Aspiring Radical Senator

Democrat Mandela Barnes is currently locked in a tight battle for a U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin as he seeks to oust Republican incumbent Ron Johnson from that office. Trailing Johnson by a mere 3 points in the latest Fox News poll, Barnes claims that the Republican has turned his back on working people, but not “on his campaign donors” or on a variety of political schemes designed to “delive[r] perks and benefits for even his own family members.” “We’re talking about a person [Johnson] who has secured more than $200 million in tax deductions for two of his biggest donors in a single year,” says Barnes, “who wants to put the Social Security and Medicare benefits people work their entire lives for on the chopping block…. This is a person who will say whatever it takes, regardless of how ridiculous, how dangerous. But we know that…. He’s not just a danger to the state. He’s a threat to the stability of this country. That’s who he is.”

Okay, so that’s who Mandela Barnes tells us Ron Johnson is. But who, pray tell, is Mandela Barnes?

Inspired by Obama

Now 36 years old, Barnes was first inspired to pursue a career in politics back in 2004 when he heard then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama deliver a speech at that year’s Democratic National Convention. Obama’s speech, Barnes recalls, was an “inspirational moment” that “made me think about the world a little bit differently and think about politics much differently. In Barack, I saw someone who had a unique experience, and it wasn’t like any other politician. Seeing that happen, seeing him on the stage, I knew it was something that I’d be interested in, being involved in politics in general.”

In 2008, Barnes spent six months as a field organizer for the Obama presidential campaign in Louisiana. Returning thereafter to Wisconsin, Barnes held several minor positions within the office of Tom Barrett, the then-Mayor of Milwaukee and a future U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg under President Joe Biden.

Member of the Wisconsin State Assembly

In 2012, Barnes was elected to fill the 11th District seat in Wisconsin’s State Assembly. Notable legislation which he authored during his first two-year term in office included: a resolution to have the Wisconsin state legislature formally recognize Black History Month; a bill to “ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines”; a resolution to have the Wisconsin legislature recognize “Juneteenth” as an official holiday; and a resolution to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the start of the “War on Poverty,”

During his second term in the Wisconsin State Assembly, Barnes authored an even greater number of left-wing legislative initiatives, including:

• a bill to decriminalize the “possession and distribution of 25 grams or less of marijuana”
• a bill to permit “16- and 17-years-olds to preregister to vote”
• a resolution to create a committee to combat “racial intolerance”
• a bill to offer “alternative sites for absentee voting in person”
• a bill to authorize local governments to “collect and record information about firearms in a registry”
• a bill to establish a “maximum period of imprisonment following revocation of extended supervision or probation”
• a bill to allow “certain prisoners to earn time toward early release from confinement in prison”
• a bill to allow for a “petition for expunging a court record of certain offenses ten years after completion of a sentence”
• a bill aimed at “restoring the right to vote to certain persons barred from voting as a result of a felony conviction”

Most notably, Barnes co-sponsored and introduced a March 2016 bill to remove “monetary bail as a condition of release for a defendant with, or convicted of, a crime.”

Praising Jeremiah Wright

In a 2013 Instagram post, Barnes praised of the notoriously anti-Semitic, America-hating socialist minister Jeremiah Wright. He described Wright as a “brilliant” man and included a picture of himself proudly shaking hands with Wright.

Supporting Colin Kaepernick’s Crusade Against White Racism

In September 2018, Barnes tweeted a photo of himself wearing a jersey that bore the name and number of former NFL quarterback-turned-radical-activist Colin Kaepernick, who had gained enormous fame by initiating the practice of kneeling during the playing of the pre-game national anthem as a gesture of protest against what Kaepernick viewed as the scourge of racism and police brutality plaguing African Americans.

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor

In 2018 as well, Barnes was the running mate of Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers and was elected as the state’s Lieutenant Governor.

Supporting the Black Lives Matter Protests & Riots Against “White Supremacist Ideology”

After the infamous death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, Barnes stated that the ensuing tsunami of protests and violent riots – led by Black Lives Matter in many U.S. states including Wisconsin — were the acts of righteous people “stepping up for good reason” – i.e., to condemn what Barnes viewed as the twin epidemics of police brutality and white racism pervading American society. Indeed, he went so far as to declare that the uprisings which followed Floyd’s death were a “sight to behold and something that makes me very proud.” Attributing the widespread unrest to the fact that there was a lack of racial “equity” amongst American citizens, Barnes explained:

“It’s frustration. It’s frustration. You can’t tell people how to be frustrated. And I go back to the same point over and over again. This didn’t come out of nowhere. Folks didn’t just wake up and decide that ‘we’re gonna break some glass, we’re gonna set some things on fire.’ […] So more than damage, destruction and rebellion, it is frustration. And it didn’t get this way out of nowhere. The onus falls on all elected leadership, all decision-makers who failed to address the crisis before it got to this point.”

Further, Barnes said it was vital for the United States to embrace “change” and to “snap out of the white supremacist ideology.”

In a series of tweets which he posted on July 4, 2020, Barnes wrote that “our country’s history and the ways in which we fail to live up to our highest ideals, can make this day difficult to celebrate.” He went on to state: “This nation has a long tradition of injustice—from enslaving Africans and selling them as property to genocidal actions against Indigenous peoples, to the forms of systemic racism and violence Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color experience to this day.”

In a similar spirit, Barnes tweeted on June 2, 2020: “This country was built by stolen labor on stolen land.” He also claimed that although Americans “have always been” land thieves and exploiters, they had an obligation to “all work to change that.”

Supporter of Defunding the Police

On June 10, 2020, Barnes tweeted his support for the defunding of police departments across the United States: “We need to invest more in neighborhoods and community services. The more money we invest in opportunity for people, the less money we have to spend on police and prisons.”

U.S. Senate Campaign: Barnes’ Supporters & Issue Priorities

In July 2021, Barnes officially launched his bid to Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. His campaign has focused heavily on the importance of defending the right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand up until the very moment of birth. “I’ll vote to codify Roe vs. Wade into law once and for all,” he vowed. Meanwhile, Barnes characterizes Ron Johnson’s views on abortion as “extreme” and “alarming.”

Other top policy priorities of Barnes’ bid for the Senate include: the payment of a “living wage” for child care workers; universal pre-K; a “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens; the legalization of marijuana; the ending of the Senate filibuster rule; and the enactment of a Green New Deal and Medicare for All.

Anti-American Promoter of Critical Race Theory

In August 2021, Barnes referred to the founding of the United States as an “awful” historical event. His comment came amid a speech in which he defended the promotion of the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) — which is centered around the theme of America’s timeless and irredeemable track record of evil — in school classrooms. Regarding what he saw as the motives of those who opposed such instruction, Barnes said: “Imagine being so ashamed of how we got to this place in America that you outlaw teaching.”

In the final analysis, Barnes views America as nothing more than a racist cesspool that is utterly unworthy of anyone’s genuine respect, and his political priorities are to:

• foment an everlasting state of racial grievance and disharmony;
• permit the nation’s streets to teem with violent criminals;
• make it harder for citizens to protect themselves against assailants and home invaders;
• make it impossible to have secure and fair elections that the people can have faith in;
• increase the political leverage of convicted criminals for decades to come;
• disparage and defund police departments from coast to coast;
• promote socialism and statism under the guise of environmentalism;
• empower coldblooded government bureaucrats to dominate the nation’s healthcare system; and
• empower his own party to exploit even a tiny, temporary majority in the U.S. Senate to ram a radical agenda down the throat of 340 million Americans and enshrine it forever as permanent law

In other words, Mandela Barnes is a Democrat.