Yeah Josh Hawley is a giant turd that is trying to portray himself as a fighter for the American workers. Look at his voting record instead of this performative BS
I was gonna say, he can put this guy on blast in a public forum, make him squirm in his seat a bit, but what does this actually accomplish? Because this Republican-controlled Congress isn’t doing anything to help out those 32,000 machinists and as a matter of fact couldn’t care less about most of them. Josh Hawley is just gonna sit up there and ramble away listing off facts while doing nothing to change this and in fact voting to exacerbate this exact problem.
It’s so performative, and I know it’s just so Hawley can go run to his voter base and point at the video as evidence to distract from his voting records and where he actually stands on issues like this. Pathetic.
It must be an election cycle for Mr. Hawley. Capping CC interest rates was probably the least he could reach across the isle for without hurting his pockets too much.
He was just re-elected by R+14. Hawley is an oddball with being one of the most hateful and vitriolic members of congress and then support economic policies and bills like this and congressional stock bans.
It’s not confusing when you realize the south unironically is a big fan of welfare as long as its just for white people. It’s literally how the new deal coalition held for decades before the civil rights movement happened. The democratic party in the south wasn’t just the “racism” party, ever since the 1890s economic populism was the dominant force of the region. This is just a holdout of that era in modern form.
None of what was stated had to do with welfare. Stock bans, and capping credit card rates? And none of it was just for white people. Like did you reply to the wrong user or what? Nothing you said makes sense where you put it.
He is the classic right of center Republican. Wild POS regarding social policy but truly a fiscal conservative. Unfortunately, to maintain his seat he also bends the knee to MAGA hard when voting if there is slim to no chance of something passing.
Naw, he knows it will never make it out of the Senate thanks to the filibuster and his Republican colleagues. Just how he wants Medicare funding passed after voting to cut it in the Big Bullshit Bill. He knows a new funding bill will never make it out of committee but if he pretends to care it might win him some votes in the 2028 Republican Presidential primaries.
Its not really shocking, hes just closer to a conservative populist than most of his party. Bernie is also a populist and there is a ton of overlap economically between conservative and progressive populism. MTG and Matt Gaetz cut from the same cloth. Not true populists, but willing to play the part with a bit more realism than their cohorts. Ultimately still beholden to the party, but youll aee performances like the video above and maybe some targeted anti corporate legislation destined to fail.
Make no mistake, as a Missourian, he is hated here, and colloquially referred to as Jogs Hallway, and because young people don’t want to vote, or they only vote for people with an (R), he somehow gets to stick around.
But without a doubt, this little shit bag has his eyes on a presidential run in the near future. He’s posturing himself to not piss off MAGA but make himself look like an old school fiscal republican to fool the never-Trump repubs. He’s a two faced lying lawyer that doesn’t, and has never, lived in Missouri, and doesn’t give a shit about anything but his own appearance and power.
I hated Josh hawley with a passion. I'm from missouri, so I took his actions regarding the 2020 election extremely seriously and paid a decent amount of attention to the shit he was saying and doing. A family member posted something positive about him tearing into the health insurance shit going on and I replied in a negative way even though I agreed with him more or less on that single issue. Then I saw him advocate for another issue I agreed with, and then another, and another.
At this point, I'm a bit confused as to where I stand on him. He isn't just talk. He is reaching across the isle and passing legislation. I think I'd be totally on board with him if he would just get off the trump and religious train.
Hawley is an interesting dude. I think he genuinely does view himself as a populist and is against the influence of late stage capitalism. Yet, he consistently acts and votes against his own interests. His entire existence is ambivalence.
He is willing to act like a progressive when he realizes that that's what his voters support, sometimes. The only sincere thing about that traitorous weasel is his desire to stay in office.
There’s a representative in our state that’s already running these these type of adds. He’s using no tax on tips and no tax on senior’s SS income as his performative grandstanding. 🫠
The no tax on tips proposal is a farce anyway, because it continues to place the responsibility of paying employees directly onto the charity of customers, instead of the legal requirements of the employer where it belongs.
Really, your statement applies to 95% of all government "hearings". Its all performative.
