THE NEXT TRUMP is lining things up to destroy the Republic. This one is MUCH more skilled though.

[CousinIT]

ORIGINAL twitter thread:

Link to tweet

UNROLLED twitter thread:

It’s cute that people think Hawley’s latest autocratic grab is new.

This guy left DC, moved to MO + from the moment he stepped foot in Boone County he’s violated ethics laws, lied to the public + positioned his pawns in places of power to achieve his endgame—the Presidency.
Every single thing he does is for one singular purpose—power.

He tells lies like most of us breathe. Using photos of him in New Mexico at his in-law’s ranch to make folks think he’s from a Missouri farming family.

Just like he was caught not living in Jefferson City as AG.
Just like he sold his home in Boone County after winning his Senate seat and pretended his entire family lived with his dad in Springfield.

Just like he now says he lives with his sister when really he’s building a million dollar vacation home on the Lake.
This guy doesn’t believe rules apply to him. It’s why he shops for wine in the afternoon when he’s supposed to be working.

It’s why he formed an organization that he later used for his campaign in violation of ethics rules.

It’s why he violates Senate rules so brazenly.
Like when he took official Senate correspondence sent to him from the public and posted it on his personal Twitter.

This guy DGAF, y’all. And he never has.

He lies. He’s hypocritical. He breaks the law. He’s disingenuous.

But it doesn’t matter. He’s climbing that ladder.
And he will burn down anything in his way.

He took down Greitens not because he thought it was the morally right thing to do but because Greitens was his biggest political threat.
Now he’s battling it out with McConnell + he’s gonna try and remove him from the equation too—make him look weak and feeble to the MAGA crowd, because Mitch is a threat to Hawley’s rise.

And America? Democracy? The health of our families?

He’s more than happy to risk that too.
He’s fine. He’s got multiple million dollar homes.

The more he’s on Fox News, the more power he collects. The more influence he has. So he’s incentivized to do this crazy shit no matter the cost.

His ambition has replaced his character. But it isn’t new for 2021.
This is a decade long plan now coming to the fore.

In less than 24 months he will announce his run for the Presidency.

If you want to know what he plans to do—it’s very simple, he will continue to lie + create chaos.
Why should you care? Because he’s very good.

People will remember he fought against BigTech + fought for $2k checks.

He’s a better populist than Trump. He’s more charismatic than Cruz.

He just installed his General Counsel at the FEC.

The pieces are falling into place.
He will be an effective autocrat in the way Trump never could.

Beating him requires spending the next four years community building across America—working as hard as we can to share the message that 2024 isn’t about left versus right—it’s about a democracy or a dictatorship.

[Bluepinky]

1. Yikes, scary stuff.

The Lincoln Project is needed more than ever, they know how to frame issues and expose the lies and corruption.

[niyad]

2. Thank you for this. I knew a little about the scum, but he is worse than I thought. Sen. ha-ha, as

Keith Olbermann called him

[BobTheSubgenius]

55. That could well be a mistake on KO's part.

A very bad mistake. It's dangerous to minimize people like this - his enemies and potential enemies need to focus on his true nature, and his allies will likely never hear the slurs, however comical.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

3. If only the M$M would realize that the dangers of autocracy, the destruction

of our democracy is important and dramatic enough a topic to make it profitableor for them to focus on it. Good journalism on this could be heroic.

[DownriverDem]

5. The MSM

could very well be owned against those we are fighting against. We must get the left leaning rich to wake up.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

43. That's just what I've been saying for ages! We need Dem billionaires to step up.

The problem is that the very wealthy almost all have a high degree of greed and selfishness, so even the Dem Richie Riches aren't going to fully support progressive economic policies. Therefore, even in the face of fascism, they aren't going to fight too hard against those who are most likely to give them yet another giant tax break.

[DallasNE]

30. Hawley Is Good For MSM Bottom Line

So, of course, they will treat him with kid gloves. Money corrupts absolutely.

