WTF is wrong with this fool Josh Hawley?

Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley certainly seems to be attracted to right wing violence.  There was the infamous raised fist with which he greeted the mob of Trump supporters outside the Capitol on the morning of January 6 shortly before they launched a violent assault that led to the injury of 140 police officers and five deaths.  Late the same night, Hawley was among a group of 147 Republican members of the House and Senate who voted against accepting the Electoral College ballots of the states of Arizona and Pennsylvania in a naked attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election. 

And now Hawley has come out strongly against a memo issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland directing the FBI to investigate threats of violence by extremists against school administrators, teachers and members of local school boards.  Garland issued the memo yesterday in response to a request from the National School Boards Association for federal help with recent threats of violence against educators, much of it associated with mask mandates intended to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in schools. 

School boards have faced increasing attacks since schools went back into session in August.  What is going on around the country isn’t just a few unhappy parents yelling at school board meetings.  The threats of violence and attacks by mobs are real. Garland’s memo to the FBI and U.S. attorneys is justified by what is happening around the country. 

School board meetings in Texas, Washington, Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Wyoming have been disrupted by violence and threats of violence.  In Franklin, Tennessee after a school board meeting that resulted in a mandate for children to wear masks in Williamson County, administrators and school board members were accosted by dozens of angry parents shouting “We will not comply!”  One parent approached a car driven by a health care official who had testified at the meeting and shouted, “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.” Earlier during the meeting, sheriff’s deputies had to remove one parent who was screaming at school board members. 

In Illinois, a man was arrested after hitting a school administrator at a meeting of a local school board.  In Virginia, a man was arrested for making a threat of violence against a school official, and a second man was issued a ticket for trespassing after disrupting the meeting.  In Ohio, school board members have received hate mail calling them “traitor” and “Marxist” and threatening them that they “will pay dearly.” 

In its letter to President Biden, the National School Boards Association said “America’s public schools and its education leaders are under an immediate threat.  As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Attorney General Garland agreed that the situation has gotten out of hand.  “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation's core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to be able to do their work without fear for their safety,” he wrote.

Josh Hawley responded to Garland’s memo today with a letter blaming everything on Critical Race Theory.  "All around the country, Americans are speaking out against the radical racist ideology sometimes called ‘critical race theory’. Americans have responded to this radical ideology by winning elections for local school boards and protesting peacefully at school board meetings. Yet your memo yesterday to the FBI and local U.S. Attorneys ignored all of this and warned of an insurgence of ‘threats of violence’ and ‘efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.’"  Hawley told Garland the FBI and Department of Justice should stay out of “regular democratic activity” and denounced him for not providing any “evidence of actual, genuine threats of violence.”  He called the letter to Biden from the association of school boards “pure gaslighting.”

This is what it’s come to.  We’ve got the entire Republican Party running around the country claiming that the January attack on the Capitol was just a “peaceful protest,” and Josh Hawley, who many charge with helping to incite the riot with his raised fist, attacking school boards for requesting federal help in combating violence.  This isn’t just a bunch of rhetoric.  It’s an organized campaign by Republicans to justify threats of violence and organized mobs as a legitimate political tactic. 

If assaulting school boards with threats and violence is acceptable, it’s a real short jump to what election officials will face in 2022 and 2024 when they’re trying to count votes and determine who won and who lost elections.  School boards are trying to protect children from a deadly epidemic.  It is what they were elected to do.  Hawley is doing exactly what he did on January 6:  taking the side of the violent mob against democratically elected officials doing their jobs. 

This stuff is becoming a form of rhetorical lynching, intended to intimidate and prevent local officials from carrying out their legitimate duties, and Josh Hawley is one of the biggest proponents. 

As the facts in this column prove, we are in a fight for our democracy. If you want to help this newsletter expose the fascist tactics of right-wing puppets like Hawley, please subscribe for $5 a month.