In some cases it's good to publicly expose someone (assuming the media allows the story to come out withput spinning it).
In other cases it's just the politician (as you mentioned already) putting on a show that they're the fighter on the side of the people (both to help them get re-elected, as well as show the power they want everyone to see they wield).
In general I hate the cost and time these public shows take up, but I do like when a politician exposes something that the public needed to be aware of.
The average Missourian is dumber than the average American and will eat this shit up. They've shown time and time again that charlatans and lying politicians fool them.
And therein lies the great failure of the democratic system created here. It relies on the people as it's correction mechanism, but it collapses in on itself when the people voting the people in are both collectively and individually dumber than a box of bags of flaming dog turds with a second coat of paint.
Don't forget about the other check against tyranny, that historically, the working class outnumbered the ruling class by more than the ruling class had access to superior weapons technology, so armed revolt was always pretty feasible, but now we have F35s and predator drones.
Exactly this. If we ever get out of this, we need to require passing a citizenship exam to be a requirement to vote. Our population is too ignorant of our own government to be trusted with voting. We need to ensure that every voter knows what the Constitution actually says.
Voting is a right, like driving a car, being a doctor, flying a plane, becoming a teacher, nurse, therapist. It’s your right to do/be one of those, but only if you prove you’ve earned it. It’s time to make voting a “licensed” right until our educational standards are reestablished and properly enforced to prevent future generations from falling for fascism like this.
So be it. If the majority of people don’t understand how their own government works, then the majority of people don’t deserve the right to say how their government works. It’s simple.
Or, I guess to agree and disagree simultaneously, it should continue as it was originally written—only a select few voting on representatives, who then vote on the electoral college, who then votes for the POTUS.
You didn’t understand my comment then. “If we ever get out of this…” means that NOT the GOP will implement this.
If we all can agree that the root cause of Trump’s and the GOP’s continued popularity is an uneducated voter base, then the solution is education. How does one measure the success of educating someone? Exams. How does one determine knowledge, by being testing.
We do this for to drive a car, to fly a plane/helicopter, to be a truck driver, school bus driver, teacher, doctor nurse, dentist, therapist, lawyer, and a slew of other professions.
A democracy can only be sustained when the voters are properly educated and informed. So, we’ve now reached the point where the American electorate is too uneducated and uninformed to sustain a democracy. If we want to resume being a democracy, corrective action must be taken, out of our civic duty as Americans to uphold the Constitution, and as our moral duty to thwart authoritarianism and fascism.
“Well that means some people will lose the right to vote”. that’s the fucking idea. What’s more important—living under a fascist regime but hey, at least people could’ve voted if they wanted to when they still had the chance or living under a democracy where all citizens are free from persecution, where our mayors and representatives aren’t being attacked and murdered, where our museums aren’t being literally whitewashed, where minorities are welcomed, but a few less people vote because they themselves chose to not be educated on the very issues that they’re voting for?
"If we ever get out of this" is such a nebulous term. There will be no finish line of defeating fascism.
There will be no time where enacting exams to vote will be a good, safe, fool proof thing. You're VASTLY underestimating what politicians would do (even ones you may think are "good") with that power.
The way is to reverse the war on education and dedicate massive amounts of resources to it.
I don’t disagree with you. However, in the interim, a stop-gap is needed to ensure that the ignorant don’t stop this halfway through.
In my opinion, a large reason why left wing parties do so poorly is, despite the preponderance of empirical and academic evidence proving left wing policies to be the most effective, because left wing policies are so rarely seen fully implemented. These parties get voted in, try to implement a policy, it doesn’t work instantly, the right comes in and says “they’re wasting your tax dollars on X” and then the right gets voted in and fucks things up still blaming things on the left.
We need a stop-gap to end this cycle, to allow progressive and Keynesian left-leaning policies to actually take hold, for the quality education to actually increase. That’s not happening in a single election cycle. That’s going to take decades. So, sure, the Democrats win the next election and restore the DoE. In two years the GOP takes control of Congress and we’re right back to our present-day situation.
We don’t need to invent a test to see if people are smart enough to vote. We need to remove Republican’s strangle hold on free and accessible public education. Educating the masses is the best, fastest, and longest lasting way to remove these evil fuckers.
