“Trump is a Russian Spy”
Washington, D.C. – Mandela Barnes is a dangerous Democrat. And it turns out that he is just as dangerous on social media as he is IRL.
As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
“I would probably say I spend too much time online,” Barnes, 35, said in a February 2021 interview. “I can be reading too, but I spend a little too much time online.”
But what’s he saying on Twitter?
A lot. What we get here is an unvarnished and free-wheeling political candidate touching on a number of interesting and controversial topics over the past decade.
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 Washington was 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.
“Taking one for the team,” Barnes wrote even as Scalise was using crutches and a scooter to get around the Capitol. “I question how people vote against self-interest but this is next level. He literally almost died on this hill.”
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.
In addition, Barnes, who is vying to be the state’s first Black senator, has opined on police and community unrest, two subjects for which he has been criticized during the election.
During the 2014 Ferguson protests, which erupted after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, Barnes acknowledged his struggle to call for peace there. As for police, he tweeted that “not all police” are corrupt or racist.
…
At 12:42 a.m. on Nov. 9, 2016, just as it was becoming apparent that Trump was going to defeat Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, Barnes asked a question that would become very familiar four years later.
“The election was, rigged?” he asked.
…
So which politician does Barnes like?
Ocasio-Cortez, the lefty Democrat from New York, wrote on July 5, 2018, about the fun she was having at a bodega. Barnes responded, “I’ve needed this energy for so long. This is the moment she became my president.”
He’s obviously kidding, but the statement still says a lot. You can bet he wouldn’t tweet that today, even though she is endorsing him.
During the campaign, Republicans have tried to tie Barnes to AOC and the rest of the liberal group known as “The Squad.” Barnes has rejected that effort, even going so far as saying a staffer actually wrote his official tweet calling U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, “brilliant.”
Read the full article HERE.
Statement from NRSC Spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow: “Barnes’ tweets show just how liberal and radical he is. As an elected official, what you say on social media holds a lot of weight but clearly Barnes doesn’t care. If this is how he communicates online, then he shouldn’t even be considered for higher office. He’s simply too dangerous for Wisconsin.”
###
