Yesterday when the news broke that Sen. Hawley plans to contest the Electoral College vote on January 6, I fired off an email to him to explain what I thought of him. Hawley’s plan is, of course, an exercise in grandstanding and attention-seeking. More than one commenter today expects Hawley to try for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. I guess he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to ingratiate himself with the base.
Hawley is a hot shot with boundless ambition in spite of being short of serious accomplishment in political office. He does have a serious resume — “He graduated from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006. He has clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts; he taught at one of London’s elite private schools, St. Paul’s; and he served as an appellate litigator at one of the world’s biggest law firms,” it says here. In 2011 he became an associate professor at the University of Missouri law school. But as an elected official he hasn’t done much.
In 2016 he won election to be the Missouri attorney general. During his campaign against Democratic incumbent Teresa Hensley it was apparent there was some disagreement about what attorneys general do.
Democrat Teresa Hensley says the attorney general is the state’s top prosecutor, and for people to hold that office they must have courtroom experience.
“I’ve practiced law for 25 years, including 10 as a county prosecutor,” Hensley said. “My opponent is a young man who has never represented a client in a Missouri courtroom. He’s never practiced law in Missouri or stood in front a judge in Missouri. He’s not qualified for this job.”
Republican Josh Hawley says the main function of the attorney general’s office is to defend Missourians from an overreaching government and uphold criminal convictions won by local prosecutors that are on appeal. …
… Hawley says Missouri’s economy is “being stifled and strangled by over regulation,” and he vows to use the office to “fight back against Washington dysfunction and bureaucratic overreach.” …
… But Hensley says her opponent has made it clear he’ll use the office to advance an “extreme political agenda” instead of “protecting the people of Missouri from those who would pollute our air and water. From those who would commit consumer fraud. From predatory lenders.”
Hensley was right. Hawley served as state attorney general for only two years before running against Claire McCaskill for U.S. Senate in 2018. He didn’t exactly light the firmament on fire as an AG. The New York Times, October 2018:
A former law professor and clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, he brought a conservative intellectual pedigree but little management experience to the attorney general’s office, where his campaign says he has gained “a reputation for taking on the big and the powerful.”
But a review of public records and internal documents, as well as interviews with current and former employees, reveals a chaotic tenure as attorney general that has been costly for state taxpayers. Judges have criticized the office over its slow pace of discovery, and Mr. Hawley’s staff had to renege on a settlement in a high-profile civil case.
Mr. Hawley also quietly closed the environmental division and failed to fully vet one of his top supervisors, who departed after a female attorney in the office complained about his conduct. And his deputies took an unusual approach in an investigation of the governor’s office, largely acceding to demands to limit interviews of the governor’s staff to 15 minutes, internal records obtained by The New York Times show.
You’ll remember Eric Greitens, the gun-totin’ Republican Missouri governor who was forced to resign in his first term because of campaign finance issues. Hawley eventually moved against Greitens when it became clear protecting Greitens was getting in the way of his Senate run.
Hawley also got caught using a state vehicle and driver for personal use, such as attending Kansas City Chiefs games. State auditor Nicole Galloway found that Hawley wasted a lot of state money for political and personal purposes, actually. When Galloway ran for governor this year, Hawley got back at her by leveling completely bogus charges against her.
It’s also the case that Hawley sold his home in Missouri in 2019. He doesn’t own a home in the state any more. He uses his sister’s address as his voter’s address, even though he lives full time in Virginia. Figure that one out.
So now Hawley is a U.S. senator, and the question is, does he have the chops to put on the mantle of Trump? Hawley is not the bomastic, over-the-top type that Trump is. Hawley’s thing is more of an affected folksiness. So I don’t think he can pull it off. But lord help us if he does pull it off, because like Trump, he is greedily ambitious and doesn’t let morality and ethics and good of nation stuff get in the way. And unlike Trump, he’s smart.
Peter Wehner writes at The Atlantic:
What is happening in the GOP is that figures such as Hawley, along with many of his Senate and House colleagues, and important Republican players, including the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are all trying to position themselves as the heirs of Trump. None of them possesses the same sociopathic qualities as Trump, and their efforts will be less impulsive and presumably less clownish, more calculated and probably less conspiracy-minded. It may be that not all of them support Hawley’s stunt; perhaps some are even embarrassed by it. But these figures are seismographers; they are determined to act in ways that win the approval of the Republican Party’s base. And this goes to the heart of the danger.
The problem with the Republican “establishment” and with elected officials such as Josh Hawley is not that they are crazy, or that they don’t know any better; it is that they are cowards, and that they are weak. They are far more ambitious than they are principled, and they are willing to damage American politics and society rather than be criticized by their own tribe.
But for Hawley, the doomed fight is the point, not the outcome. “Somebody has to stand up here,” he said in an appearance on Fox News. “You’ve got 74 million Americans who feel disenfranchised, who feel like their vote doesn’t matter.”
But this isn’t disenfranchisement. It’s called losing. The votes of Trump supporters mattered; it was just that there were fewer of them than votes for Joe Biden. That’s what happens in an election: One side loses, and if it was your side, it doesn’t mean you got cheated. It just means you lost.
But those voters “deserve to be heard,” Hawley says, as though the problem they have had is an insufficient opportunity to air their deranged conspiracy theories. Never have a group of people so ear-splittingly loud spent so long complaining that they’re being silenced.
No one seriously denies that the Republican base has utterly lost its mind; the only question is how shamelessly GOP politicians will pander to that lunacy. For Hawley, the limit has not yet been reached.
It remains to be seen if Hawley knows any limits where his own self-interest is concerned.
Josh Hawley
Nobody can replace Trump.. What I'm seeing is these repugs learning the lesson that the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the grease. The more outrageous and obnoxious you can be, the greater your exposure is, which in turn increases your political capital. At least in the era of Trumpism.
