Tusler's post-forum remarks remind us of our vulgar times

There is perhaps nothing more straightforward, more substantive, more purely issues-based than a League of Women Voters candidate forum.

Candidates receive plainly stated questions regarding the direction of our state and their proposed fixes for the things that ail it. Each is allowed equal time to respond uninterrupted.

It is as pure a distillation of our democracy as could be imagined.

Yet what took place in the immediate aftermath of the Assembly District 3 forum between incumbent Rep. Ron Tusler and challenger Rev. Dr. Michael Goodwin at Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Appleton on Wednesday, put issues – and democracy – on the backburner and pushed character front and center.

Tusler, a man always eager to proclaim his faith, took to social media in the hours following the forum. What he posted was filled with judgment, disrespect, self-righteousness, snark, victimhood and, yes, more professions of his faith. He started by making fun of the church as being insufficiently religious. It got worse from there. Here is what he posted:

We brought light into a dark place. Imagine a church without a cross. Nothing religious. Just rainbow art adorning the walls. 

Then, imagine going in and debating a rainbow-church pastor. The moderator only asking questions against or neutral to your pov. 

I needed help. I'm glad I asked. Thank you Holy Spirit for guiding me to truth in my answers.

The tone is of a man so steeped in certitude that he is on the One True Path that it seems not to occur to him how Jesus would regard a person filled with such pride. In just nine clipped sentences, Tussler manages to embody victimhood (unfair questions!), superiority, mockery, disdain, disrespect for his opponent – a real pastor by the way – and a presumption of righteousness and rightness. (He did bring light to darkness, after all.)

This is nothing new for Tusler. In comments for a story The Dairyland Patriot wrote on Dr. Goodwin’s candidacy, he said this of a man who has spent 15 years in ministry at Memorial Presbyterian: Dr. Goodwin’s ‘serious, but not literal’ Biblical worldview is inconsistent with Christ’s truth. The Bible is literal. The Bible is Holy. The Bible contains no mistakes … I’m afraid Dr. Goodwin preaches less than the Bible we were given by God. Instead, Dr. Goodwin preaches a hybrid. He deviates from the Bible when Its Truth is contrary to Society’s mandates. 

In other words, in spite of carrying on about freedom of religion throughout the night, he would judge how others worship.

With the exception of calling for better rehabilitation resources for those going through diversion programs, there was little he said that comported in any way with Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The only candidate addressing the needs of the least of us on Wednesday was. Dr. Goodwin, who called for investments in public education, workers’ rights, support for the LGBTQ+ community, an enhanced safety net for the people facing cuts to food benefits and health care from President Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ and a return to civility.

Or consider the Bible’s teachings about dishonesty. Much of what Tusler said was false or misleading. Whether that was willful or not, only he knows:  El Salvador is not sending its prisoners to the United States; The Church’s First Amendment rights were not violated by church closures during Covid – it was a public health matter; coal plants were closed by utilities, not by Tony Evers; 14-year olds cannot undergo gender reassignment surgery without parental consent; the Iowa-based model for redistricting is significantly different from the one Republicans proposed in 2023; property taxes are not automatically going to increase every year under Gov. Evers’ 400-year veto.

Then consider that following Donald Trump’s election to a second term, Tusler wrote on Facebook: “Doesn’t God answer our prayers better than we ask for them?” 

God. Donald Trump. My keyboard grew hot just putting those two in such proximity.

By contrast, Dr. Goodwin was humble and gracious. Most importantly, he seemed to embody how faith might inform policy in ways that actually do comport with Jesus’s teachings. “Faith and religion is the water that I swim in,” he said toward the end. “At the core of who I am is my faith in God. You know, there is a beauty and a genius to the First Amendment, which separates church from state, that the state can't mess with the church.

“But people of faith have served in all sorts of elected roles, and they bring that faith with them to it, and that's how I will be as an assembly person. I will bring my faith to this work. I will bring the compassion of Christ.”

Last night was a reminder both of what we might aspire to as well as of the vulgar times we are living through.