After Helping Incite a Capitol Riot, Josh Hawley Just Had His Best Fundraising Month Ever

Josh Hawley’s role in inciting the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th has been widely acknowledged. Hawley was the first senator to pledge to object to counting Joe Biden’s completely legitimate electoral votes, giving a strong air of legitimacy to Donald Trump’s false claims that those votes were “rigged” or “stolen.”

The photograph taken of him in the hours before the riot, holding his fist up to the soon-to-be violent insurrectionists, speaks volumes.

Following the riot, Hawley seemed to see a bit of pushback. His book deal with Simon & Schuster was canceled (and then rebought under a conservative imprint distributed by S&S). Corporate donors including Marriott (which also canceled some of Hawley’s scheduled events), Dow, and Missouri-based Hallmark announced they were suspending political contributions to Hawley and others who objected to counting those electoral votes and in some cases even requesting their past donations be returned. Hawley said he was being “muzzled” and censored—a claim he was able to make in a front-page op-ed in a major publication, like all truly censored people.

if i were mitch mcconnell i’d promote unity among my caucus by allowing mitt romney to punch josh hawley as hard as he wants in the stomach, one time, with no backsies. cmon mitch it’s the right thing to do.

— Erin Stacey Plaskett’s Attack Cape Ryan (@morninggloria) February 11, 2021

But despite all of that, it turns out helping incite an insurrection is actually a fine financial move, even a great one. After the events on the 6th, January ended up being Hawley’s biggest fundraising month of his entire career to date, bringing in thousands of new donors who apparently don’t care—or, more realistically, love–that he tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power to our legitimately elected new president.

Hawley sent out a fundraising email just about an hour before the riot in the Capitol building began and it apparently worked extremely well.

“Many career politicians in the D.C. establishment want me to stay quiet. I suppose you can assume nothing I do will matter. That it won’t matter if I object or not, so I should sit by and do nothing,” the email read.

“But this is not about me! It is about the people I serve, and it is about ensuring confidence in our elections.”

An hour after that email was sent out, that “confidence” descended into violence. But people still responded with their wallets.

The Kansas City Star writes: “In January, Hawley’s treasonous behavior was indisputably good for business.”

“And trying to overturn an election, even after blood was spilled by a far-right mob conned into believing it had been stolen, has so far been a good career move,” writes the outlet.

According to his campaign, he just had his most fantastic month as a U.S. senator, moneywise, even if — and this part was a pity — some people did die, some of the 140 cops who were injured did suffer brain injuries, and not a few members of Congress did fear for their lives.

OK, a few donors were horrified, and former mentors blanched. But Hawley’s perfidy has still been profitable. He’s been rewarded for claiming that he was just standing up for his constituents and for election integrity, after an election that Donald Trump’s security chief was fired for calling the most secure in U.S. history. So where’s his incentive to change?

Team Hawley has boasted that “despite much ink being spilled about corporate political action committee (PAC) support being paused and three donors separating themselves from Senator Hawley, the Hawley campaign has seen a surge in financial support — raising nearly $1 million in January with thousands of new donors.”

No matter how despicable a Republican politician’s behavior may be, there are always thousands of people ready to throw money at them, I guess. This is unfortunate—not just to know those individuals exist, but because it makes it unlikely Hawley will see any reason to give up his hope of becoming Trump 2.0.

(via KC Star, image: Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)
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