Caffeinated Politics

One of the first problems many of the current crop of candidates running for their party’s nomination for Wisconsin governor needs to deal with is acquiring name recognition. A county executive or state representative may be well-known in local areas of the state, but when facing a statewide contest needs to be known by voters far and wide. For one of the announced candidates, name recognition no longer is a concern. On Monday, Whitefish Bay businessman Bill Berrien is now associated with his online sex accounts following the intrepid work by reporters for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The conservative talking, Trump touting businessman followed numerous sexually explicit accounts online, including a nonbinary pornography performer. This is from a candidate who uses harmful partisan rhetoric about transgenders so to align with the harshest of the GOP base.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported  that Berrien, the CEO of Pindel Global Precision and one of two announced 2026 Republican candidates for governor, unfollowed several accounts in recent days after the newspaper asked about the matter.

Each week I read a couple news stories about the MAGA movement filled with either bountiful hypocrisy or embarrassing irony. I roll my eyes, snicker, and move to the next news story and another topic. But today the news reports are so ridiculous that they reach out and demand to be added as a post on Caffeinated Politics.

Berrien also followed “publications,” essentially blogs, like “Sexography,” which calls itself “an inclusive place for people to talk about and explore sexuality from all orientations, cultures, and perspectives,” and “Polyamorary Today,” which promotes relationships with multiple partners.

In the past, he “clapped for” — similar to “liked” on other social media — an article on “Polyamory Today” entitled, “My Husband Loves Watching Me Flirt With Another Man” and a post by Lee, who identifies as a “queer, trans, non-binary adult performer,” on ethical porn. (His campaign maintains he didn’t know Lee’s gender identity.)

How many posts over the past 20 years have I needed to write about how hypocrisy was front and center to the story. Since I did not have a category listed for the term there is no hard number to supply my readers. This is mainly a political site, so one can assume the number is higher than we would wish to be true.

But here we are again with the one thing that catches too many with the political bug thinking they can live one way, but campaign and perhaps govern apart from their daily personal behavior.

Hypocrisy.

The problem is that the bile and meanness of the language used and espoused by Berrien has already created the smokescreen of hate. ‘See, I am a white heterosexual male who wants to protect your daughters in the locker rooms of this state.’ In this case, the GOP candidate will need to soon fold up his tent and move on, but the harshness of his words will linger. The pathetic rhetoric has already landed on the ears of the conservative listeners.

Clearly, we are seeing insincerity, self-deception, and a stunning degree of lacking that thing called integrity, which my dad stressed his kids should own a lot of by the time they reach adulthood. When political candidates preach one thing while doing another, it undermines their credibility and suggests a fundamental lack of character.  I suggest before a candidate seeks to tell us what laws and goals we should have as a state that the person asking for our vote has a firm understanding of who they are as a person.

It appears that Bill Barrien, the macho male and former Navy Seal, has many secret doors of his life to first explore before advising us to treat some people with less rights and expectations of happiness.

Hypocrisy is never pretty.