Hawley with Blood on His Hands

This is not the blog article I intended to post on January 10, but little did I know when I made my Jan. 5 post, partly about the end of the election season in the U.S., that it was going to end so violently.

Hawley, the Embarrassing Missouri Senator

In that Jan. 5 post I wrote, “Embarrassingly for many of us Missourians, last Wednesday Sen. Josh Hawley announced his intention to object to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, which will lead to hours of debate tomorrow on what should be merely a routine matter.”

On Jan. 6, Hawley (b. 12/31/79) not only persisted in calling the presidential election into question, even after the insurrectionist mob stormed the Capitol, he cheered that mob on as DJT had done in his inflammatory speech at the “Save America” rally earlier in the day.

Here is the photo of Hawley taken early on Wednesday afternoon by Francis Chung, a photojournalist for E&E News:  

As Katie Bernard wrote for the Kansas City Star this morning, this image “seemed to crystallize Hawley’s week-long role as the face of the Electoral College challenge to Biden—and the chaos it unleashed.”

Again, this is highly embarrassing to many of us Missourians—and adds to our ongoing and deep disappointment that he defeated Claire McCaskill, the highly qualified incumbent, in the 2018 senatorial election.

Hawley, the Outspoken Evangelical Christian

Senator Hawley is also an embarrassment for those of us who identify as Christians—as is much of the conservative evangelicalism with which he has long associated.

As John Fea, a university professor and prolific blogger,  pointed out yesterday, “The U.S. Senators who objected to the Electoral College results were almost all evangelicals.”

Described as “a conservative, evangelical Presbyterian,” for many years Josh Hawley has been clear in his support of the issues most important to the Christian Right: a strong advocate for “religious freedom” and strong in his opposition to abortion and gay rights.

Back in 2015 at the beginning of his campaign to become the Attorney General of Missouri, he was lauded by Don Hinkle, the editor of The Pathway, Missouri’s conservative Southern Baptist newspaper.

As Hinkle pointed out, Hawley had worked on the Becket legal team that “won two of the most important religious liberty cases of our time.” One of those was the highly publicized Hobby Lobby case refusing to include abortion drugs in the insurance provided for their employees.

Hawley has also taught at Blackstone Legal Fellowship, a program seeking to train (conservative) Christian lawyers. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled that organization “an extremist group.”

 Blackstone is an arm of Alliance Defending Freedom, which SPLC has designated as a hate group since 2016. That is largely because the “freedom” they defend is the freedom to discriminate against LGBTQ people and to block legal abortion activities.

Hawley, the Co-instigator of Sedition

It seems manifestly obvious that DJT instigated the insurrection of January 6. But more than anyone else, Hawley was the leading co-instigator.

On the afternoon of that fateful day, the editorial board of the Kansas City Star declared, “No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol other than one Joshua David Hawley.”

The headline for that editorial unequivocally stated their assessment of Hawley’s involvement in the chaos at the Capitol: “Assault on democracy: Sen. Josh Hawley has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt.”

Accordingly, Heather Cox Richardson wrote yesterday, Hawley “watched his star plummet today.” Former Senator John Danforth (R-MO), his key mentor, said supporting Hawley was the “worst mistake of my life.”*

In addition, one of Hawley’s major donors called him “an anti-democracy populist” who provoked the riots. And Simon & Schuster canceled Hawley’s new book contract.

What Hawley did, most probably intending it to greatly enhance his viability as the 2024 Republican candidate for the presidency, may, in stark contrast, have essentially ended his political career.

And perhaps the terrible events at the Capitol on January 6 will mark the beginning of the end of Trumpism and of the conservative evangelical Christian support of a very flawed President.

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* Part of my 11/15/17 blog post was a positive assessment of former Senator Danforth. And here is what Fea posted this morning about Danforth and Hawley.