Washington Examiner: Man In The Arena

After four years of Donald Trump, I would like to think we have learned some important lessons about rightwing populism before blindly jumping on the Hawley 2024 bandwagon:

  1. Never take seriously again anyone who tells you they are “trusting the plan” and attacks you for asking questions and being skeptical of politicians and their “plans.”
  2. Rightwing populism is typically a combination of libertarianism, entertainment, paranoid conspiracy theories and political theater. It is usually hot air devoid of substance.
  3. Rightwing populism is typically used as a trick by opportunists to prey on the resentments of disaffected voters who are used to advance their own careers.

Granted, this is not always the case, but it tends to be the rule in American politics. Demagogues are the rule and true populists are the exception. The Tea Party and MAGA were both coopted by the GOP establishment and used to advance their own interests. Mitch McConnell used Donald Trump as a rubber stamp to get corporate tax cuts and pro-business judges before kicking him to the curb.

Washington Examiner:

“As congressional coronavirus relief negotiations headed into a final December stretch, direct stimulus payments to the public looked to be on the cutting room floor. That’s when a mostly unsurprising group spoke up.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders both pressed for inclusion of the checks, as did the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Liberal leaders complaining a bill doesn’t spend enough? Dog bites man. But this time, the liberals were reinforced by an unlikely ally: a Republican senator. Missouri’s Josh Hawley demanded the inclusion of stimulus checks, saying he would “ gladly” work with Ocasio-Cortez on the task.

Hawley teamed up with Sanders to sponsor legislation that would provide those checks. While they couldn’t lasso the $1,200 checks they asked for, they did get $600 per adult and dependent child. ...

Even if right-wing populists do not succeed in taking over the GOP, they are slowly changing the party’s governing calculus. Increasingly, the party is under pressure, not just from the Left but also the Right, to adopt a more aggressive economic and corporate interventionism to champion workers.

The leader of that right-wing populist faction is Hawley. Even if Trump runs again in 2024, he’d be unlikely to get the deference of an incumbent and would thus have competition from the GOP’s emerging would-be leaders seeking to fill the vacuum that appears when a party loses the presidency. Hawley could be a real threat to Trump because he combines the outgoing president’s populism with a full-spectrum conservative worldview, political experience, a perch in the Senate, and relationships with his fellow lawmakers. If Trump doesn’t run, Hawley could make a serious play for inheriting Trump’s populist mantle outright. …

It’s unlikely that Mitch McConnell will tap Hawley to write party leadership’s policies. But he will continue to be heard loud and clear, reminding the GOP that sometimes, it’s more important to be attentive to the prophets of old than the profits of their corporate donors.”

I’m skeptical of Sen. Josh Hawley based on experience alone. Aside from his infamous tweet about being carried out on a slab for Israel, I have no reason to doubt or dislike the man.

So far, Josh Hawley has made a name for himself by taking up populist issues like social media censorship and the $2,000 stimulus checks. In both cases, he was the outlier in the Republican caucus where there was insufficient support to advance either issue. These were optical victories for Josh Hawley in establishing his populist credentials, but were still policy defeats for populist voters. Donald Trump was unable to overcome this resistance within the GOP to populism and Josh Hawley has to date shown no sign of being able to do so either even with these high stakes and the support of 81% of the American public.

Donald Trump’s mistake was that he didn’t understand the importance of utterly destroying his enemies and building a machine that had absolute loyalty to his presidency. This is what Huey Long did in Louisiana by crushing and trying to remove every judge and state legislator who opposed his agenda. Trump was content to be the “star” of his administration and preferred to delegate the work of governing the country to subordinates who were often his sworn enemies. He wasn’t an ideologue. Trump was just a narcissist who was content with being the center of national attention and his followers were content with his personality cult. They were content with “owning the libs epic style” and “trusting the plan.”

Josh Hawley plans to make another splash with Trump voters by objecting to the certification of the 2020 election results on January 6th. Ted Cruz and about a dozen other senators are joining him. This is why I think of Hawley as the master of optics. This is more of the same performance art politics. The last thing that we need is for Trump’s brand of reality television populism to continue.

About Hunter Wallace 12380 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

24 Comments

  1. Trump & Company may not be able to prove the election was stolen, but, that doesn’t make the election stink any less that it does.

    • @Krafty Wurker
      It really makes no difference to the average American.
      Is it any better than it was in 2016?
      Nothing can be solved politically.

      • @Goose…

        Every political problem has a political solution, but, if I gather your vibe, yes, some do require rifles.

  2. There is no salvation with the Republicans, only doom. The Republicans represent the interests of the plutocrats, plain and simple, never working class, middle class, ordinary, real (i.e. White) Americans. They may campaign as populists but they will govern according to their owners wishes like good lapdogs.

