Hawley: 'Liberal Language Police' Lost Their Minds over 'Cosmopolitan'

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Friday that the “liberal language police” lost their minds over his usage of the word “cosmopolitan” to describe an out-of-touch elite who undermines American identity and the middle class.

Sen. Hawley, one of the Senate’s rising conservative figures, delivered an impassioned speech at the National Conservatism Conference, slamming what he called “political consensus that reflects the interests not of the American middle, but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities” that has been supported by politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Hawley contended that the “cosmopolitan class,” seeks mass globalization and “closer and closer economic union, more immigration … more trade on whatever terms,” which blurs the “boundaries between America and the rest of the world” and ultimately undermines American sovereignty.

“The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith,” Hawley added. “They regard our inherited traditions as oppressive and our shared institutions—like family and neighborhood and church—as backwards.”

However, despite the Missouri Republican’s vigorous defense of the institutions that he believes upholds the American community – such as family, neighborhood, and church – many elites took the opportunity to strike at the populist Republican, alleging that Hawley’s use of the word “cosmopolitan” carries antisemitic overtones.

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller’s takedown of CNN’s Jim Acosta also drew outcries of alleged antisemitism, as Miller lambasted Acosta for his “cosmopolitan bias” on immigration.

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller chastised CNN’s Jim Acosta in August 2017, accusing him over having a “cosmopolitan bias” over his attitude to immigration.

Hawley’s speech drew an outcry from many leftists, to which Hawley said Friday that “the liberal language police have lost their minds.”

Starting in 1946, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin started an antisemitic campaign against “rootless cosmopolitans” that purged many Jews in the Soviet Union and promoted antisemitism throughout the soviet republics.

Naya Lekht, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), said that Stalin’s fight against “rootless cosmopolitans” “aimed to disenfranchise ethnic Jews by showing them to have loyalties outside of the Soviet Union.”

Stalin purged many writers, theater critics, scientists, and others connected with “bourgeois Western influences.”

The Soviet leader also claimed that “dangers inherent in the world Zionist movement” pose an existential threat to the world.

However, despite Stalin’s use of “cosmopolitanism” as part of his antisemitic purge, experts such as Yoram Hazony contend that one can use the term “cosmopolitan” to describe out-of-touch elites and “citizens of the world” without connecting to its antisemitic past.

New York Times‘ op-ed columnist Paul Krugman said that Jews should be scared by Hawley’s use of the word “cosmopolitan.”

The Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer said that people need to find out what Hawley was thinking during his speech.

Adam Blickstein, the vice president of the Glover Park Group, called Hawley an antisemite, “full stop.”

Even though these pundits have attacked Sen. Hawley, the senator has consistently fought against antisemitism.

Sen. Hawley even joined a bipartisan group of senators to condemn antisemitism. Sen. Hawley’s first vote in the Senate was in favor of a bill combatting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Hawley also cosponsored S. Res. 120 to condemn the BDS movement.

These pundits’ attacks on Hawley arise as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has compared boycotting Israel to boycotting Nazi Germany.

The Republican Jewish Committee (RJC) backed Sen. Hawley Friday, charging that it “is an outrage” that anyone would attack him for being antisemitic.

However, despite many of these D.C. and New York elites’ astonishing claim, Yaron Hazony, the author of the Virtue of Nationalism and one of the organizers for the National Conservativism conference, explained that “cosmopolitan” carries no “anti-Jewish valence.”

Hazony also cited a political science book which uses “cosmopolitan” as a specific term to refer to global citizenship.

“Sen. @HawleyMO is, as you emphasize, an educated man,” Hazony added. “And so it’s not surprising that he used the term “cosmopolitan” exactly correctly in his well-received speech at the National Conservatism Conference.”

Even Matt Stoller, a former Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) aide and fellow at the Open Markets Institute (OMI), said that Hawley was right to call out America’s Silicon Valley and Wall Street elite as ruining the American middle class.

Stoller said that “cosmopolitan” serves as more of a “critique of corporate power” that is “out of the bounds of liberal discourse,” which may explain why so many leftists attacked the Missouri Republican after he delivered his keynote speech at the National Conservatism conference.

Stoller continued, saying that Hawley has served as the one Republican to continually call out the nefarious effects of “corporate power.” The OMI fellow said that Hawley “is at war with the Koch brothers,” while too many Democrats are “still in thrall to Google.”

Sen. Hawley chastised the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for levying a relatively small fine for Facebook privacy violations, which would be a “bargain”to the social media giant.

“If you don’t want to be criticized as favoring cosmopolitan elites, then next time there’s a financial crisis, don’t bail out bankers, shovel growth to the technology sector, and pour money onto wealthy lawyers in coastal mega-cities. Or throw tantrums,” Stoller added. “Either one’s fine.”