U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde stopped in Shawano for a community listening session and a visit to J.R. Machine to see what the company does in terms of space travel and other endeavors.
During the listening session at Shawano City Hall, Hovde told more than 30 business owners and retirees about how he wants to help the people break free from the “feckless, stupid leadership” that includes President Joe Biden and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, whom he seeks to unseat come November.
“I could say I got tired of yelling at the television set, but really it comes down to one simple reason: I love my country,” Hovde said. “We are all so blessed to live in America. What our founding fathers gave us with our constitution gave us more civil liberties, freedom and prosperity than any people ever in humankind.”
Hovde said the government, in the last four years, has been working to curtail those freedoms, describing it as something out of “Alice in Wonderland.” He sees his concerns broken down into four areas — financial security, domestic security, international security and division in the country.
“Think of the conversations we have today. They’re almost bizarre,” Hovde said. “I was sitting around a table last night with a group of people in their 70s and 80s, and we’re talking about boys playing girls sports. We didn’t talk about that 10 years ago.”
Hovde believes the government has already bankrupted the United States, claiming more debt has been racked up since 2020 than in the other 240-plus years of the country’s existence.
“Because of that, we’ve ignited the worst bout of inflation we’ve seen since the 1970s,” Hovde said. “Look at the price of food. Look at the price of gasoline. Look at the price of housing. Look at the price of insurance.”
Domestic security has Hovde concerned about the crime rates in major cities. He described Milwaukee as the “murder capital” for the country, as the police force there runs a 40% deficit in officers to handle the criminals.
“People don’t even feel safe there,” Hovde said. “You go into the Black community and the Hispanic community, they want the National Guard called out.”
He added that illegal immigration from the southern border is a huge problem now, calling it the “rotten onion.” Hovde has a problem with the fentanyl coming across the border and killing people, as well as the immigrants who are using the health care system that Americans pay for.
“If they’re all using our health care and they’re not paying for it, where does that cost get transferred to?” Hovde said. “It’s all of us.”
Hovde said he was in favor of the United States leaving Afghanistan as he addressed international security, but not to the point where there was no U.S. presence and not in the way Biden did it. He denounced how American citizens and Afghan supporters were left behind, along with millions in military equipment.
“That was incompetence beyond incompetence,” Hovde said. “Look, I had no problem wrapping up that war, but don’t you think we should have kept that strategic military base we lost a lot of men for that could have been there for us in the future and could have tamped down future terrorist cells? Don’t you think that would have been sensible?”
Hovde said it was the withdrawal from Afghanistan that has prompted more aggression from Iran, China and Hamas, and he thinks the move made the United States look weak enough for Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
Hovde pointed out that Republicans and Democrats have played a role in the division of the country but claimed the left wing has become experts in doing so, pitting people against each other over race, religion, sexual preference, socio-economic class and more. He said dividing people is how the Democrats can gain power.
“I’m being attacked all the time because I’m successful,” Hovde said. “Don’t you want somebody successful running things?”
Hovde did not invoke Baldwin’s name very much during the listening session, but he got in a few jabs at her, denoting how long she has been in Washington, D.C., starting out as a congresswoman in 1999 before starting her first term in the Senate in 2013.
“She’s one of the most radical, extreme liberals,” Hovde said. “She runs back here as a moderate. She is the farthest thing from it.”
This was Hovde’s second campaign trip to Shawano County this year. Baldwin has yet to make a public appearance.
Hovde summarizes campaign in 2nd Shawano visit
