Josh Hawley claims several different Missouri towns as his hometown, from Lexington to Ashland, maybe even Springfield. One thing that is for sure is he is one of two U.S. senators from Missouri — the other one being Roy Blunt.
While Sen. Blunt is quite conservative, most of his ideological views are that of the Republican Party. And while more liberal folks may disagree with his views, disagreements are, for the most part, fairly civil.
This is not so with Sen. Hawley. It is well known that he teamed up with Sen. Ted Cruz, or the “Cancun Cruz,” to mount a challenge to the 2020 presidential election results. Their claim was the same as that of Donald J. Trump. The former president claimed that the election was rigged and that he actually won in a landslide. Hawley apparently believes him.
To prove that point, Trump went to court. Out of 60 cases, he won exactly zero. Part of the reason for this — for which he was scolded by federal judges — is that he could not produce any cases to prove his point. But Trump being Trump, he was not deterred, claiming to anyone who would listen, including many journalists representing various newspapers and TV outlets, that the election was “stolen” and that he actually won — and won big.
The true believers of this “Big Lie” included our own Josh Hawley, who apparently doesn’t even know which hometown to claim. Joining forces with “Cancun Cruz,” he challenged the election results in several states. Some of those states flipped from red to blue, like Georgia. Others were reliably blue, as in Democratic.
Nevermind that Joe Biden’s margin of victory was more than 7 million votes and that he captured the majority of electoral college votes. Trump’s true believers — such as Hawley and Cruz — swallowed hook, line and sinker his “Big Lie.”
Trump claimed, without a shred of evidence, that the election was rigged and that he actually won. Our U.S. senator, who may be from Ashland or Lexington or Springfield, believed that “Big Lie” and set about trying to make a fairy tale into a reality.
For his actions in support of Trump’s “Big Lie,” seven U.S. senators filed an ethics violation against Hawley, citing his attempts to overturn state elections. One of the things that was the basis of the ethics complaint is that Hawley was seeking to invalidate about 10 million voters’ choices.
Not content with his highly reported attempts to overturn the results of several state elections, which supported Biden, Hawley also supported the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, giving an arm-raised fist salute to the somewhat-deluded people who stormed the Capitol in hopes of stopping the certification of state’s election results.
“Stop the steal” was the cry of the insurrectionists, paraphrasing the language that Hawley and Cruz had used in their failed attempts to throw out the election results in such states as Georgia and Arizona.
Sorry, Sens. Hawley and Cruz, but no one except Trumpists believe that The Donald actually won.
As to those residents of Lexington, Ashland and, maybe, Springfield, they will remember the dedication and support of Josh Hawley to Donald J. Trump and his “Big Lie.”
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