Sunday, February 7, 2021

Josh Hawley Deserves to be Cancelled

Senator Josh Hawley is traveling the circuit of right wing media to bask in his victimhood. Here he is with Mick Huckabee on Saturday.

When Hawley claims that the "woke liberal mob" wants to silence all dissent, Colin Kaepernick would be right to say, "hold my beer."


We could compare the so-called "cancel culture" that led to Kaepernick's loss of his football career to the fact that Hawley had to find another publisher for his book. But beyond that, the two situations don't have much in common. 

Hawley raised a fist in support of a mob that was about to storm the U.S. Capitol in support of a lie he had helped promote about a stolen election. The result was an attempted coup that was a direct assault on our democracy. In the end, five people died, dozens were injured, and everyone else in the building was traumatized. 


Even after those events, Hawley voted in favor of challenging the results of the election based on a lie. What's even worse is that, while he wants to chest-thump these days about being brave enough to not be silenced, he blamed his whole schtick on his constituents, claiming that because they believed the lie, he would fight for them. Real courage would have meant telling his constituents the truth. But Hawley is counting on the support of the insurrectionists to advance his political ambitions. For democracy's sake, that kind of cravenness must be called out.

In contrast, we all know Colin Kaepernick's story. He quietly and respectfully took a knee during the national anthem to protest injustice. 


In an attempt to silence Kaepernick, that simple act was turned into an attack on the flag and military troops who serve this country. In other words, to "cancel" Kaepernick, the opposition had to shamelessly lie. Who can forget how a white guy running for the Senate deconstructed that lie?
When the injustice of police killing unarmed Black people continued and protests erupted all over the country, the opposition was horrified and suggested that people should be protesting peacefully. Oh...the irony! 

Let's be clear. One man peacefully took a knee to protest violence. The other raised a fist in support of a lie that led to violence. That is precisely why Hawley deserves to be cancelled.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for that. I had not seen the clip, and O'Rourke made a powerful presentation. I was too ignorant to know he had it in him.

    And of course then there are those who condemn a black man's humble, dignified, and I'd like to think utterly justified nonviolent protest but excuse or applaud the violent mob assault on our nation's Capitol. "Those" including a certain former president.

    ReplyDelete

Why Christian nationalists fear freedom

For years now a lot of us have been trying to understand why white evangelical voters remain so loyal to Donald Trump. I believe that the an...