tue” around the state to places where Johnson is campaigning.
My first impression is let them.
Carrying a load of manure shaped as your political opponent says everything about them and nothing about Senator Johnson. And it fits the narrative perfectly. Political opponents are to be dehumanized. To Joe Biden, they’re “semi fascists’. They’re not political rivals to be debated; they existential threats who should be jailed. To these political action groups, Senator Johnson is excrement, worthy only of being flushed.
And there is a double-standard that stinks worse than the dung statue. Could Mandella Barnes’ opponents build a likeness of him out of manure? Of course not. You’d be instantly branded a racist. Only white people can be reduced to a pile of scat. Candidates of color cannot.
This is a political opportunity for Mandela Barnes, if he can rise to the occasion. He could call out his own extremist-supporters and tell them that a manure statue of his opponent is beyond the pale and out-of-bounds. Does he have the decency to say that dehumanizing your opponent is not the way we do politics?
Or this could be stopped by a conservative local official. A permit is required to transport manure. There are regulations for the proper handling of waste. If I don’t properly clean up after my dog I’d be fined. And if some activist wants to argue that the dung statue is protected political speech, they should bring their case in front of a judge. I assure them that the evidence will be thrown out of the courtroom very quickly.
The best approach may be to ignore the ‘scat’-ue. It’s not witty or clever. It’s disgusting. That will be the response from most reasonable people. And undecided voters may conclude that they’re not going to cast their lots with lunatics.
Chris Conley
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