#2993: Josh Hawley

Joshua David Hawley is the current junior Senator from Missouri since 2019, having risen to prominence as Attorney General of Missouri from 2016 to 2019. A self-declared Christian nationalist, Hawley is one of the staunchest defenders of Trump and whatever Trump might claim or think, including Stop the Steal-related lies and conspiracy theories, and he is arguably a theocrat. On most issues, including e.g. gay marriage, Hawley – who has been described by more sensible conservatives as “the most dangerous man in America” – takes the positions you’d expect from a conspiracy-curious wingnut on the Religious Right (his wife, Erin, is a senior attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom); for our purposes here, however, Hawley’s most prominent characteristics are his conspiracy mongering and his toyings with theocracy, though it is worth noting that Hawley was a contributor to the Project 2025 (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Project_2025) Trump “presidential transition plan”. He also likes to accuse his critics of being smug, rich elitists; as the son of a wealthy banker who went to a private Jesuit prep school and then to Yale Law School as president of the school’s Federalist Society chapter, he is at least well-positioned to know what ‘elitist’ means.

 

According to Hawley, “Scripture teaches that political government is mandated by God for his service and is one means by which the enthroned Christ carries out his rule … Government serves Christ’s kingdom rule; this is its purpose. And Christians’ purpose in politics should be to advance the kingdom of God – to make it more real, more tangible, more present” – and remember that “this nation was founded on the principles of the Bible” and that “America as we know it cannot survive without biblical Christianity”. Meanwhile, the idea that people should be free to “choose your own meaning, define your own values, emancipate yourself from God by creating your own self” is a “heresy”. And make no mistake: the victims here are him and those who agree with him; it’s the libruls who are waging war on a “Christian culture that they don’t like”: “They want the religion of the Pride flag. We want the religion of the Bible. Instead of Christmas, they want Pride month. Instead of prayer in schools, they venerate the trans flag.”

 

His 2025 convocation speech at Liberty University is an illustrative example of how he views the ongoing persecution of Christians (the unnamed because non-existent groups that claim that “Christians should have no place in law or in business, or in academia or in government” that his audiences are afraid of) and the real role of religion in civilizations (“Every civilization is founded on a set of religious convictions and the United States of America, I firmly believe, is the greatest nation in the history of the world because our spiritual convictions are the convictions of the Bible”), while calling on the students to help combat “secularism” and the “forces of secularism” that “seeks to destroy” our nation and to free it from its secular “spiritual oppression.” And the secular oppression is not only coming from politicians and academics, but also from big corporations that are pushing “a Marxist agenda” and “religion of woke.” The fear that the US is under the sway by Marxist big corporations is a rather good illustration of the kind of minds we are dealing with here.

 

Hawley was among the senators who refused to certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and he led the Senate efforts to overturn the Electoral College vote count. He has on several occasions lent his support to Stop the Steal conspiracy theories (as well as the January 6th riot) and tends to back his paranoia up with straightforward lies. And once again, he tried to spin it all as if he was the victim.

 

Diagnosis: Honestly, though, he just wants attention. Hawley’s got ambitions, and we sincerely doubt that he believes that most the stuff he says is accurate (but he is a Christian nationalist, so there are no questions about whether he qualifies for an entry here), or that he cares one whit whether it is, as long as it brings him donations and voters. And it does, so yes: Josh Hawley is probably one of the most dangerous people in the US at present.