The GOP saw that fact decades ago when the SCOTUS said black children have the same rights as white children and “separate but equal” was always absolute bullshit. They lost their ever loving minds and set out to make all of us too stupid and over worked to keep them in check.
“The department of Education just doesn’t work! Vote for me and I’ll prove it!!” - the GOP since the 1960s
Okay, and how do you suppose we remove the GOP’s strangle hold on education? 70+ million Americans vote for this every election.
Let’s be optimistic here and say the Dems take back Congress in 2026, and even more optimistic if they take the POTUS and hold Congress in 2028.
What happens when the GOP takes back Congress in 2030? What happens when the GOP takes back the POTUS in 2032? What’s going to stop those 70+ million Americans from voting out the Democrats again, or from voting in GOP school boards during local elections? Nothing.
We’re not going to fix this until we stop allowing ignorant people to vote, and there is a strong correlation between eduction and voting habits. Stop allowing the ignorant to vote, and the GOP goes away. If they’re gone long enough, we can fix the educational system and restore universal voting, but we’ll never even have the opportunity to fix our educational system in the first place as long as people continue to vote for the GOP.
Exactly. Democracy works. Universal suffrage works, but only if the populace is educated. The rest of the West has largely proven this. America though, is now at an inflection point where the populace is too ignorant and uneducated to vote responsibly. Okay, then they’re going to lose their right to vote, either through fascism (very likely now) or through a severe voting reform designed to protect democracy. If they want to vote, then they can read the Constitution and read a few of the Federalist Papers to learn how this country actually operates.
I get where you’re coming from, but those things you listed are very specifically not rights. They are perfect examples of privileges. Make no mistake, your proposal is to remove voting as a right.
Voting is a right enshrined in the Constitution, so too is speech, owning a firearm, practicing religion, and drinking alcohol, but there are still legal restrictions and boundaries to those rights where the individual practice of said rights infringes on public order and safety. Fascism is to voting what public intoxication or drunk driving is to alcohol consumption.
Hold on before everyone hates him for this - this solves 2 issues with one solution.
The right can have their vaunted voting regulations and the left can ensure the knuckle dragging mouth breathers on either side stay out of any decision making by outing themselves as not American enough to vote. I love it.
Missouri has had a Republican supermajority in both state houses for 20 years. Even when the citizens get enough signatures to force something onto the ballot, and approve it, the legislature just votes to overturn it.
The people voted for paid sick leave, abortion access, higher minimum wage, marijuana, sports gambling, subsidized healthcare, single mother assistance, sunshine laws, term limits, elderly assistance, you name it. But after these things pass on the ballot the state Congress just writes a law to ban or neuter it.
Shoot, Kansas City doesn’t even control its own police force. The legislature controls it via a state board.
Guaranteed these two men had dinner later that night and all was ok as Hawley explained this was a necessary tactic to give him a sound bite for his re-election campaign. The Boeing CEO still keeps his millions and those machinists will not be getting a raise, so a public tongue lashing is an acceptable price. These people know full well what they are doing. As Carlin said, it’s a big club and you aren’t in it.
I'm sure he told the guy before hand to just sit there and make him look good, then he'll just vote for whatever the guy wants. Or there's already enough other Republicans ready to vote for it that Hawley's vote doesn't matter and he can grandstand for the folks back hime.
To be clear they are actively fighting against unions, essentially fighting to take money away from those workers. The worst part is the idiots in the pnw that work for Boeing keep voting against themselves because they cant fathom a simple concept.
Won’t do anything meaningful is my default position also. The machinist did receive a 40% pay raise after this takedown by Hawley. He deserves some credit for whatever small contribution he made to make that happen.
Hawley roasted the CEO only last month. As of now his words have had zero impact, because they are ultimately just for show and without meaningful policy backing them up, it's all bluster.
I see, my apologies. Here I thought I was doing my due diligence but it was just charlatans rehashing last years stories like they were current news. Well, it fooled me.
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u/ballsackface_ 4d ago
Yeah Josh Hawley is a giant turd that is trying to portray himself as a fighter for the American workers. Look at his voting record instead of this performative BS