    The filthy rich, disgusting criminals like Sheldon Adelson carry around the Republicans, who dance to their tune, in their back pockets like little pieces of lint. A traitor like Pollard (he used his U.S. citizenship to get his intelligence job) is directly responsible for an unknown number of deaths of people working in foreign lands, at great personal risk to help the U.S. His co-ethnic scumbag, Sheldon Adelson, then transports said traitor to his true home in luxury where he was fêted as a national hero.

    Where was Josh Hawley or all the other worthless Republicans protesting this criminal escaping justice, where they being carried out on slabs? Will Josh propose ending foreign aid to “Our Greatest Ally” because of this treachery? To ask is to answer, the Republicans never fail to fail.

    • Yes. It’s about time that people see that both parties work against them. I still see people who think the Republicans are their friends.

  3. “I’m skeptical of Sen. Josh Hawley based on experience alone. Aside from his infamous tweet about being carried out on a slab for Israel, I have no reason to doubt or dislike the man.”

    I didn’t like Hawley the first time he was mentioned here. You posted a speech he gave at what looked like a fund raising dinner. The speech was all syrup, and no substance which irritated me. I’m not concerned about him making though, as he doesn’t have much in the way of charisma.

  4. Why do they support Israel? They never say why. Because they are paid to do so? An honest person would say why.

      • A democracy killed Christ.

        The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!”

  5. If he runs in 2024 and tells you what you want to hear as Trump did, I hope you all don’t fall for it as most fell for Trump’s lies and con. As the old saying goes” fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  6. Donald Trump’s mistake was allowing his daughter to marry into the Kushner crime family. All of his failures as President stem from this original sin.

    The failed Trump presidency was a necessary development.

    We real Americans gave the Jews one last chance to do the right thing, and the Jews blew that chance.

    Kushner took the 2016 mandate for populist American nationalism, and he used it to finagle:
    1. Pardons for various criminal Jews, including fellow Lubavitcher Rubashkin and of course his own father.
    2. Cartoonishly subservient support for Israel.
    3. Massive transfer of wealth from the real American middle class to the Jewish billionaire class.

    The credibility of every single so-called “right wing” Jew in America has been utterly and permanently obliterated by their unconditional support for Donald Trump’s anti-American, Jewish supremacist presidency.

  7. Isn’t there a southern senator or congress called “Tom Cotton,” who’s also Israeli? “Tom Cotton,” give me a break!

  8. Josh Hawley? Just another grifter with a peanut-sized pud out to cornhole the American people.All of these fakers like Cruz, Rubio, Hawley, and Trump (the list is endless) start their long con with an appeal to populist grievances, but hide their true billionaire-friendly, Israel-first agenda until the marks and suckers have voted them into office, at which point disillusionment starts and yet another shill comes along to replace them.

  9. I stopped paying attention to all the “stolen election” hoopla weeks ago. Either Trump or Biden we lose. Washington politics is corrupt and evil beyond redemption.

  10. I’ll likely be voting for the Democrats throughout the 2020s. I’m not expecting much. Perhaps they’ll tax the elite, reduce defense spending, reduce the price of health care, toss some yangbucks my way, take at least some science seriously, or be less subservient to our greatest ally. Before voting GOP, I’d need to see someone like a governor with a *proven record* of enacting the policies I want, such as immigration restrictionism and tech regulation, into law. Maybe someone rolled back misandry and anti-whiteness in the legal system at the state level. Something. Nothingburgers with a side of epic tweets and symbolic votes are unacceptable.

    No more conspiracy bs and other kinds of learned helplessness! And no more performance art!

  11. Hawley is as imperialist as any other Senator. He does support the hybrid war on China, Russia, and all other nations that begin to rise up and show a spark of independence.

    Admiral Nelson said “Gentlemen, when an enemy is committed to making a mistake, we must not interrupt him too soon.”

    While the U.S. puts its trust in hybrid war, high-tech billionaires and The Almighty Dollar (not in the real God), China is continuing to build the world’s largest productive economy and create a new, multi-polar, world order. While the majority of U.S. population are being made to fear and despise government, the vast majority of Chinese people continue to trust and approve of theirs. But the U.S. is fully committed to its strategy of hybrid war to subdue China and all other independent nations to achieve total world hegemony. Probably, it will succeed, because money is supreme and the world worships the Dollar, but perhaps, it “should not be interrupted too soon.”

  12. Josh Hawley, another true-blue, founding stock, Protestant, Anglo, northwestern European, high trust hunter-gatherer.

  13. Every single Republican congress support Israel,Bibi never had so many friends from the Republican party.If they don’t support Israel,they’re Holocaust denier and nazi.

  14. Voting period will not remove them. Too hell with faux populist koshervatives Josh Hawley. Don’t go down the finklethink path to White erasure.

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