Josh Hawley, graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, took the low road, aligning himself with Trumpism and trying to block the pro forma certification of Biden’s election. He saluted the rioters as they encircled the Capitol and prepared to storm it. Even after the siege, he continued to press the case against Biden’s certification. He pandered to seditious thugs carrying Confederate flags, some wearing T-shirts that said 6MWNE (six million were not enough), a reference to the Jews murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.
The reaction to Hawley’s self-disgrace was swift.
Simon & Schuster canceled his book deal.
His mentor, the respected former Senator John Danforth, said that he regretted his association with Hawley, calling it “the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”
Former Missouri Sen. John Danforth spent years promoting Josh Hawley as the future of the Republican Party, a “once-in-a-generation” candidate destined to contend for the presidency, perhaps in 2024.
But a day after the riot at the U.S. Capitol left four people dead, Danforth blamed his former protégé for sparking the insurrection.
“I thought he was special. And I did my best to encourage people to support him both for attorney general and later the U.S. Senate and it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life,” he said Thursday. “I don’t know if he was always like this and good at covering it up or if it happened. I just don’t know.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch denounced Hawley in scathing language.
Sen. Josh Hawley had the gall to stand before the Senate Wednesday night and feign shock, shock at what happened — hours after he had fist-pumped and cheered the rioters as they arrived on Capitol Hill. Hawley’s tardy, cover-his-ass condemnation of the violence ranks at the top of his substantial list of phony, smarmy and politically expedient declarations.
Americans have had enough of Trumpism and the two-faced, lying, populist politicians who embraced it. Hawley’s presidential aspirations have been flushed down the toilet because of his role in instigating Wednesday’s assault on democracy. He should do Missourians and the rest of the country a big favor and resign now.
To add injury to insult, Hawley’s biggest campaign donor harshly criticized his craven behavior and recommended that Congress censure him.
For once, just desserts. Or, karma is a bitch.
I just don’t know how he credibly serves in an elected body when he doesn’t recognize elections.
He fails the first test.
I suppose we’ll have to screen for this now. Ask every Republican candidate at the outset if they, in fact, support elections. If they hem and haw I don’t think they can run for office, do you?
In Danforth’s defense I think he was correct to assume the political candidate he backed supported the concept of elected leaders. That’s not something we ask them.
I could see being blindsided by finding out a sitting US Senator objects to the concept of democratically elected leaders. No one probably saw that coming.
America’s most expensive private prep schools, colleges and universities have taken a real credibility hit in the Trump years.
I don’t know what they’re teaching people in those places but they really need to look at it. They’re turning out some real clunkers.
Thank goodness the Trump Administration didn’t succeed in mandating “Patriot Education” in the public schools they don’t support- could have been ugly.
Agreed, Chiara. Hope that Stanford and Yale educators are looking at him and considering what they can/should do differently. What did or did not happen so that a graduate of these two institutions makes such horrific decisions?
Joe Nathan I used to get the Law newsletter from Georgetown University. I remember some years back an article that said, notably in an offhanded way, that they would have to start beefing up their ethics program . . . because too many of their graduated lawyers were spending time in jail. Having taught ethics, my first response was “duh.” CBK
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing that.
After there was a huge cheating among student athletes at the University of Minnesota, I was asked to teach a class for student athletes and other student leaders on ethical leadership. The attitudes that many of these young people had were striking. They had been incredibly successful in football, basketball, hockey or whatever.
They had been (as some of the guys, put it, ‘been treated as little Gods” in their communities because of their athletic skills.
I’ve dealt with some folks who went to “Ivy League” schools or Stanford and encountered the same attitude – that they’re significantly brighter, more talented than other Americans. This attitude was discussed at length in David Halberstram’s book, “The Best and the Brightest – about Ivy League “Whiz Kids” convinced themselves, Kennedy, and for at least part of his presidency, Johnson that the US would win in Vietnam.
The point is that sometimes colleges and schools promote very unhealthy attitudes.
Joe Nathan “The point is that sometimes colleges and schools promote very unhealthy attitudes.”
Thant would be my analysis only, often, by omission? But . . . yes. CBK
Every lawmaker who supported the unfounded claims of a stolen election after courts a every level had declared the claims as baseless should be recalled or prosecuted. Their willingness to subvert their offices to the will of a conspiracy theory proves that they too are unfit for office. I am disgusted that the person who represents my district, Tim Walberg, fell in line with Trump rather than listening to the courts.
