There are no more cynical, hypocritical, self-centered, unempathetic, whiny bitches in American public life than white male conservatives. And while the precincts of the self-important are littered with these sanctimonious bastards, today’s poster-child for clueless entitlement is Joshua David Hawley, the junior Senator from Missouri. A nonpareil, neo-Nazi-supporting prig — who is fully aware of what he is doing.
Hawley is academically gifted with a glittering resume. As an 'up and comer' there are two directions he could have taken. One was principled conservativism. The other was the road to lowest-common-denominator populism. He’s a politician of no principle, and an evangelical, so an embrace of the base was his predestined choice — as he acknowledged with his white power salute to the baying Capitol insurrectionists.
For this incitement to violence Simon & Schuster pulled the plug on his publishing deal and Loews Hotels canceled his reservations for a fundraiser.
In reaction, Hawley went straight to the aggrieved conservatives’ handbook and bleated about being ‘muzzled’. But in the execution of his complaint, he destroyed his own point. It takes chutzpah to moan about censorship when a significant American newspaper, The New York Post (founded by Alexander Hamilton), runs your op-ed on its front page. And then you promote it with a tweet.
Perhaps Hawley has some valid points to make. Let’s have a look. His first ‘go-to’ is a communist Chinese reference and its program of “social credit scores”. Agreed, it’s an Orwellian concept but it resembles nothing in America. However, a facile Hawley knows how to project. He writes:
“Everyone knows what a credit score is. But social credit scores are new. They’re the latest corporate import from Communist China, where government and big business monitor every citizen’s social views and statements.”
“latest corporate import from Communist China”? We’re talking American business, the entity that Hawley and the rest of the choir have allowed to dictate American women’s healthcare. Is Josh seriously claiming the bottom-line warriors, who Republicans have showered with deregulation and tax cuts for four years, are in the thrall of a foreign government program? To what end?
Hawley spells out the nuts and bolts of this fantastical US corporate/political adoption of the Sino-socialist oppression of conservatives:
“Your social credit [score] requires a lot of maintenance. You’ll need to get good grades in school and stay out of trouble with the law ... So if you want to get a good job, stay at hotels and be served at restaurants, you will need to do a few other things. You will need to voice the right opinions. You will need to endorse the right ideas. You will need to conform. That’s what the corporate chieftains tell us, anyway.
Dear God, no one cares what Hawley thinks. We’ve lived with religious-conservative bigotry for forty years. Ronald Reagan and Jerry Falwell Sr’s love child — the conservative evangelical hijack of one of America’s two major political parties — is now grown to full maturity. Its science-denial, bigotry, and hate are mainstreamed across social media, the conservative press, and the inane talking heads of right-wing cable news. There has been no limit for its vile destruction of American intellectualism and reverence for fact-based thinking.
So what finally inspired profit-driven corporatism to action? What finally roused ‘business America’ and the bosses of industrial social media to shut down the degenerate voices of conservative seditionists? Their political opinions? Hardly.
Corporate America excised Hawley and his fellow dime-store insurrectionists for their threats of violence, their assassination directives, and the promotion of an election-theft fantasy promulgated to enflame the violent. All this in the face of a 60-fold failure in court, the proof offered by recounts and audits, and the sworn affirmation of Biden’s win by Republican election officials.
Despite this overwhelming acknowledgment of Biden’s victory, Hawley clings to martyrdom. He ignores the expressed preference of 81.2 million Americans, to pursue his violent denial of election reality — and this despite a ransacking of the Capitol by the very people he saluted.
America is not a dictatorship — although the likes of Hawley entertain that wet dream. And calls to overturn legitimacy in the service of a violent minority are greeted with disgust. A disgust which the honchos of social media companies heed.
But let’s face facts. Nobody is in love with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al. We all would be happy to have more choices for our social media. But only a white-nationalist, neo-Nazi collaborator could maintain that shutting down people calling for the destruction of the American system is the action of the communist Chinese. If the ‘Reds’ express an opinion it would be full-throated support for Americans determined to pull down the temple out of spite for losing — even when the deck was stacked in their favor.
In his last thought, Hawley presents the argument that completely refutes his original whine:
“I for one am not going to back down. My book will be published, and I will continue to represent the people of my state without fear or favor, whatever the left or the corporations say.”
Yes, his book will be published. He’s on Twitter. Missourians can make the free choice of who should represent them — whatever “the left or the corporations say”. Hawley needs to do a more honest job of explaining how he is being ‘muzzled’.