Is Sen. Josh Hawley Stupid… Or Does He Just Hope You Are?

I would call Josh Hawley a fool, but he keeps demonstrating the proof of that faster than I can say the word.

The latest embarrassing stunt by the right-wing senatorial harlequin from Missouri is to try matching wits with Woody Guthrie! Apparently, Hawley thought (always a danger zone for him) that no one would notice if he appropriated and totally perverted Woody’s most famous anthem for his own political gain. So when Josh introduced a racist, anti-immigrant bill that would ban thousands of Chinese-Americans from owning US farmland, he decided it would be clever in a Super-MAGA-Patriot sort of way to title his piece of legislative nastiness the “This Land Is Our Land Act.” It’s a crude attempt to cancel Woody’s For-the-People message, twisting his uplifting words of democratic inclusiveness and diversity into a nativist snarl of demagogic exclusivity.

To Hawley’s chagrin, though, someone did notice his scurrilous effort to exploit Woody’s spirit of honest, grassroots populism: His daughter, Nora. Every bit as feisty and straight-talking as her father, she condemned Josh as a common political thief who is not “in any way a representative of Woody’s values.”

Layering ignorance atop his buffoonery, Hawley seems clueless that Woody’s music and life were primarily a struggle against the plutocrats and autocrats that Hawley serves. In addition to the commonly sung verses of “This Land,” Guthrie wrote many others, prominently including this one:

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

Let’s hear Josh Hawley sing that verse at the Republican National Convention. Until then, he should keep Woody Guthrie’s name out of his mouth.

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