Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate made history Thursday, electing Sen. Julian Bradley as Senate Minority Leader and making him the first-ever African-American state party caucus leader in either chamber of the Legislature.
And there is a very good chance that this is the first time you have been made aware of that fact.
When Democrat David Crowley was elected Governor Tuesday night, the headlines blared from all corners of Wisconsin:
When Bradley was elected Senate Minority Leader? Silence. No celebration of the milestone, no mention of Bradley’s race, nothing.
Funny how history is only made when one political party makes it.
When Republicans do, hack media outlets like News 3 Now (WISC-TV) in Madison will actively ignore it and instead attempt to mock the man who just made the exact same sort of history they celebrated two days earlier. Check out this headline from alleged journalist Kyle Jones on WISC’s website:
Bradley was indeed a pro wrestler and often speaks about his experience as preparing him for the even more rough and tumble (and decidedly faker) world of politics. But the point of WISC’s headline is to humiliate him as an unserious person and the Republicans as an unserious party.
Imagine if you will The Heartland Post running this headline after Crowley was elected Governor:
It is completely factually accurate: Crowley talks often about his family struggling with addiction and homelessness when he was growing up, and he dropped out of college at 19 before going back to school while Milwaukee County Executive and earning a degree from UWM in his 30s.
The only point of running a headline like that would be to insult Crowley, to minimize him as well as his accomplishment. And that’s why The Heartland Post would, of course, never run a headline like that.
The rest of the media apparently does not share this sense of journalistic integrity or basic human decency. That’s sort of what makes them the rest of the media.
Bradley is indeed the first black leader in the Wisconsin Legislature. There has never before been a black (or Hispanic) Assembly Speaker, Assembly Majority Leader, Assembly Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, or Senate Minority Leader in the history of the state.
And the rest of the media will never tell you about it because he is a Republican. That, more than anything else, is the clearest possible illustration of left-wing media bias. Republicans don’t get credit for making history; only Democrats do. Julian Bradley isn’t to be celebrated; he is to be mocked as a dumb former pro wrestler.
The narrative for the next two years of Democrat rule has already taken shape, but rest assured that The Heartland Post will always point it out and counter it.
Dan O’Donnell is the Editor-in-Chief of The Heartland Post
