In addition to overtly Republican projects, the core of Cavalier Johnson’s day-to-day politics is simply aligned with Republican values: pro-business, pro-police, pro-oligarchy. You can’t pursue those interests without acting to harm many of the people living in Milwaukee.

Alexander Kostal is running on protecting renters, affordable housing, and preserving district 3’s income diversity. Kostal has been involved in public service his whole life. As a public defender, member of Milwaukee County’s Human Rights Commission, and in other roles, Alexander Kostal has spent years working for the common good. 

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffery Norman is trying to fill his department with officers who have been stewed in Republican villianization of our city. Mayor Cavalier Johnson and a majority of Common Council members gave that plan a green light last month. 

African American Roundtable highlighted that police were bankrupting Milwaukee in our report in 2021, yet nothing has changed and no one has seemed to listen. Police are the only department where results or metrics don’t matter. If crime is up, we need more police; if crime is down, we need more police. This logic fails to keep us safe, and this narrative fails to acknowledge what residents need and deserve.

Mayor Johnson is making a cynical calculus that is unfortunately typical with liberals: that tacking to the right’s benefits outweigh the political costs. He’s doing what the Milwaukee Police Association and Republican legislators want, maybe gaining him a bit of credibility with Wisconsin’s power structure –but losing only a few principled, abolitionist voters/elected officials/organizations/etc in the process.

The local manifestation of the 2020 rebellion painted defund the police in ten foot letters on the street outside city hall. Many might dismiss this demand as just local people jumping on a national trend, but it wasn't. It was a mass mobilization behind authentic community demands that existed prior to 2020, and persist to this day.

As Milwaukee Beagle has said since our beginning, the RNC was not the overwhelmingly positive experience that Mayor Johnson and Visit Milwaukee sold it to us as. Economic underpromises aside, we must also discuss the violence of cops and Republicans. Despite the efforts to chill free speech, folks were able to rally in resistance. The RNC is behind us and now the real fight to keep the fascists out of office begins.

Everyone with a brain and a heart knew that inviting the Republican National Convention to Milwaukee was a bad idea. We were promised an economic boon and safety (for the fascist attendees, at least.) We’ve gotten shuttered stores and put up checkpoints out of a shitty World War II film. And now a loved and well-known member of our community is dead – at the hand of out-of-state police who shouldn’t be “working” outside of the state-mandated “safety zone.”

Now that the Fascist Convention is here, it could be useful to remind ourselves that whatever happens, Mayor Cavalier Johnson bears the full responsibility and we need to hold him accountable for inviting these fascists to our city. We have the receipts Cavalier Johnson. Whatever happens during this convention you are to blame. We are not going to let you hide from your broken promises and responsibility.