[DownriverDem]

4. My fear

exactly. They will have a much more appealing candidate next time. We must start working on the 2022 Midterms once Biden takes the oath. Who would have thought we would be here? Ignorant racist voters are who we must fight against.

[Hortensis]

6. Sounds dangerous to self and others. He has to survive

both the legal system and opposition from power centers on the right, and most of these soaring extremists flame out, though not always without first doing real harm.

Newtie and Tom The Hammer DeLay self destructed, The Anointed One Cruz kneecapped himself but is still around. Many others.

[Blue_true]

48. I agree with you.

Ambition without principles is what will get him. There are others like Cruz, Rubio, et al who will see him as a threat. Hell, Skeletor might be having presidential run aspirations in 2024, as a Floridian, I KNOW how sneaky and deceptive that asshole is, he alone will find ways to kneecap Hawley. Look for embarrassing shit to start leaking out about Hawley, in a way that Hawley got rid of his rival Grietens, look for the tables to get turned on Hawley.

[PatSeg]

7. Geez

I'd never even heard of Josh Hawley until the past couple of weeks. Now he's planning a 2024 presidential run? I guess we need to get ready for the next four years, as every freak and carnival barker crawls out from under a rock to run for president. The republican primaries get more bizarre every cycle.

[Blue_true]

49. He is very devious and ambitious. He has no reservation about

stabbing anyone who gets in his way in the back. So look for him to go after any potential 2024 rival, maybe with the exception of Trump. He likely sees Trump as his ticket, now that Hawley has basically ended Pence and a number of republican Senators with his certain objection to Biden’s election.

[PatSeg]

58. Yes, he does seem very ruthless

I'm sure we'll see more like him who after Trump, think they can lie and cheat their way to the top too. Trump rather blazed the trail for them. Though I'm not sure Trump's whacko base will settle for a substitute.

[Blue_true]

59. Hawley took out Greitens in Missouri when Greitens had a good image and looked unbeatable.

The attack centered around a married woman who Greitens had sex with. Greitens claimed that it was consensual rough sex, she eventually claimed that sex was forced and several times against her will. It was a he said, she said situation, but as AG, Hawley pressed the case and the woman held firm in her accusations. Hawley ultimately turned the Missouri republican establishment against Greitens, forcing Greitens to resign or be forced out.

I know that this will upset some here, but some women and men lie about being forced into non-consensual sex for reasons other than they were embarrassed about getting into it, there were no witnesses to the affairs between Greitens and the woman, so there really is no way to say which was lying. Hawley is either very wealthy or comes from a wealthy family, who can really say whether the woman was not compensated to make her claims and stick with them. Greitens certainly didn’t have the type of money that was on Hawley’s side, Greitens didn’t appear to be much more than a middleclass, ex-Special Forces person that used his military background to gain office.

[PatSeg]

60. Yes, I know it can be a really touchy subject,

but yet there have always been people who will lie about such things for numerous reasons. You don't want to discount any accusations of inappropriate behavior, but you also don't want to see innocent people's lives ruined unjustly. It wasn't all that long ago that a woman made some outrageous allegations about Joe that appeared to be totally fabricated.

If there is a lot of money involved, it isn't all that hard to find someone who will lie for a price. Of course, in Greitens' case I have no idea. I really don't know that much about him, but if you cheat on your spouse, you are taking some serious risks. Meanwhile, however, Hawley really scares me. Guess I don't think I'd be inclined to trust either one of them. It would be so much easier if Missouri would elect a Democrat!

[Blue_true]

62. I agree that Missouri was and would be better off with Democrats.

Truman represented that state and it has had a number of solid Democratic Governors and US Senators. The big population centers there (Saint Louis and Kansas City) don't seem to get the turnout during elections to offset the redder parts of the state. We have a similar problem in Florida, but also have Cubans (mostly staunch republican) and Venezuelans to content with, they add on to the red parts of the state, even though they tend to live in the big population areas. Unfortunately, the Haitians and Puerto Ricans in the big urban centers here in Florida don't seem to turn out to vote.

