Josh Hawley is falling way short of Ron DeSantis in the MAGA ‘culture warrior’ Olympics: journalists

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are among the far-right MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump disciples who are often mentioned as likely candidates in the 2024 presidential election, assuming that Trump himself doesn’t run. Both of them are quick to engage in cheap, tacky, lowbrow own-the-libs theatrics in order to show the GOP how MAGA they are. But liberal Washington Post opinion writers Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, in an op-ed published on May 11, argue that DeSantis is clearly outperforming Hawley in the Republican culture-war Olympics — and that Hawley is going to have to debase himself a lot more in order to “catch up” to DeSantis.

“Political observers used to talk about ‘the invisible primary,’ the jockeying for money and allies that takes place long before any voting begins,” Sargent and Waldman explain. “Little is invisible anymore, and the most important primary in the GOP today may be the one to decide which potential 2024 candidate is the most furious culture warrior. To that end, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced a bill making changes to U.S. copyright law, reducing the time large companies can hold copyright on, say, a cartoon mouse.”

Sargent continues, “Hawley’s news release does not conceal the target of his ire, calling it a ‘bill to strip woke corporations like Disney of special copyright protections.’ It’s hardly an accident that this comes after GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida won gushing praise from the national right for his own anti-Disney crusade.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, giant corporations were sacred to right-wing Reagan Republicans —

who vigorously argued that larger companies deserved tax breaks because they were “job creators.” But in the Trumpified GOP of 2022, MAGA pseudo-popularists like DeSantis and Hawley are more than happy to punish corporations that dare to agree with liberals and progressives on social issues — even Disney.

After 55 years, Disney lost the special tax/business arrangement it enjoyed in Florida for speaking out against the controversial and homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” bill that DeSantis signed into law.

As a U.S. senator, Sargent and Waldman argue, Hawley is “at a serious disadvantage” against a governor like DeSantis.

“With DeSantis and Hawley plainly harboring 2024 presidential ambitions, Hawley has a lot of catching up to do,” the Post journalists write. “In the new world of right-wing politics, what must be demonstrated is a genuine and actionable willingness — even a frothing eagerness — to use state power to bring the leftist cultural enemy to heel. With many Republicans casting off old ideas about free-market capitalism and limits on government power, that may become a key litmus test.”

Sargent and Waldman add, “When DeSantis signed that bill against Disney, he didn’t merely threaten to use state power against an enemy woke corporation, he actually did it. Going after his own state’s most iconic company, one that employs tens of thousands of Floridians and brings billions of tourist dollars to the state every year, only demonstrated his zeal.”

In a scathing Vanity Fair column also published on May 11, liberal journalist Bess Levin emphasizes that Hawley’s bill is merely performative and that Hawley doesn’t really expect it to pass in the U.S. Senate.

Levin writes, “On Tuesday, (May 10), Sen. Josh Hawley — the Missouri lawmaker who claimed his First Amendment rights had been violated after Simon & Schuster elected not to publish his book — introduced a bill that would limit the copyright protections of Disney and other corporations not only moving forward, but retroactively…. Setting aside the fact that Republicans absolutely love corporate handouts and would sooner endorse Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for president than actually put a stop to them, the bill in question has virtually no chance of passing, according to legal experts, and is thus simply about Hawley latching on to the GOP’s culture war du jour: that Disney wants to corrupt our children.”

Sargent and Waldman, similarly, describe Hawley’s bill as “pretty weak sauce,” noting that according to Daniel Takash of the Niskanen Center, his proposal would be a violation of an international copyright agreement that the U.S. is a part of.

“The poor Missouri senator’s proposal that will go nowhere is a mere cultural spitball compared to DeSantis’ mighty broadsides,” Sargent and Waldman observe. “DeSantis can sign concrete laws that land direct and clear blows against the leftist cultural enemy in a way that Hawley cannot. And so, if Hawley hopes to catch up to DeSantis in the culture war primary, he’s going to have to get a lot more creative.”