Ron Johnson - 45's apprentice - goes deeply to the dark side

Despite a wasted decade in the US Senate that wrapped up with an all-night bill-reading-stunt-that-failed -

Sleep-deprived Republicans were late showing up the next day, debate was drastically shortened and the bill went on to its anticipated passage.

- an unaccountable and unshameable Ron Johnson appears to be rolling out a cynical game plan to extend his tenure: 

Step one: 

Continually assure all Former Guy's Wisconsin 2020 1,160,065 voters  - a number that exceeded Johnson's 2016 total of 1,479,471 and his 2010 turnout of 1,125,999 - (Johnson's data from Ballotopedia, here) - that he's the rightest of the right to wear FG's crown across the state.

(Yes, that would have Johnson break a promise that he would not seek a third term, but you can't be surprised by anything he says or does. After all, Johnson was still promoting false and dangerous conspiracies to undermine Biden's win two months after the Nov. 3rd elections, and then went on to say that the catastrophic, fatal January 6th Capitol Hill insurrection wasn't an armed riot.)

Step two:

Further lock down the Former Guy's Wisconsin vote by continuing to imitate FG's behaviors and bombast - from sucking up to Putin to promoting bogus medicine  to more recently adopting FG's racist memes and themes in a disgusting bet that regrettably will find appeal at the fringes. 

Step three: 

Promote a manipulative flip of a 'race card' allegation he fabricated for himself into an equally self-serving 'well-I-declare-plea-for-sympathy' victim card.

Which explains Johnson's 'principled' resolve to remanufacture his faceless foes' fake unfairness into an equally phony and completely undeserved underdog's identity.

And that has two benefits:

1. Hey, who doesn't like an underdog?

2. More importantly, flipping the narrative would conveniently remake the re-election bid he pledged he wouldn't make from a referendum on his record (and broken promise) into a run against other, anonymous scary people's behaviors: 

Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson Says Comments About Capitol Insurrection Were Not Racist

“I completely did not anticipate that anybody could interpret what I said as racist. It’s not....I’m not deterred by this,” Johnson said of the reaction to his statements. “I think people need to understand that. This just, if anything, fires me up more.'”

Former Guy tried and failed to turn the 2020 election away from his repulsive record into a referendum on Karl Marx, Hunter Biden and the Green New Deal, but don't put it past Johnson to try and become Sequel Former Guy for Wisconsin's MAGA crowd.

As Yoda might have said echoing himself in "Phantom Menace" had he seen Former Guy and RoJo in the Dojo: 

 “Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice.”