Post-Liberal Conservatism

August 6, 2019 8:33 AM

“Hawley, for his part, inveighed against “multinational corporations” as responsible for “flat wages . . . lost jobs . . . declining investment and declining opportunity” in middle America. Left unmentioned: Hawley opposed a minimum-wage increase on the campaign trail in 2018 and supported Missouri’s draconian right-to-work ballot initiative that would have stripped workers of their basic right to unionize—a proposal that Missourians voted down last year by an overwhelming margin.” Flirting With Fascism (Jewish Currents) “Hawley’s bill isn’t about helping disadvantaged students gain valuable skills. It’s about dismantling a class of enemies—his “cosmopolitan consensus”—who he believes, “look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith.” Josh Hawley Wants to Break Higher Education to Own the Libs (The Bulwark) Josh Hawley Is A Fraud (Splinter)
posted by The Whelk (13 comments total)

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:37 AM on August 6, 2019 [10 favorites]

Thanks, I hate it.
Memery aside, right-wing interference to a lesser degree here in iceland does something similar, schools get less money if a student doesn’t graduate, which has made the value of degrees so much less. Institutions I’m connected to have complained about their forced rubberstamping. This will also destroy the international prestige of US degrees, and imagine having doctors that were pushed through university on a bare minimum grade to save school finances? Or the alternative, schools like Med Schools incentivised to flunk more students to demonstrate the toughness of their degrees (that is, if they can afford it).
Schools are a market, and this is such a clear state intervention of rules of market, and in such a wrongheaded way.
Not sure if the bill is trolling or if the guy is just an absolute unselfaware idiot.
posted by svenni at 10:37 AM on August 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

Josh Hawley was an associate professor at the University of Missouri Law School for 5 years before he ran for Attorney General in Missouri in 2016. His wife is Erin Morrow Hawley, who was also an associate law professor at University of Missouri.

Also, he's now a Senator because a lot of progressives turned up their nose at Claire McCaskill and wouldn't support her publicly. I understand their frustration, but we didn't get our own version of AOC as a result- we got Josh Fucking Hawley. So maybe sometimes let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good, when we're talking Missouri statewide politics.
posted by aabbbiee at 10:38 AM on August 6, 2019 [21 favorites]

Claire McCaskill publically dissed progressives when those were the people knocking doors for her.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:08 AM on August 6, 2019 [17 favorites]

Also, RTW was not on the general ballot. It was moved to primary day out of spite by our former Gov Crossfit Cuckolder Eric Greitens.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:13 AM on August 6, 2019 [5 favorites]

McCaskill lost by a not-exactly-close six points (for comparison the combined third-party vote, regardless of ideology, totaled 3%), and then decided the best service to the proud state of Missouri that she could provide was to land a cushy talking head gig on CNN as a "moderate Democrat" (i.e., hippy-puncher). She now uses that platform to scold WoC in Congress for not being "real Midwesterners," so I'm guessing that maybe it wasn't really the fault of progressives this time around.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:22 AM on August 6, 2019 [24 favorites]

Missouri is pretty much over her, tbh.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:34 AM on August 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted. We're not re-fighting the 2016 Democratic primary.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 2:03 PM on August 6, 2019

“Illiberal authoritarian nationalism” is fascism. “Post-liberal” is fascism. That nonsensical Sohrab Ahmari vs David French debate about rejecting democracy was about fascism. They are telegraphing their intentions...

Btw, ever notice how the faux populists like Hawley talk in pure abstraction? Hawleys big speech had a dumb parable about the Roman republic and nothing about Missouri, nothing about himself. They dont mention their own privileged backgrounds while left populists like Sanders and Warren speak with clear specificity - I grew up in a rent controlled apartment in Brooklyn, I grew up poor in Oklahoma, etc.
posted by cricketcello at 10:53 PM on August 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

Oh yeah talking about “the middle class” without defining what you mean is a big warning
posted by The Whelk at 9:03 AM on August 7, 2019

"Cosmopolitan" we all know refers to "Jews"...

(I imagine the links touch on that, especially Jewish Quarterly)

The first time I saw that article freaked me the fuck out and I'm not Jewish I can't imagine the horrors people who have historically been the target of this rhetoric must feel...
posted by symbioid at 11:58 AM on August 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Missouri is an extremely conservative state that Donald Trump won by almost 20 points. McCaskill was in major trouble no matter what electoral path she trod. It's always tempting to blame every politician who loses for their loss, but McCaskill got super lucky in both 2006 (huge Dem wave + narrow win) and 2012 (Todd Akin doing his thing). Her luck in a red state simply ran out.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 12:17 PM on August 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

The definitely not racist, fascist National Conservatives Conference (Know Your Enemy podcast)
posted by The Whelk at 2:01 PM on August 8, 2019