Josh Hawley: The Con Man of Missouri

Raise your fist, to ensure he never steps near greater power

Josh Hawley wants you to know he’s a reasonable guy. This is why he recently published a long essay attacking fellow Republicans who want to cut Medicaid, which provides healthcare to 70 million Americans. Why is he telling us this now? It’s because he’s already running for President

One of the slickest young members of the Senate, Hawley has represented Missouri since 2019. He was on the shortlist as Donald Trump chose his 2024 running mate but lost out to J.D. Vance. That he now wants the Oval Office is an open secret. That he’s unworthy is beyond doubt.

Whenever I see, hear, or read anything about Hawley, a grotesque image comes to mind. It’s a widely seen news photo of him -- tall and slim in his blue suit and red tie -- walking away from the U.S. Capitol as rioting Trumpists seized control of the building on January 6, 2021. He and his colleagues are fleeing. Hawley turns toward the marauders and raises his fist to egg them on.

Hawley knew what he was doing as he posed for that picture. He was signaling to the MAGA universe that he, like them, accepted Trump’s ridiculous claim that he had been cheated out of re-election in 2020. He was signaling that, like them, he stood with the mob that was trying to violently halt Congress as it certified the election results. And he was signaling that he was ready to accept Trump’s mantle, and his base of support, when the time came.

Despite his claims otherwise, Trump is barred from seeking reelection in 2028, so we should expect a mad scramble to replace him. Hawley, who long ago said “I’m with him,” has supported Trump at every turn. Most recently, he has backed Trump’s slash-and-burn attack on the federal government. And like Trump, who has often been checked by the judiciary, he wants Congress to take the radical step of limiting the power of judges.

But even as he votes for the Trump agenda, Hawley looks at the national electorate and tries to have it both ways on critical issues. Take the question of “birthright” citizenship. The Constitution says anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. End of story. However, in his drive to deport illegal immigrants, Trump has signed an executive order that would end this right. (The order has been blocked by the courts.) For his part, Hawley has said he supports the order. But when asked whether he believes birthright citizenship should be the law of the land, he refuses to answer.

Hawley has a habit of equivocating. He once said he supports Americans’ right to use in vitro fertilization to have children. Then he voted against legislation that would guarantee this right. He has both supported and opposed a nationwide ban on abortion, and though he long backed tax cuts for big corporations, he now takes a populist stance and opposes them.

Populism, Trump style, is Hawley’s new identity. Although he’s a relatively wealthy guy who was educated at Stanford and Yale Law School, he frequently rails against “elites” and supports Trump’s tariff regime, which is falsely promoted as a way to create lots of new factory jobs. He says big corporations have a “radical ideological agenda” and that America shouldn’t be spending any money to support Ukraine in its fight for survival against Russian invaders and

Hawley’s anti-Ukraine position aligns him with a growing number of isolationist Republicans who don’t want us to support a democracy that serves as a bulwark between Russia and our NATO allies. The same voters are, like Trump, increasingly skeptical about the value of NATO. Eager to show he’s with them, Hawley was the only U.S. senator to vote against the alliance expanding to include Finland and Sweden.

Finally, there’s Hawley’s commitment to the Christian nationalist movement, which promotes the idea that our government and laws should be based on conservative Christianity. It ignores the fact that the authors of the Constitution deliberately created a secular nation with a secular government. Although he has declared his allegiance to Christian nationalism, Hawley has been cagey when it comes to specifics.

Time and time again, he has been big on rhetoric and grand gestures and vague on details. But there was nothing vague in the gesture he made toward the January 6 attackers. In that brief moment, Josh Hawley’s true character was revealed. It disqualifies him from higher office. It disqualifies him from the Senate as well.