Hawley is now an outcast among many of his colleagues, openly ridiculed and ridiculed in his home state and a source of shame for longtime political supporters who helped propel him into his position.
If the photo of Hawley entering the Capitol captured what the senator thought it would be this week, it was a photo taken hours later, one of Hawley in a mask sitting alone in the Chamber of Deputies after the Capitol complex was protected, which summed up how the week really went. passed on.
“Senator Hawley was doing something really stupid and I have been very clear about it in public and in private since long before the announcement that he would do that,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse told NPR on Friday. “It was a feat and it was a terrible, terrible idea, and you don’t lie to the American people … Lies have consequences.”
To be sure, Hawley’s decision to be the face of the unfounded Republican challenge to the election made him dear to the party’s pro-Trump base, a powerful force if the Missouri Republican runs for president. But Trump’s control over the party is an open question after the chaotic mutiny he sparked on Wednesday, taking any Republican who hoped to be the apparent heir to his political fortune in a precarious position.
Hawley – whose office did not respond to requests to speak to the senator about his week – announced on December 30 that he would object during the Electoral College certification process, challenging Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Nearly a dozen other Republican lawmakers, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, later announced that they would also object.
Because of that – along with the widespread view that Hawley was doing this as a way to brandish his credentials with pro-Trump Republicans before a presidential race in 2024 – Hawley carried the weight of the blame for initiating actions that led to thousands of Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol complex on Wednesday afternoon and forced the House and Senate into emergency confinement.
And the response was fierce and personal.
“Supporting Josh and trying hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I have ever made in my life,” Danforth said in a statement to St. Louis Today. “Yesterday was the physical culmination of a long attempt … to foster the public’s lack of confidence in our democratic system.”
And in the wake of the insurrection, which took the lives of five people, several newspapers in Hawley’s home state blamed the senator for the chaos or asked him to resign.
“Hawley’s late and disguised condemnation of violence is at the top of his substantial list of false, flattering and politically convenient statements,” they wrote. “Hawley’s presidential aspirations have been ruled out because of his role in instigating Wednesday’s attack on democracy. He should do the residents of Missouri and the rest of the country a big favor and step down now.”
Hawley responded to the violence on Capitol Hill with a short statement: “Violence must end, those who attacked the police and broke the law must be prosecuted and Congress must return to work and finish their work.”
But the damage, for both Capitol and Hawley, had already been done. And as the rage against the senator grew, it began to extend beyond the Senate chamber and into the business world.
Simon & Schuster, the publisher that will publish Hawley’s next book, announced on Thursday that he would no longer distribute the book, an extraordinary move that was apparently made to avoid protests against the company.
“After witnessing the disturbing and deadly uprising that occurred on Wednesday in Washington, DC, Simon & Schuster decided to cancel the publication of Senator Josh Hawley’s next book,” the company said in a statement. “We didn’t make that decision lightly.”
Hawley criticized the decision as a “direct attack on the First Amendment” – the Yale Law School graduate ignored the fact that the First Amendment restricts the government from infringing on free speech, not private companies.
Hawley’s action had fallen so low that even professional basketball coaches took the chance to bury
“(Josh) Hawley is a joke,” San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said during his pre-game speech on Thursday, saying that both the Missouri senator and Cruz left their “self-interest, their greed, his eagerness to overcome his love of the country or his sense of duty to the constitution or to public service. “
When the Senate met again, Hawley continued his objection, speaking while the Senate debated Arizona’s results and later objected to Pennsylvania’s results.
As Hawley spoke from the Senate floor – “What we’re doing tonight is really very important,” he told his colleagues – the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, sat stoically behind him looking at the back of Hawley.
Romney, a generally composed politician, rose to speak shortly afterwards and his anger at colleagues like Hawley was evident.
“What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States,” said Romney. “Those who choose to continue to support their dangerous move by opposing the results of a legitimate democratic election will forever be seen as complicit in an unprecedented attack on our democracy.”