I’d say that John Danforth’s biggest mistake was joining the party of Joe McCarthy in the first place. However, I do give him some credit for denouncing Hawley who is so typical of the modern GOP. Liars, hypocrites, far far right wingers, libertarians, Ayn Randians and unapologetic capitalistic fascists. The GOP has embraced the lunatic fringe. Will Trump have a presidential portrait? It should be the size of a stamp and should be hung in the Congressional lavatory.
Cruz and Hawley should (at the very least) be censured by both houses and stripped of any committee positions they may hold. Better yet is there a way to impeach both of these highly over-educated bastards?!
Fred Smith I know exactly what you mean. As a college teacher, however, I wouldn’t call Hawley or Cruz over-educated (though I think the “b” word fits). Rather, I would say there is something seriously missing in their education. Over-degreed, perhaps? but NOT over-educated.
I join others here and in some online education journals in wondering just what kinds of courses went MISSING in their coursework? . . . and in wondering about the arts and humanities (<–what a concept) including a good dose of history, the social sciences, and political and cultural studies . . . where the material works on our understanding of ourselves and others in the world. It takes a relatively mature person to even live in a democracy, much more to be a lawmaker in it.
Though even a good education is not a guarantee to manifest good people, somehow or other, at Stanford and Yale, bully, wart-type personalities seem to have slipped through unfazed by the experience. My guess is that many leaders there are having a good look at their respective backgrounds. CBK
Points well taken. Thank you.
I have encountered many people with good educations who seemed not to arrive at the same political conclusion I did. This is inevitable, for most of what we learn, we learn on our own.
Graduate from a fine institution and quit learning, and you will be just as stupid as you uncle who lambasts at the country store. I will not take long. Soon you will be taking the low road to personal attacks instead of logical arguments and defense of xenophobic claptrap.
The problem is that there is a finite number of minutes you can spend reading and thinking. Sooner or later, you will have to depend on someone else’s research. This is the breakdown in our society. Most people do not know how to choose authority, so they choose it on the basis of which speaker can stir them the most. Social media exacerbates this problem with its brief memes and snappy retorts.
Logical argument is nowhere near as fun as ranting. Arming yourself with information and verifying its authenticity is a skill that takes hours to develop. It is much easier to define your life with labels. Christian, socialist, atheist, fascist, hypocrite, the label list is long and filled with words that have great tension. We can make our evaluation of someone easier if a writer captures us with a good label.
You cut through to the etiology of our collective intellectual failure.
Trump has not only mastered the art of branding and labeling, he has delivered to his base hot-button, knee-jerk messages that are distilled into three-word imperatives: Drain the Swamp; Lock Her Up; Stop the Steal. Although, he has not yet told his followers to Kill the Jews, his words have stirred genocidal passions.
Fred Smith “Trump has not only mastered the art of branding and labeling, he has delivered to his base hot-button, knee-jerk messages that are distilled into three-word imperatives: Drain the Swamp; Lock Her Up; Stop the Steal. Although, he has not yet told his followers to Kill the Jews, his words have stirred genocidal passions.”
. . . a true bumper-sticker mentality, that. Calls us Arendt’s “Banality of Evil.” CBK
He’s an embarrassment to Missouri, even bright red Missurah, the state that used to be 50-50 on every issue and election. The “Show-Me State” has seen him and see right through him.
And – he’s not Donald T****.
Pollsters in 2016 found one common factor across all groups who like him. They agreed with the statement: “I do not have a voice in anything that affects me.” Taxes. Regulations. “Government”. Dog catchers. (Heck, school principals). They all hate authority. And, this guy will scream and yell at anybody and doesn’t care.
That is not Hawley, thank goodness.
The president loves a rally. He’s Pavlov and watches the crowd salivate. People who would never be allowed to set foot in mara lago as a guest love him. People who own more that he does love him.
Hawley raised his fist walking by the mob. I wish they had shown the mob. My bet is they could care less about some ivy league kid who never got his fingernails dirty giving him the thumbs up. Put him at a podium in front of that group and he’d lose them in a minute.
The image that speaks volumes about Hawley’s Arizona vote speech Wednesday was him looking directly into the camera. He wasn’t trying to persuade or even talk to his “colleagues” on either side of the aisle. He was doing a campaign ad.
What people love about the president is he goes off script – he talks to them, not at them or through them. The president is boisterous and fist pounding – just like the dictators he admires. Now – he’s out the door and fortunately this whippersnapper (as how I am sure the outstate boys describe him) will be too.
Hawley’s 15 minutes are about up.
