Ron Weiser Makes Misogynistic Remarks about Michigan’s Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General
The GOP Chair referred to the Democratic leaders as “three witches” in speech to the North Oakland Republican Club.
Ron Weiser, the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, made misogynistic comments about Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel and joked about “assassination” to remove two GOP lawmakers.
Weiser, who is also a University of Michigan Regent, referred to the Democratic women leaders collectively as “three witches” in a speech to the North Oakland Republican Club on Thursday.
“Our job now is to soften up those three witches and make sure that we have good candidates to run against them that they are ready for the burning at the stake,” he said.
Benson, Nessel and Whitmer took to Twitter on Friday in response, with Benson posting a photo of Dorothy and the Good Witch from “The Wizard of Oz” and Whitmer posting a photo of her holding up Lindy West’s book “The Witches Are Coming” and tweeting “Speaking of witches, I highly recommend this book! ‘For a long time, a certain set of men have called women like me ‘witches’ to silence and discredit us.'”
Nessel tweeted “Witches who magically decrease Covid spread, increase voter turnout and hold sexual predators accountable without any help from the legislature? Sign me up for that coven. Do better, Michigan GOP.”
Weiser also joked about “assassination” as one of the ways to remove U.S. Reps. Fred Upton and Peter Meijer from office in response to a question about ousting the two Republican lawmakers. Upton and Meijer were among 10 Republican congressmen who voted to impeach former President Trump.
The overall purpose of Weiser’s speech was to support a ballot initiative that would change state election laws.
This week, GOP legislators introduced three dozen bills that would — among other things — make absentee voting more difficult.
Whitmer is expected to veto many of those measures.
A ballot initiative would need just 340,000 petition signatures before it could be ratified by the Republican-led legislature without Whitmer’s approval.
In the November election, 3.3 million people in Michigan voted absentee on the way to record turnout, with no evidence of election fraud.
Weiser, who was elected co-chair of the state’s GOP party in February, has been embroiled in several scandals, including accusations from the former state party chair Laura Cox of a “sleazy payoff” and gross misuse of party funds over the years. His party co-chair, Meshawn Maddock, organized bus trips to the Jan. 6 Washington, D.C., rally that turned into a violent insurrection and riot.
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