Buying off fascist voters
Buying off fascist voters
What Josh Hawley is teaching us.
https://stoehr.substack.com/p/buying-off-fascist-voters
Josh Hawley is the junior US senator from Missouri. He made news this morning, saying he’d help the president in his attempt to stay in power by objecting to the certification of electors on Jan. 6. That means the US Senate will debate the merits of the allegations, which are nil, before voting to approve the Electoral College vote.
Hawley is expected to be one of the leading GOP candidates in the 2024 election. The conventional wisdom says he’s doing this to get as much attention as he can from Donald Trump’s loyalest supporters. While I’m usually skeptical of the conventional wisdom, I think it’s right this time. Hawley isn’t going to the wall for Trump. In the end, he’ll vote to approve Joe Biden’s victory. This is sound and fury, but also nothing.
What’s interesting, I think, is Hawley’s opposition to Mitch McConnell—or at least the appearance of opposition. The Senate majority leader does not want to go through this song and dance, but inst7ead get on with the business of sabotaging the new president’s administration. McConnell knows Hawley’s gambit will fail, and fears failing to stop what the president is calling a stolen election might harm Kelly Loeffler’s and David Perdue’s reelection prospects, which will determine which party controls the Senate.
Hawley opposes, or at least appears to oppose, McConnell is another way. The top congressional Republican does not support giving each American $2,000 per month in covid-related economic relief, because Americans who are suffering are more likely to blame the guy in charge, which is to say Joe Biden, than they are the Republican Party. McConnell did the same thing to Barack Obama. When the former president asked the Republicans for help rebuilding America in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial panic, McConnell said his first priority was making sure Obama was a one-term president.
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