Perhaps. To whom will the minions of Trump turn? There is always a political individual ready to step into a place of power. All the believers give someone power. Who will it be?
It remains to be seen if Hawley made a mistake. Americans have a short memory. In the days of McCarthy, there was an actor who hitched his wagon to the McCarthy train and reported many fellow actors to the House Unamerican Activities Commission, naming them as Communists when they were just people with opinions counter to his own. When McCarthy went down, he rose to the governor of California and then to the presidentcy in 1980. Ronald Reagn is still revered by conservatives, none of who know anything about his checkered past.
Before there was McCarthy, there was Richard Nixon, running for office in California in his Navy uniform (a violation of law) and calling out Helen Gahagan Douglas for being a Communist. He grew so powerful that he became president in 1968. When he was removed in 1974, every supporter I knew swore that he had been the victim of rotten Washington politics rather than a potential danger to the republic. Nixon started the slide into the present abyss with his success in playing to subconscious xenophobia.
Hawley is not going anywhere unless his fellow republicans take him out. There is a generation of voters who thinks that this was a stolen election because they have been told that. No amount of opposition from the left will kill Hawley. His political base will have to be marginalized to do him in. If the Republican Party cannot find principles and people within it to uphold them, he will be back like Richard Nixon.
Perfect composition, connection, execution, and artistry. Nailed the landing. 10/10, Roy.
You either get the media or the media gets you!
Television did Nixon in. There was no “wave” of trust and charismatic or boisterous leader in him.
Reagan was the Gipper! Movie Star! Hence, “every day guy” appeal. (and talked the low tax game)
This president is a Game Show Host and (WAS) king of twitter. Mass appeal. Whooped up the masses.
Hawley – none of the above
I can give a special nickname to that snobbish man: Smash BAKAwley (Smash that idiot AG)
John Danforth, much like Rob Portman today, benefits from the white privilege of being perceived as a “serious person” largely because, at first glance, he seems to be reasonable, thoughtful and soft-spoken. In this shallow age we live in that passes for “gravitas.” Both have lackluster records that always escape scrutiny and accountability.
Danforth is also an Episcopal priest, adding to the illusion. But when one looks behind the facade of each, one sees a typical venal Republican whose core motivations are fealty to corporations and the cash they bring and policies grounded in blaming the victim. I was present at many of the Clarence Thomas hearings, where Danforth introduced him and guided the nomination behind the scenes. Having Thomas and Hawley as mentees says all you need to know about Danforth.
https://apnews.com/article/6091a9564d4b4a4d98c6145ecda02901
Exactly.
I never could figure out why Danforth has been so adored. He’s establishment Rethuglican through and through!
The 121 House Republicans who signed up to challenge the votes of the American citizens should be held accountable for what they did terrible day/night. They may not have been out and front like Hawley and Cruz but they need to share the blame for the riot that happened in DC. One of them is newly elected from New Mexico and it will be remember in two years.
Take it from this Show Me Stater of that piece of shit fellow Virginian, oops I mean Missourian in plain down-to-earth Missouri talk. He’s a shithead.
Duane:
Can’t you all get Hawley out of office since he doesn’t even live in the state he “represents?”
He’s a slippery shit isn’t he. Just heard an NPR local interview that featured the leader/founder of the Lincoln Project (the group of Repubs who turned on the tRump) and he promised that his group will hound Hawley until he is gone. His disdain for Hawley was palpable in the interview. Hope his group succeeds.
and he lives outside of DC – not where most of the legislators camp out. He’s an outsider everywhere and will find out soon he has few bona fide followers now. He’s lost two billionaire donors. And now has RESIGN HAWLEY painted on the street in front of the Old Courthouse in St. Louis
Hawley also attended a Catholic high school. I saw a tweet where someone joked about him, “So much for men and women in service of others.”
Beth “Hawley also attended a Catholic high school. I saw a tweet where someone joked about him, ‘So much for men and women in service of others.’”
So he’s going against his Christian, Catholic teaching/upbringing . . . which has been my impression all along with these bozo performative hypocrites. CBK
Hawley went to a Jesuit school but he is a Methodist.
If it’s anything like the Catholic high school that I and Steve Scalise graduated from, “in service of others” is purely a self-serving (no pun intended) public relations gimmick. My school was a cesspool of bigotry, racism, anti-intellectualism, and hypocrisy. Scalise is a perfect poster child of its community. I’m betting Rockhurst High isn’t much different and that Hawley represents its graduates quite accurately.