#2816: Joni Ernst

Joni Ernst is the US junior senator from Iowa, a hardcore wingnut and versatile conspiracy theorist. Ernst emerged from the Tea Party in the early 2010s, and was by 2016 sufficiently prominent to be (rumored to be) initially offered Trump’s VP spot, an offer she declined.

 

Like many wingnuts, Ernst has an idiosyncratic and/or poor grasp of the US Constitution, believing e.g. that states can nullify laws passed by the federal government and that local law enforcement officers can freely arrest federal officials attempting to implement Obamacare. She also argued vociferously that then-President Obama had become a dictator that needed to be removed from office and prosecuted for crimes against the Constitution, without being able to identify what those crimes were supposed to be or how they violated the Constitution. In 2014, she also argued that same-sex marriage should be left to the states while simultaneously arguing for a federal marriage amendment that would prohibit gay marriage.

 

Thus far, however, we have mostly dealt with standard wingnut fare; examples of the stuff that really qualify Ernst for an entry here, however, include at least:

 

-       Endorsing and promoting Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, claiming e.g. that the non-binding guidelines would lead to farmers being forced off their land and made to live in cities

-       Believing that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003.

-       Being a climate change denier: “I have not seen proven proof that [climate change] is entirely man-made”, said Ernst, committing over the course of ten words a lie, a ludicrous strawman, a red herring, and an appeal to ignorance, while simultaneously displaying complete and utter misunderstanding of how science works.

 

Ernst is also on record fuelling COVID-19 conspiracy theories, e.g. by claiming early on that case numbers were greatly inflated and that healthcare providers might be falsifying them.

 

Diagnosis: A good illustration of the fact that the distinction between the mainstream right and the conspiracy-driven wingnut cuckoo-land has been blurry for a while, Ernst definitely has investments in the latter. She is nevertheless a US senator who seems to enjoy quite a bit of authority, recognition and influence among what many would describe as the “mainstream” parts of the right. Scary and dangerous.

 

Hat-tip: Rationalwiki