Is Hawley Right?
Josh Hawley is running for president; has been since he was big enough to walk. On the night of the November 2020 election, Josh Hawley, Junior Senator from Missouri, tweeted that henceforth the republican party was the party of the working class; and the democratic party was the party of the elites. Is Senator Hawley right?
Josh Hawley will be forty-one on December 31, 2020. The only Republican Presidents he’s known were Reagan, Bush, Bush and Trump. The Democratic Presidents he’s known were Clinton, and Obama. Both Clinton and Obama made their way up from poverty and broken homes by dint of intelligence and hard work. Reagan matriculated from Hollywood and the G.E. Theater Graduate School; both Bushes, worked their way up from the Brahman Elite via one of the Ivies; Trump worked his way up from Corrupted NYC Elite; holds an advanced degree in The Con. Other than having been born and raised in an intact upper middle class family, Hawley has more in common with Clinton and Obama than he does with the republican presidents of his lifetime; he is obviously very bright.
His biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness, evidently speaks to the inter workings of Roosevelt’s mind in 336 pages; we can expect the obligatory book about himself within the next couple of years. Theodore Roosevelt came from, was of, the wealthy elite. Had a strong sense of noblesse oblige. Went from being an imperialist to being a populist? What with the trust busting, progressiveness and all, he was certainly president during a transitional period in US History.
Noblesse oblige: the obligation of honorable, generous, and responsible behavior associated with high rank or birth.
Ambition: : an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power; desire to achieve a particular end.
A distinction with a difference; seems Josh Hawley is a boll weevil looking for a home. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Is he foreseeing a sea change like that following the Civil Rights, Voting Rights Acts, that saw the Democratic/Dixiecrat south become Republican? The one of the 20th century that saw the industrial north, Republican during the Civil War, become a New Deal Democratic stronghold?
Getting back to who represents who in America: The Republican Party has been looking for a constituency for awhile. The Chamber of Commerce, and Business; lots of money, not enough votes. The adjuncts of racism, evangelicalism, gerrymandering, and the electoral college have been working pretty well for some 50 yrs now. But, some people are starting to get their backs up about these tactics; even saying they are undemocratic.
If the Republican party is really serious about representing the working class, maybe, for starters, they should stop opposing increases in the minimum wage, access to health care, … Many, perhaps, a majority, of the working class are Black, Hispanic, or other Minority, the very same that the aforementioned party has, for years and years, worked hard to deny the vote. People in construction say, suspect the data will soon show, that a lot of union workers voted for Trump. Lot of union workers voted for Reagan, too. In both cases, it certainly wasn’t because their candidate of choice was pro union, or pro working class. Didn’t work out well the first time; didn’t this time.
Someone as intelligent, and young, as Josh Hawley could be the perfect candidate for this time of great change. One intelligent enough to correctly assess the changes in America and the world. One not bound by the old dogmas that are no longer relevant. The problem is, that Josh, in his ascendancy, has toadied up to: Trump, the NRA, and the Evangelicals. That’s hardly Noblesse oblige, more naked ambition, Josh. More like a Ted Cruz, or a Marco Rubio.
,
Josh Hawley is a bog ordinary Republican. No more need be said.
Typo – Dent should be dint
Minimum wage, access to health care? How about this?
Turn US into Germany overnight.
No argument with your opinion of Josh Hawley; but he does make one valid point. The Democratic Party, particularly the last few presidents, serve the ‘meritocratic elite’. The party has lost its lost its grounding in the working class, and makes no effort to seriously promote unions.
I dont necessarily find Hawley sincere, but notice that “Trump, the NRA, and the Evangelicals” are all basically culture war issues and in the abstract catering to those forces does not preclude more “working class” friendly economic policies. Funding sources are a different matter.
It is worth considering that a partial fusion of an economically left and socially right policy platform would have potential majority appeal given the state of the Democratic party. Rick’s point above is a valid one.
ocop:
Not the author. I am pretty sure Ken will answer you. He is a pretty good guy.
This comment “socially right policy platform,” what would you consider to be a socially right policy” when the working class is more willing to vote against themselves to deprive others of any gains from the economy such as Medicaid, CHIPS, SNAPS, school lunches, day care . . . much of which would favor the working class also? This has been in Dem policy and fought against by right wing Republicans and the constituency.
Your comment is intelligent and I am nosey, what do you do? No need to tell me, I am just nosey. 🙂
Just because the Republican Party makes the effort to pander to the working class that does not mean that the Republican Party represents the best interests of the working class any more than the Democratic Party has for the last fifty years. Politicians simply work for them that has the money and pander to them that has the cheap votes.
