Josh Hawley Is Going All-In on Polite Sedition
The Missouri senator has jumped ahead of Tom Cotton as the dangerous future of American conservatism.
washington, dc december 16 sen josh hawley r mo takes the senate subway at the us capitol on december 16, 2020 in washington, dc house speaker nancy pelosi hosted a meeting as congressional negotiations on spending and economic relief legislation continued photo by tasos katopodisgetty images
Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 30, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388183
I'm sure this will disappoint many of his new fans on the "populist" Left, but Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, is apparently going all-in on a little polite sedition. From the Washington Post:
In a statement, Hawley said he feels compelled to put a spotlight on purported election irregularities. “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act,” Hawley said.
Trump will inevitably lose that vote, given that Democrats control the House and a number of Senate Republicans have publicly recognized Biden’s victory, including Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who has called Trump’s refusal to accept the election dangerous. Even in the unlikely event that Trump were to prevail in the Senate, where Vice President Pence would be in position to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed, the challenge still would fail given the House vote.
Of course, the whole purpose of this preposterous puppet show is to make Joe Biden's presidency as miserable as possible right from jump.
And, truth be told, if Hawley didn't do this, rookie meathead Tommy Tuberville of Alabama likely would have stepped up. But, over the past several months, Hawley has jumped ahead of Senator Tom Cotton, the bobble-throated slapstick from Arkansas, as the politician who worries me the most as regards post-Trump conservatism.
Cotton has proven to be more maladroit at politicking than I thought he would be, and he has all the obvious humanity of a jackhammer. Hawley is more identifiably human, and he's been much more clever on policy, flirting with economic populism while demanding an anti-choice litmus test on federal judges. Now, he's checking off an important box on the 2024 Pander Card.
In 2000, after the Supreme Court hijacked Florida's right to count its own vote, several Democratic members of the House showed up in the Senate, begging for one Democratic senator to do what Hawley is preparing to do next week. The group included Congressman John Lewis. Not a single Democratic senator chose to stand with him on a critical issue of voting rights and election integrity.
Poor Al Gore, presiding over the Senate for the last time as vice president, had to rule Lewis out of order because no Democrat would back him up. Now, regarding an election that the president* lost by almost eight million votes, a Republican senator is willing to monkey-wrench the process in a way that no Democratic senator was willing to do in an election that pivoted on 537 votes in a single state.
If you want a vivid illustration of the differences between how Democrats and Republicans do politics at this time in history, that's as good as any.
The Missouri senator has jumped ahead of Tom Cotton as the dangerous future of American conservatism.
washington, dc december 16 sen josh hawley r mo takes the senate subway at the us capitol on december 16, 2020 in washington, dc house speaker nancy pelosi hosted a meeting as congressional negotiations on spending and economic relief legislation continued photo by tasos katopodisgetty images
Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 30, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388183
I'm sure this will disappoint many of his new fans on the "populist" Left, but Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, is apparently going all-in on a little polite sedition. From the Washington Post:
In a statement, Hawley said he feels compelled to put a spotlight on purported election irregularities. “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act,” Hawley said.
Trump will inevitably lose that vote, given that Democrats control the House and a number of Senate Republicans have publicly recognized Biden’s victory, including Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who has called Trump’s refusal to accept the election dangerous. Even in the unlikely event that Trump were to prevail in the Senate, where Vice President Pence would be in position to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed, the challenge still would fail given the House vote.
Of course, the whole purpose of this preposterous puppet show is to make Joe Biden's presidency as miserable as possible right from jump.
And, truth be told, if Hawley didn't do this, rookie meathead Tommy Tuberville of Alabama likely would have stepped up. But, over the past several months, Hawley has jumped ahead of Senator Tom Cotton, the bobble-throated slapstick from Arkansas, as the politician who worries me the most as regards post-Trump conservatism.
Cotton has proven to be more maladroit at politicking than I thought he would be, and he has all the obvious humanity of a jackhammer. Hawley is more identifiably human, and he's been much more clever on policy, flirting with economic populism while demanding an anti-choice litmus test on federal judges. Now, he's checking off an important box on the 2024 Pander Card.
In 2000, after the Supreme Court hijacked Florida's right to count its own vote, several Democratic members of the House showed up in the Senate, begging for one Democratic senator to do what Hawley is preparing to do next week. The group included Congressman John Lewis. Not a single Democratic senator chose to stand with him on a critical issue of voting rights and election integrity.
Poor Al Gore, presiding over the Senate for the last time as vice president, had to rule Lewis out of order because no Democrat would back him up. Now, regarding an election that the president* lost by almost eight million votes, a Republican senator is willing to monkey-wrench the process in a way that no Democratic senator was willing to do in an election that pivoted on 537 votes in a single state.
If you want a vivid illustration of the differences between how Democrats and Republicans do politics at this time in history, that's as good as any.
