Trump's Successor?

[lpetrich]

Sen. Josh Hawley Is a Faux-Populist, Just Like Trump

What if Donald Trump loses in November, but the Republicans come back in 2024 with a smarter, slicker, savvier version of Trump?

Meet Josh Hawley, the junior Republican senator from Missouri. Hawley has grabbed plenty of headlines during the coronavirus crisis, from his push to have the federal government “cover 80 percent of wages for workers at any U.S. business,” to his call for a block on “federal relief funds to universities with massive endowments” such as Harvard and Stanford.

But what kind of populist is he?

Anti-elitist? Hawley may constantly rail against “elites” and talk up his own “small-town” background, as he did in a much-discussed keynote address to the National Conservatism conference last July, but he himself is the son of a banker and a graduate of two of this country’s most elite universities, Stanford and Yale. Following Stanford, he went to teach at one of England’s most prestigious private schools, St. Paul’s; following Yale, he went to work for one of the world’s biggest law firms, Hogan Lovells. He met his wife while clerking for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Josh is no regular Joe.

Just like Tucker Carlson.

Anti-tech crusader? The Missouri senator, as Stoller and others point out, has joined with progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren to lambast big tech for its “business model of addiction.” Warren, however, goes after Facebook and Google because she wants to curb their financial and monopoly power; Hawley goes after them not just because of their economic clout but also because, like every other elected Republican, he thinks they’re mean to conservatives. In 2019, the GOP senator introduced a deeply flawed bill to challenge their alleged political bias and even stopped by at Trump’s ridiculous White House Social Media Summit to address an audience of far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists. (For the record, there is zero empirical evidence of an anti-conservative bias on the major social media platforms.)

Right-wingers never tire of whining about "liberal bias", but what do they want? Commissars in charge of ideological correctness?

Economic populist? His boosters on the left point to legislation that Hawley has introduced to try and tackle the electronic gaming industry, drug pricing, and college debt. But how do such (worthy) bills stack up against the rest of Hawley’s policies and positions? Wouldn’t you expect an economic populist to back higher wages and stronger labor unions? While running for the Senate, Hawley opposed ballot measures to raise the minimum wage for Missouri workers and to get rid of the state’s “right-to-work” legislation. (Thankfully, a majority of Missourians disagreed with him on both measures!)

When he was Missouri Attorney General, he and 20 other Republican other state AG's tried to overturn Obamacare, including its protections of people with pre-existing conditions. Then he ran for Senate while claiming that he was trying to protect such people.

Wouldn’t you expect an economic populist to challenge America’s oligarchy? While running for the Senate, Hawley took donations from right-wing billionaires such as the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel, and Bernie Marcus, while enthusiastically endorsing Trump’s tax cuts for the superrich as “the right way forward.”

Hawley is a faux-populist. Nevertheless, he is a threat to the left because, like far-right ethno-nationalists in Europe such as Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orbán, he spins his reactionary welfare chauvinism as concern for the working poor.

Opinion | The Rise of ‘Welfare Chauvinism’ - The New York Times - many right-wing parties in Europe now embrace welfare statism, but restricted to Real Citizens, however that might be defined.

 

[lpetrich]

Tucker Carlson Calls AOC a 'Child of Privilege' | The Mary Sue

As to Tucker Carlson himself, he has slammed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a "child of privilege" who grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Westchester County and went on from there to get "a silly pointless degree at a silly pointless private college."

His education? He spent his elementary-school years at La Jolla Country Day School, in La Jolla, CA, his high-school years at St. George's School, Middletown RI, a boarding school with tuition as much as many colleges, and his college years at Trinity College, Hartford CT, a liberal-arts college with about 2,000 students. He majored in history.

So he got a "silly pointless degree" - history - at a "silly pointless private college" - Trinity.

AOC went to a public school, then to Boston University, a well-regarded college with 33,000 students. He majored in economics and international relations.

AOC herself on him:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I’ve lost track
- Am I “just a bartender” who should go back to making drinks without health insurance, or am I a secretly deceitful child of privilege because I’m an heiress of the Swanson frozen food empire OH WAIT sorry that’s Tucker Carlson. https://t.co/CNw32VwTbh" / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Also can we talk about how racist & classist the presumption is that when people say they are from the Bronx, folks like Tucker equate that with assuming all the worst things abt our upbringing? Our lives don’t have to match some chicken heir’s idea of struggle to be validated." / Twitter

 

[Jarhyn]

Actually, Mitt Romney is looking like he's going to take a solid swing come 2024. He is shaping up to be the next McCain of republican sensibility.

The reality is that while a lot of republicans are being quite nasty to him currently, they're going to change their tune as soon as the Orange Fart is out. It's not like republicans have memories that extend past a year or so anyway.

I mean shit, they managed to forget in the span of a single month that Trump was totally going to release his tax returns. By November 2024, they'll say they were with Mittens all along, and that Trump was no good!

 

[Derec]

Actually, Mitt Romney is looking like he's going to take a solid swing come 2024. He is shaping up to be the next McCain of republican sensibility/

And the gerontocracy marches on. Romney will be 77 come 2024.

 

[Derec]

lpetrich, did you accidentally post this here instead of in the AOC megathread?

As to Tucker Carlson himself, he has slammed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a "child of privilege" who grew up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Westchester County and went on from there to get "a silly pointless degree at a silly pointless private college."

No matter Carlson's background (takes one to know one I guess), he is right that AOC is from a privileged background. Her father was an architect in New York for crying loud. He probably designed an addition to the Guggenheim or something! And while economics is hardly a "silly degree", it's kind of silly to not use it and tend bar instead.
And yet AOC likes to pretend that she is just "Sandy from the block" ...

AOC went to a public school, then to Boston University, a well-regarded college with 33,000 students. He majored in economics and international relations.

He? Is that AOC's preferred pronoun these days?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "I’ve lost track - Am I “just a bartender” who should go back to making drinks without health insurance, or am I a secretly deceitful child of privilege because I’m an heiress of the Swanson frozen food empire OH WAIT sorry that’s Tucker Carlson.

Why can't it be both? Her being a child of privilege is what made it possible for her to waste her Boston U degree and take a bartending gig for when she is not playing activist in the prairies of North Dakota ...

 

[lpetrich]

Wall Street basher Trump loving Goldman guys for his team - 2016 Nov 30

President-elect Donald Trump is looking to fill his Cabinet and administration with former Goldman Sachs executives after running as an anti-establishment and anti-Wall Street candidate.

Trump first picked former Goldman Sachs investment banker and managing partner Steve Bannon to be the White House chief strategist. Then, on Wednesday, Trump tapped 17-year Goldman veteran Steven Mnuchin for Treasury secretary. Now, he is meeting with current Goldman Sachs President and COO Gary Cohn, who is reportedly under consideration to be director of the Office of Management and Budget.

...
During his campaign, Trump sharply criticized Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for not releasing transcripts of speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks. He also accused Clinton and former Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz of being controlled by Goldman Sachs.

 

[ideologyhunter]

When your idol is a lying liar who tells lies, all that matters is TODAY'S lies. Yesterdays lies are old news. The Nixonian "inoperative".