Friday, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley gave a speech at the annual far-right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida. In it, he spoke about systemic racism, essentially denying its existence, and later bragging about his role in the insurrection on the Capitol.
“We heard that we are systemically racist,” Hawley said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “You heard that once or twice? We heard that the real founding of the country wasn’t in 1776, it was in 1619 or whatever. We heard that America is founded in lies and evil. That’s what we’ve been told. All of that is false. All of that is a lie.
“Part of standing up to the oligarchs in tech and in the media and in the liberals is reclaiming our history and saying it is good and we are proud to be Americans,” he added. “We’re proud to have lived in a country that started with nothing and became the greatest country in the face of the earth. We’re proud to be in a country that liberated slaves.”
Saturday, the Senator’s hometown paper eviscerated him. The Kansas City Star’s editorial board condemned his speech, writing in part: “When we did end slavery, after a war in which the Confederacy — whose heroes Hawley defends — fought to preserve it, we were awfully late coming around. And then did everything possible, through Jim Crow laws, to keep things as inequitable as they had been.
“This doesn’t mean we hate America; it means we recognize reality, and see the need to learn from it,” the op-ed reads.
"America is not hopelessly divided," concluded the board according to Salon, "but that's no thanks to Hawley."
Additionally, Hawley seemed to brag about the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol.
“You know, on January the 6th, I objected during the Electoral College certification, maybe you heard about it,” at which point the crowd jumped to their feet, according to Rolling Stone magazine. In reality, Hawley raised his fist in support of the insurrectionists as the mob infamously stormed the Capitol, leaving on person killed and members of Congress hiding.