Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) slammed the divisive priorities of the leadership elite, which have abandoned the interests of the “great American middle” in favor of their own globalist agenda.
“The great divide of our time is between the political agenda of the leadership elite and the great and broad middle of our society,” Hawley said while giving the closing keynote address at the National Conservatism Conference on Tuesday evening.
“For years, the politics of both Left and Right have been informed by a political consensus that reflects the interests not of the American middle, but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities,” he continued.
The so-called “cosmopolitan elite,” Hawley put forth, reside in the United States, yet self-identify as “citizens of the world.” However, the common thread amongst these individuals is a shared set of globalist values such as “the importance of global integration and the danger of national loyalties, the priority of social change over tradition, career over community, and achievement and merit and progress.”
“Call it the ‘cosmopolitan consensus,’” Hawley said, noting that the end goal is to eliminate national boundaries, consolidate markets, and ultimately create a single monolithic economy.
“But it’s about more than economics — according to the cosmopolitan consensus, globalization is a moral imperative,” he continued. “That’s because our elitists distrust patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers.”
The freshman senator contended that the cosmopolitan consensus has transformed the cosmopolitan elite into an American aristocracy. While jobs “on Wall street, or in Silicon Valley, or in Hollywood” flourish under its rule, the American heartland is left with “flat wages, with lost jobs, with declining investment, and declining opportunity.”
“The Left champions multiculturalism and degrades our common identity,” Hawley said. “The Right? Well, the Right celebrates hyper-globalization and promises that the market will make everything alright in the end. Eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.”
“In truth, neither political party has seemed much interested in the American middle for quiet a long time, and neither has seemed much interested in the republic the middle sustains,” he continued. “But the old political platforms have grown stale and the old political truisms now ring hollow. The American people are demanding something different and something better.”
“It’s time we ended the cosmopolitan experiment and recovered the promise of the republic,” Hawley added.
Bizarrely, Hawley’s fiery defense of the American middle was met with accusations of anti-Semitism from some members of the left-wing media.
“Anyone [with] a Stanford BA in history and a JD from Yale (like Hawley) knows exactly the implications of ‘cosmopolitan.’ Again, not ‘everyone’ knows this. But Hawley must,” journalist James Fallows responded on Twitter, before adding that “America is great precisely because its ideals and embrace are universal.”
Fallows’ tweet included a link to a 2017 Public Radio International (PRI) article, contending that the word “cosmopolitan” is an “anti-Semitic fighting term” harkening back to Adolf Hitler’s Germany that was “used against Jews by Nazis and Bolsheviks alike.”
“I’m going to be charitable, and just say it’s very important that we find out exactly what this man, a U.S. senator, thinks he is saying,” said Adam Serwer, a staff writer at The Atlantic.
“I mean, it is not particularly surprising that Jewish people’s ears pricked up when they heard a U.S. senator making arguments using language that has targeted them particularly,” Serwer later tweeted. “But that’s not really what we are talking about here.”
Leftist economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman also somehow interpreted Hawley’s speech as an anti-Semitic dog whistle, tweeting that “If you’re Jewish and the use of ‘cosmopolitan’ doesn’t scare you, read some history.”
Yoram Hazony, the organizer of the National Conservatism Conference and a prominent Orthodox Jewish intellectual, immediately came to Hawley’s defense.
“Sorry but ‘cosmopolitan’ is a normal in political theory, history and other academic disciplines. It means ‘citizen of the world’ and has no anti-Jewish valence,” Hazony said. “[Hawley] used it correctly in his National Conservatism speech.”
Hazony offered multiple examples of scholarly publications, such as the Princeton University Press, Cambridge University Press, Harvard University Press, and the Oxford University Press, all referring to global citizenship by the term “cosmopolitan.”
“This term, descended by Stoic philosophy, is in common use in educated discourse to mean ‘citizen of the world.’ In common use, it has no anti-Jewish valence,” Hazony continued. “Sen. [Hawley] is, as you emphasize, an educated man. And so it’s not surprising that he used the term ‘cosmopolitan’ exactly correctly in his well-received speech at the National Conservatism Conference.”
Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is also Jewish, echoed Hazony and similarly came to Hawley’s defense. Hammer lamented the implication that Hawley is somehow anti-Semitic as “merely comical were it not so insidious.”
“The liberal language police have lost their minds,” Hawley responded today.
Since joining the Senate in January, Hawley has consistently taken a pro-Israel posture.