I agree about cheating on a spouse, people that do that are opening up a lot of potential fronts for trouble. Hell, I am single and would not even consider getting involved with a married woman, regardless of how appealing she may seem to be, because doing so would open me up to so many potential economic, business, and danger problems that I wouldn't be able to control - even beyond the decrepit moral behavior that would entail.

[PatSeg]

63. Oh I agree entirely

There are some lines you just should not cross and if you do, you should not be surprised if it ruins your life, especially if you are a public figure. Besides being really wrong, it is really stupid, but there are people who like to take risks I suppose.

Florida is so frustrating because of the Cuban republican base. It is so hard to penetrate it, even though many are voting against their own interests. I was hoping for a bigger Puerto Rican turnout in Florida because of Trump's botched response to Hurricane Maria. I really thought we could turn Florida blue this last time. Some day!

[Blue_true]

64. I was convinced that we would win Florida also, we got hammered.

From what I understand, the actual Cuban registration isn't that lopsided, something like 45% are registered Democrats. The disturbing thing is that many youngish Cubans are aligning with the republicans, I would have expected us to do extremely well among the younger ones. Maybe what we need to do is find promising young Cubans in South Florida and Tampa that align with Democrats and get those people running for office. I sort of believe that it is now a pride things with Cubans in Florida, they see more Cubans winning office as republicans, we need to change that dynamic.

A wildcard that I missed are retired people that move from other states. I looks like most of them align with republicans. That is a block that we can't crack, imo, but we don't have to. We can simply over-power them the same way that Democrats in Arizona have done the big retiree crowd there. But Arizona has lots of Hispanics that are of the Latin-America version, from Central American and Mexico, their mindset appears to be different from Cubans, who until it was changed, were guaranteed US citizenship if they reached US soil. Maybe more recent Cubans facing the same hurdles as Central American and Mexican immigrants will change the future mindset as the old immigration privileged Cubans die off, and the children whose thinking they have distorted start to lose their numbers.

[Chainfire]

8. Just another good Republican doing business as usual.

[North Shore Chicago]

9. Great!

Just great. Guess my NY resolution to cut back on Prosecco was a bit too soon.

Democrats and our allies better see the writing on the wall with these cast of characters, formulate a plan that will neuter them. If he is breaking the law, gather the evidence, arrest him and then indict! Why is this such an arduous task? seemingly?

[arlyellowdog]

10. He's no Donald Trump

[mtnsnake]

15. by about 250 pounds. nt

[Blue_true]

50. He doesn't have to be.

All he needs to to position himself to inherit Trump’s Magats, what he seems to be doing now is clearing potential 2024 rivals like Pence, Cruz, Rubio, Scott of Florida, Graham, Scott of South Carolina from the field. All he needs after that is for it to be Trump and him, I believe that if Trump is too strong for him, Hawley would gladly run on Trump’s ticket as a VP nominee, hoping that Trump wins, after that, an aging Trump dying in office would be a big prize for Hawley.

[oasis]

11. Hawley's not a reality tv megastar. He won't be handed

the free press coverage that Trump did. Morning Joe won’t be fawning all over this guy.

[shrike3]

19. I was thinking the same thing. He's not the appeal to the id that Trump is. One thing Trumpees like

about Trump is that he's an asshole and proud of it. I'm sure Hawley's proud of being an asshole, but not in a way that's telegenic.

[arlyellowdog]

23. Or photogenic

[shrike3]

24. That, too.

[Thekaspervote]

39. Agree! Trumpers loved trump because they saw themselves in him!

Look at dotard’s crowds and ask yourself if you really think this guy can win them over. ..JMHO but I don’t think so.

