Power to the (white reactionary) people
By 
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory Jan. 6, 2021 at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. (Francis Chung/E&E News and Politico via AP Images)
Seditionist Josh Hawley wants the people to rule, unless the people prefer liberals:
On Friday, Hawley gave a keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Florida. And according to that speech, the senator who sought to block the will of Pennsylvania voters from being counted in the 2020 election is now a champion of restoring the voice of the people in American politics.
He began by disparaging the power of big technology companies, as he had in his Dec. 30 news release.
“We can have a republic where the people rule or we can have an oligarchy where Big Tech and the liberals rule,” Hawley said. “And that is the choice, that is the challenge that we face today. It’s a perilous moment.”
It’s worth noting the dichotomy he draws here. Either “the people” can rule or “the liberals” can — as though liberals aren’t Americans who have a voice in government. The reason “the liberals” have power in Washington at the moment is that more Americans voted for Democrats in the 2020 election.
But Hawley still insists somehow that the opposite is happening.
“That’s the fight of our time: to make the rule of the people an actual thing again, to restore the sovereignty of the American people,” he said a bit later.
The rule of the people is “an actual thing,” since the efforts of Hawley and his allies to block the people’s voice fell short. The American people have sovereignty, because Hawley’s cynical decision to pander to Trump supporters failed.
It’s very closely related to the phenomenon of coding the working class as “white,” but the premise of Hawley’s bullshit-populism has always been that “the people” who count are “conservative white people,” and upholding their will justifies everything, including everything from lawless judges throwing out policies supported by the actual people’s representatives to systematic voter suppression to outright electoral theft. Hawley is just George Wallace with fancy degrees and smarmier and more dishonest rhetoric.