You are right Swami, fortunately, being like Trump would be like trying to make a sequel to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. His Rocky and Whorey Political Show is a one time number. It has it's own "special" cult which finds deep meaning in nonsense and identity in mental pathology. It is not surprising that his most ardent followers are those who live at and around pig farms and feed lots. Some might say he has the appeal of a giant bag of fetid manure (or a phrase somewhat close to that). More do not find his aura so attractive thank goodness.
Have a great new year.
Nobody can replace Trump..
It’s not about replacing Trump, it’s about running through the door he blasted open.
There are no shortage of ambitious nitwits like Hawley, Rubio, Nikki Haley, Don Jr and his toxic girlfriend who are rushing to grab that mantle.
In much the way that Trump makes George W Bush look presidential, the next iteration will make Trump look relatively harmless.
Trump gave them a roadmap, a path to power based on weaponized stupid and hate. Many have always said that if Trump wasn't crippled with narcissism and being so damned dumb, he'd have turned this country into Nazi Germany 2.0 by now. Hawley is not a great political or intellectual talent, but you don't have to be to see where Trump went wrong. And the only firewall we have right now is the democratic party. Truly frightening.
A lot of voters feel disenfrachised, not just Reich-Wing KKKonservatives.
If you're a RepubliKKKLAN in NY or CA, your vote gets drowned by floods of Dem votes.
And the same for a Dem in AL or OK.
The voters in a handful or two of that election's "Swing States," are who determine the outcome.
So the overall national vote winner is NOT the POTUS. The winner of a stupid and anachronistic Electoral College is.
And as we Dem's know all too well, in two of the prior five elections, our Dem being the overall national vote winner didn't mean doo-doo when the EC says s/he ain't!
But even if we did a true democratic election this past November, the overall vote winner would still be Biden. The EC vote reflected the overall winner this year.
But it's because of this stupid and antiquated 18th Century system, a mook like Joke Hawley can claim that PA, one of this year's swing states, didn't do some election bullshit or other; or did too much bullshit, or too little; or did it left-handed, or, etc…
Every state would have the exact same rules for registering and voting. What a novel (NOT!!!) idea!
But "we" can't do that, because it's gonna be tougher to disenfranchise and suppress the votes of minorities.
Well then. I mean, where's the fun in runnin'? What's the point of voting if you can't prevent a minority from voting?!?
Hawley's just a quicker sociopath than Marco, Cruz, or any other RepubliKKKLAN POTUS wannabe.
If he runs, well, he might find that he might be perceived as an elite – the boy is, after all a Standord and Yale graduate.
My money right now, s'on Don Jr.
Why would the deplorables want a cheap political tRUMP knockoff like Joke Gawley, or Marco?
Instead, they can have the cheap genetic knockoff!!!
I'm with you gulag, my money's on Don Jr and his toxic girlfriend. If you thought Don Sr and Melania were bad, just wait till you see the next generation…
It'll be interesting who the rubes go for, Don Jr or the elite Hawley. Unless Don's going to jail, I don't think Hawley stands a chance.
My money's on Ivanka. Remember, we still have not had a female president and she is Trump's "dahling" and looks so innocent. And then Jared would be able to run the presidency while Ivanka looks beautiful behind the desk in the oval office.
Having indulged in the foolish pastime of engaging with Trumpsters online, I suggest for your consideration that no one acceptable to the Republican apparatchik is going to be acceptable to GOP fanatic voters. The voters are even less interested in governance than the Republican party.
Trump used the Republican party and bent it to his will. The Trumpsters love that. Trump gave the military-industrial complex the middle finger in a demand for power over social media companies. The Trumpsters love it that Trump is at war with the entire mainstream media.
IMO, they KNOW Trump lost the election. They know the MSM is reporting facts. They know the pandemic is huge but they resist all evidence that Trump mismanaged it and are deliberately in denial of anything that would hurt Trump. They want an authoritarian leader who is against government. This makes as much sense as standing in the rain to get dry. But they believe it.
They want a Great Leader who is totally outside the system. Rubio, Cruz, Haley, Hawly are all disqualified by their qualifications. Swami is right. Noone can replace Trump. He. ran on the fiction that he is the Billionaire who beat the system and was never part of the system. There are no heirs to Trump but the Trumpsters won't go quietly.
IF Trump thinks that as long as he's in the castle he is king he's going to fortify himself in the White House and ignore the transfer of power. Ah, that won't work because the government will abandon Trump at noon on the 20th and he'll be taken out by force. Not so easy if the authorities can't get in. Can Trump bring the private militias, armed, onto the WH grounds between the 6th and the 20th to protect him/ If the demand is the capitulation of the government to Trump under threat of national revolution, how does Biden respond?
I'm not suggesting Trump can win, but the weirdness may just be beginning.
I have thought about this scenario at times and I wonder what the duty of the secret service is. Remember, they do protect ex-presidents too. Sometimes I wonder who is writing this fantastic story, the gods or the devils.
Michael Gerson also ripped Josh Hawley in the Washington Post today. Gerson uses the term; politics of delegitimization to describe what Josh is doing, but why not call it what it is – bastardization. The word seems to better describe Josh Hawley's actions. Corrupting and debasing seems to be the motive, and that is how bastardization is defined. In the great down under, bastardization is defined as an Australian military initiation involving brutality and bullying (dictonary.com) which gives more the proper valance to the action.
Other than this tiny quibble, Gerson's piece is also a really good read on the subject.
Opinion | Josh Hawley’s heedless ambition is a threat to the republic – The Washington Post
And why not enjoy this great piece on the cancel culture too.
What Cancel Culture Looked Like in the Middle Ages | NYT Opinion – Bing video