The pukes that would support him are the “suits” there just isn’t enough of them left for him to win.

[oldsoftie]

26. THANK YOU. Trump had a TON of celebrity. THATS what got him elected.

If just "let a businessman run the country like a business" is what mattered, we would've had Pres Forbes & a flat tax awhile back.

Hawley doesnt have "it" IMO

[joshcryer]

38. This may be our only saving grace.

But here's the thing, if you go on pundit TV all day long spouting your nonsense and lies, they will eat it up. So it is still possible the mass media press would give him daily coverage, they have air to fill.

The difference is though Trump would set the agenda for the entire days talking point by spouting complete nonsense, and then the next day do something else, and he would do it, every, single, fucking day, of his campaign (that's in part why I didn't think he had a shot in hell at winning; to my credit he never won the popular vote so there's that).

I don't know if Hawley could do that.

[oasis]

68. Yup. MSM won't make the same mistake with the next delusional egomaniac. nt

[nebby70]

12. Geez. thanks for making me more afraid ....

... you're right; he looks 'normal' and that makes him most dangerous ....
... what I don't understand is how he's managed to get this far without his offenses being called out ...
.... (right, we've been busy with more glowing offenders but....)
... we are all going to keep an eye on this jerk, right?....

[arlyellowdog]

22. He doesn't look normal

Nothing wrong with his looks, but just not ok for his ambition.

[bullimiami]

13. I propose trump was more of a perfect storm of insanity, bluster, name recognition, (in)fame and

the moment in time.


I don't expect all of the ducks to line up quite the same for just anyone.

To get from 30-35% support to a majority isn't easy.
Even with all the electoral malfeasance.

[Thekaspervote]

33. ☝️☝️☝️☝️ We can't what if the next 4 yrs over every demagogue that pops up

True “know thy enemy,” but that does not include being afraid

We are not without power or options.

[bullimiami]

40. I'm not saying we shouldn't act. Prudence is good. Just that trump is more an anomaly.

[FM123]

14. Like whack-a-mole - we need to smash down these guys that just keep poppin up, one after the other

This guy DGAF, y’all. And he never has.
He lies. He’s hypocritical. He breaks the law. He’s disingenuous.

[Blue_true]

51. Men like that have serious skeletons in their closets.

Our Democratic consultants need to stop being shy about finding and dragging those skeletons into the light of day.

[LiberalArkie]

16. Him and Tom Cotton, what a match up. Hopefully they will destroy each other.

[newdayneeded]

46. trump

If trump runs again, all 3 will rip each other apart. I will say this, if trump does run, I believe every other candidate will be extreme relentless against him in the primaries. They'll know to never back down from him.

[Blue_true]

52. I doubt it. Hawley is too devious for that.

I believe that he is smart, in an evil way, from what I have seen of him. My guess is he lays low, let Trump clear the field and try to get on Trump’s ticket once Trump is nominated. Trump will be a 78 year old man who has very bad health maintenance habits, so Hawley would likely hope that Trump wins office again before Nature do it’s work. Our job is to make sure that Trump doesn’t win again, we can’t afford a repeat of 2016, where we let our small internal disagreements take our focus off a very large threat to the country.

[liberal N proud]

17. Is there a Jeff Rowe on his campaign staff?

Jeff Rowe is a Stephen Miller of Missouri politics having championed several of the republicans more radical candidates.
He is ruthless and hateful. I knew him in College and he was a terrible person then, never paying his bills.

[marmar]

18. And Democrats and associated organizations need to compile all of this intel now.

Destroy him in advance. No more playing nice.

[Six117]

20. Whatever laws were broken, s/b investigated

and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Enough already.

[blue-wave]

21. Don't think this is not part of the republiCon plan

Why are they presently in the process of creating huge, almost insurmountable problems for the incoming Biden administration? Don't think for a moment my friends, that the republiCons aren't planning for the future. Most of the Cons are in on it. They will never stop until the America we all once knew is completely destroyed.

