Sen. Josh Hawley: Restoring the Great American Middle

TAC:

“I grew up in a small place in the middle of Missouri, a town called Lexington that sits atop the bluffs of the Missouri River along old Highway 13. It’s a simple place, but a proud one. Union and Confederate soldiers clashed there early in the Civil War, and the town cherishes that memory, proud to have mattered in the nation’s history. People there believe they matter still, that their way of life represents something valuable to America.

They are right. But it’s been a long time since Washington thought so. Towns like Lexington and the people who live there make up middle America, but the great American middle is more than a geography. It is the heart of our society—the farmers and teachers, mechanics and tradesmen who forged the character of this country. 

These are the people who explored a continent, who built the railroads, who opened the West. These are the workers whose labor launched the Industrial Revolution and whose ingenuity made the American economy the marvel of the world. These are the families that have rallied to this country’s flag at every hour of danger, and who shoulder the burden of defending our nation even now.  

But the great middle who made this country hasn’t been respected by its leadership class for too long. …”

Great article.

Sen. Josh Hawley is obviously angling to inherit Blompf’s populist-nationalist base in 2024. He is establishing a reputation for himself by pushing a populist-nationalist policy agenda in the Senate. If Blompf was intelligent, educated and ethical, he would sound like Hawley. My only criticism of him so far is that he is too hawkish on Iran. It is significant though that I have written about him five times in June. He is gaining major traction on the disaffected populist Right.

I like how Hawley name drops being from Lexington, MO which is in Lafayette County in Little Dixie. Lexington was a strongly pro-Confederate town back in the day and two major battles were fought there during the War Between the States. Quantrill’s Raiders operated out of Lexington and fought Sen. James Henry Lane of Kansas whose Jayhawkers and “First Nigger Regiment” were launching raids into western Missouri. Their actions there were why William Quantrill sacked Lawrence, KS.

It’s funny how that area imagines itself as “Middle America” and “the Heartland” in the 21st century. The most vicious fighting in the War Between the States took place on the Kansas-Missouri border. The James Gang continued the war for years afterward. The people of western Missouri started the war itself in Bleeding Kansas in the 1850s. John Brown was one the fanatics who supported the Jayhawkers in Kansas.

Over 150 years later, there is no longer a major sectional fault line in the region. No one can imagine western Missouri going to war with Kansas or all the Germans in Nebraska. The whole area is now culturally, economically and politically aligned as White Christian Middle America. It also feels extremely alienated from the coastal Yankees and the Jews who are lording it over flyover country. There are still a lot of ethnic Yankees in eastern Iowa though which is why Iowa is a swing state.