GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – As the state continues to wrestle with the incidents that have unraveled in Kenosha over the past week, there are a lot of questions surrounding the governor’s approach to the situation. 8th District Congressman Mike Gallagher is one of those raising concerns.
Many of the decisions made by Governor Tony Evers and his administration this week have been heavily criticized.
“I still can’t understand why he would have refused help from the federal government as Kenosha was burning down,” Gallagher told WTAQ’s The Regular Joe Show on Friday. “I’m left to conclude that it was a political thing. It was an ‘I don’t like Trump and therefore I don’t want to accept help from Trump.’ I’m glad he reversed that decision, but I can tell you it required a lot of pressure from the Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the members of the Wisconsin delegation, et cetera, to make him do that.”
Gallagher also expressed concerns over the immediacy of the governor’s comments on Sunday night, and even following the shooting Tuesday night that left two people dead. Both incidents captured fatal shootings on camera.
“Even in the most charitable assessment of what the governor’s done, you have to concede that he poured fuel on the fire on Sunday night in his rush to judgment,” Gallagher said. “We simply can’t act as judge, jury, and executioner of people based on a Facebook video, right? We have a legal process in this country for a reason.”
Governor Evers and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes visited Kenosha on Thursday, four days after the initial police shooting of Jacob Blake that incited protests and riots in the city – as well as in Madison. Gallagher thinks that was way too late.
He also questioned much of the rhetoric the governor and his administration have shared.
“I think it’s a dangerous idea to suggest that the idea of America the founding ideas instantiated in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution are somehow inherently racist,” Gallagher said. “Of course, we have the original sin of slavery in this country. We fought a devastating Civil War in order to correct that sin, and then we struggled for decades with Jim crow in order to arrive at a situation where we could be closer to Martin Luther King’s dream of people being judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. Is that project ever over? No. Because we’re always striving to more perfect union.”
Gallagher argues that pushing such ideas only deepens the divisiveness surrounding the discussions of police reform and how minorities are treated by law enforcement within the state and across the country.
“We shouldn’t say there’s nothing to be done, that we can’t improve lives in Wisconsin – particularly for minority communities. Absolutely not. But how does this type of discussion get us closer to that?” Gallagher said. “How does this allow us to bridge the divide? I think it actually is having the opposite effect, of forcing people into their tribal corners. It’s incumbent upon leaders not to pour gasoline on the fire without all of the facts at your disposal.”