What the Cons don't realize is that they are destoying themselves as they implement their plot to also destroy us. It happened in Germany once, in the Soviet Union once, in Cambodia once and other places. Destroying the good within a country always ends in disaster.

[Cozmo]

25. All his build up of supposed power, me thinks he needs a little comeuppance

What a dick.

[NoRoadUntravelled]

27. Your are spot on with this.

"This guy doesn’t believe rules apply to him." But here's the thing.

We've railed against the lawbreakers for the last four years to no avail. When do we start railing against those who have it within their power to stop these elected law breakers?

The tRump family has demonstrated again and again they are above the law. Yet we must wait until the end of their reign, when in many ways it will be too late, to do anything about it. tRump has paved the way for worse to follow. We may comfort ourselves by placing all the responsibility on him and his sycophant enablers, yet who is held to account for their inability to outsmart this inept, cruel, inhumane administration or to even stand up effectively against them?
If our entire system cannot reign in this dumb as dirt family, how will we do it with someone who is shrewd and cunning and knows what he's doing?

I realize it's not only lawmakers. Media has shirked its duty toward Democracy, church pulpits have become rallying points for authoritarianism and propaganda from political figures is now legal.
It's winter, people are hungry and about to lose their homes and hundreds of thousands of us have died of Covid-19.

Someone has been shrewdly playing the long game here and they're not on our side.

[zaj]

28. I've been saying this from day 1 of Trumpism.

The GOP is collapsing into an authoritarianism and the next leader of that isn't going to be a completely transparent imbiscile.

I assumed the next leader would be Ted Cruz, but everyone hates Cruz. Hawley appears to be even more polished and equally consumed by power.

[Rebl2]

29. Time for

The Kansas City Star to look in to all his lies he has been telling. By the way, why is he just now for the $2000 dollar Covid relief checks. Why wasn’t he talking about those checks back in the fall before the election? Again time for St. Louis newspapers and KC Star to dig into his elitist background and his multiple lies he has been telling and all the cheating he has done.

[joshcryer]

37. He co-sponsered the bill with Sanders then slithered away.

Letting Sanders go it alone.

He could've easily, and I mean easily, offered a motion to proceed in consideration for that bill, and being a Republican he could've got 16 bipartsian votes for cloture to end debate and get the damn thing a vote. But he didn't do it because he's a lying scumbag. Sanders, meanwhile, sits alone, ignored in the gally, ignored and left alone, no Senators would vote with him and all he could do was create a scene.

[TigressDem]

31. Just when you thought it COULDN'T get worse. Yuck. Sigh. Thanks?

I just wish we could have a week or two of ANY kind of REAL victory over this crap in between the waterfall of pure sick and disgusting that we have to know to keep up our end of the Democratic process.

So fricken tired of these evil people and their non-stop war on Democracy.

But building community and awareness is what we would do anyway. It just sucks that THIS is the kind of crap we have to be aware of these days.

WHY IS IT THE DEMS ALWAYS HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH? Big bags of disgusting maggot-filled trash that the reThugs create in their wake as they go for fascism in the extreme.

[Wawannabe]

32. Rec for exposure everyone!

Please

[Harker]

34. This is part of why Trumpsky, his kin, and his criminal

enablers need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Disdain for the public welfare must not be increasingly normalized.

[jcgoldie]

35. "Now he's battling it out with McConnell + he's gonna try and remove him from the equation too"

... I'm prepared to wait and see that happen.

[joshcryer]

36. This is what I said yesterday. He's a populist.

He's going to run hard fast and furious as a fiscal populist. They will spend the next 4 fucking years coming down on Biden for the deficit. They will spend the next 4 fucking years bemoaning cuts (and indeed many on the left will hit Biden for necessary cuts due to Trump's cronyism).