I look at the electoral map and ponder. This question of who America is right now? How in the hell could 73 million Americans vote for Trump? At the top of my list. To an extent, I think the red states represent those who like things to stay the same, want to go back to an earlier time. That’s the big desirability, the big reason why they live where they do. Staying the same means ignoring a lot of things that are going on, a lot of facts. When I read the progressive blogs blather on about turning these states blue, I marvel as to how little they understand about America. Perhaps, we on the coasts and in the cities, similarly, may be here because we like change, the excitement of change, don’t really want to be around people just like ourselves.
Ken:
We don’t need no Trader Joes, Healthcare, Unemployment, etc. You are kind of saying the same thing I am saying for those areas which have been rural or are still rural while the former is changing to suburb. I saw it all the time while on the Planning Commission.
Ken,
Eh, you are correct of course to some extent. All of my old good friends have moved away from here (Richmond, VA), one to AL coast, one (an ER&ICU nurse) to Tucson, AZ after a few years first in TX and then Phoenix, and the third to school in TX then on to be a LCSW in CO. For Joe, the nurse, it was a matter of escaping the smug east coast materialism. He married a nurse in Tucson that was the daughter of a doctor from NJ that moved to Tucson. My other two best friends are in heaven or somewhere in the ground, but they had move away before that happened. I stayed here. None of that had anything to do with politics, but if you are from here then it is there that is exciting and different. I got all the excitement that I ever wanted in Vietnam. None of my friends were ever their.
Ken,
OTOH, family ties is why so many people live their lives near where they were born and raised. Only the wealthy and wannabe wealthy can afford to jump on a jet to go visit family and in a post-9//11 world infected with a global pandemic then air travel is a dubious luxury even for those that can afford it.
Ken,
Had to break for lunch.
When Joe moved to Phoenix in the early 80’s he was immediately dismayed. He had moved west to get away from East Coast Yuppies, but they had beat him to Phoenix. So, soon after moving to Phoenix then he moved to Tucson, which had about equal numbers of Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, and native Americans at that time. It was not only where he met his wife, but it was also where he met his future father-in-law, a very special guy. Joe’s future daddy-in-law was a doctor from NJ that not only married a Mexican woman, but also was the family physician for all the poor Mexican families in his neighborhood. Daddy-in-law asked for no payment from his poor Mexican neighbors, but since they were all subsistence farmers then daddy-in-law’s family never went hungry.
Ken,
I grew up in northern VA (NoVA) graduating from high school in 1967. When I moved to Richmond, VA, later that year it was the most racist place that I had ever seen much less lived. NoVA is still VA, although it is also like a universe apart. Almost everyone in NoVA is from somewhere else. It is about jobs, military jobs and federal government contractors.
“Remember the Titans” is one of the favorite films at my house, but the real life story is not much like the movie. The events and characters are the same, but the racism in real life was not the cause of the friction among players. Rather it was the competitive rivalry for positions in the college football recruitment that had the players riled up.
Even Richmond came along quickly once integration passed its early hurdles over busing in VA. Long before Richmond was home to Doug Wilder it was home to Maggie Walker. Jackson Ward in Richmond had been known as the Harlem of the South. Blacks in Richmond did not need help from whites so much as they just needed them to get out the way, which in time happened as Jim Crow was whittled down.
Nowadays, Unite the Right may be able to terrorize liberal whites in Charlottesville, but when they came to Richmond it was they that needed police protection. There are still some militia style white supremacists in central VA causing trouble at times, but they are both outnumbered here and outgunned.
So, what IS my anecdotal discussion all about? People live where they live for various reasons, family and jobs topping the list, with social mores a bigger deal for people whose family ties are few and whose work opportunities are wide. Single men are more prone to ramble in search of ideal peers than married, but married men need better pay relative to cost of living.
Ken,
One more thing is that as a former career mathematician then I must admit that simple statistics applied to complex questions are almost always seriously misleading. “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him” Likewise if you meet the average man. If you are ever out my way then look up Wolftown, VA. It is very near to Old Rag Mountain, where my dad was born and raised. Stop in at the old country store at the crossroads which last time I was there still had the pot-bellied stove and checkerboard. They have great cheddar cheese fresh cut off the round and given the proprietors ethnic origins then I would expect some damned good lox and bagels as well. Googled it and found a Facebook link –
https://www.facebook.com/WolftownMercantile/
Preconceptions are a terrible thing – so waste ’em MF.
Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner (2007 Remaster)