Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who is famous for running in terror from the MAGA rioters he urged to breach the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is a hardcore free-market capitalist. In his book, people who can't make it on their own deserve their fate.
But when Hawley learned that an aluminum plant in the state he nominally represents was struggling, he immediately abandoned his laissez-faire credo and demanded that Biden interfere with the free market by pumping taxpayer money into the company to keep it operating.
"A major aluminum plant in southeast Missouri just announced it's shutting down, Hawley xitted. "This cannot be allowed to happen. The plant accounts for nearly 30% of the nation's aluminum. It's vital to national security. President Biden must invoke the Defense Production Act and keep it open."
In a follow up post, Hawley sounded like an Op-Ed from The Daily Worker: "Some billionaire wants to put 500 Missourians out of work and walk away with the profit. Can't happen. This plant and these workers are too important to the nation to shut down."
On page 137 of his book Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, Hawley warned of the evils of depending on a government lifeline:
Dependence also makes men less free. It makes them servile. There is a long tradition of political thought, running back to ancient Rome and Greece but really originating with the Bible, that sees personal independence as a precondition for personal liberty. You can't be free if someone else pays your bills. You can't be free if someone else controls your livelihood, especially if that someone else is the government.
In MAGA land, being a hypocrite is more important than being a capitalist.