Beating him requires party loyalty. To vote D downticket. To trust in the Dems to get stuff fixed. Because that's what Dems do. When a Dem says "eat your peas" it is not a right wing bullshit meme, Obama wanted to save the country. Trumpism wants to destroy it.

[Blue Owl]

41. He's rising up from Donnie's puddle of toxic diarrhea

Like a shitty phoenix

[benld74]

42. Follow the $$$

[UCmeNdc]

44. True! K&R!

[napi21]

45. I only saw him once. Then I heard he wants to be POTUS. Unless I missed something that should be

prominent, he'll NEVER be Prez. My 3 month old kitten has more personality than that JA. Without the "likability factor" he'll fade into the Mo. river & drown in his own ego.

[oro]

47. I hope you are right.

But you-know-who in '33 was considered innocuous by many who met him before he was in full narcissistic peacock mode. DT came on as 'just one of the guys' in his early NY days, and now look at him. "L'etat c'est moi!"
That guy bears watching.

[Blue_true]

67. The fortunate thing for us is he is building a lot of enemies within his own party.

The secret knives will start coming out for him. Ted Cruz' recent move should be proof that Hawley is being watched and ambition republicans will conclude that they need to secretly work together to take him down.

[Kablooie]

53. But Trump entered the race as a national celebrity and built a true cult following.

The shocking thing about Trump is how he got all the Republican politicians to join his cult and ignore all his illegal, immoral and unconstitutional lies and actions.

Unless Hawley can become a true cult leader for the whole Republican party he would be blocked by the traditional checks and balances.

[Jon King]

54. No chance, demographics are changing fast...

Nah, he has zero shot once he embraced Trump, zero. The demographics of the swing state metro areas are all that matters for Presidency. VA changed, PA changed, MI changed, WI changed, GA changed, AZ changed, NC is next, then TX once the Silicon Valley employees move there.

This guy is on the wrong side of every demographic trend. I know it sounds interesting to say another Trump like guy will win but its nonsense. Trump was a TV star posing as a business man. No one knows this clown and he has zero chance of winning in any swing state cities or suburban metro areas as he will be forever tied to the horror that was Trump.

[Pauldg47]

56. Why don't the left leaning repuks start a normal Republican party?

. Made up of responsible republicans.
. The Lincoln Project could organize it.
. Creatures could move to a third party.
. We can call them Retrumplicans.
. So we can destroy them from inside out.

[czarjak]

57. Republicans are the abusive boyfriend that will not allow anyone else to have IT, if they can't.

[myohmy2]

61. +1...

...when is criminal conduct going to start having criminal conduct consequences?

...the fascist threat is growing...

[Blue_true]

65. We clearly need to deeply examine our elections machinery,

especially after our really poor down ticket performance in November.

I personally would like to see us retire some of the democratic elections consultants that we have, they just don't seem capable of developing sound messaging that helps our candidates top to bottom. We need consultants that develop and execute machinery that rips the throats out of republican candidates and party officials when those people lie, now our consultants act like nothing happened, to the detriment of our candidates.

We are a diverse party with many viewpoints, so we always are going to be plagued by some parts of the party coming up with horrible phraseology that makes getting elected more difficult for our candidates. I don't know whether we can solve that problem, BUT, more aggressive campaign consultants would be really valuable to candidates and would craft counter-attacks that will turn republican candidate's lies back on them, to the republican's detriment. I look at the Clinton, Obama and Biden campaigns as being good models that down ballot candidates need to copy, none of those campaigns allowed a republican lie to gain legs.

As far as the socalled moderate republicans that we hare so much about. They need to make a choice, start voting 100% Democrat, or see their socalled "values" get flushed down the toilet by people like Hawley and Cruz and some of the recently elected republicans. If the socalled moderate republicans get their shit together, then the lift that we are going to have to bear for many coming years will be easier, we will be able to deny republicans political office until that party's candidates realize that they can win primaries spouting nonsense and trying to act on it, but they can go no further.