No, silly, not that insurrection. The real insurrection—the protests in Los Angeles. Taking his talking points straight from President Donald Trump, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is going to blow this whole criminal conspiracy wide open.
Hawley has sent letters to at least two groups he alleges are funding the protests in LA. They are based on the same tired GOP self-soothing delusion: left-wing demonstrations are not spontaneous or authentic but are instead paid puppets funded by shadowy dark money masters.
In other words, George Soros.
Not to diminish how bad it is that the president is running around saying exactly what Hawley is insinuating here, but a senator sending letters to activist groups demanding donor lists feels just a touch … McCarthy-ish.
Or maybe more than a touch. Calling things McCarthyism has become a hackneyed cliche, lazily invoked by the right and the left almost as often as George Orwell’s “1984.” However, sending letters to organizations disfavored by the government, asserting that participation in that group is criminal, and demanding a list of names is pretty much an accurate shorthand description of the McCarthy era.
Here, the organizations disfavored by the government are the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA, and the Party for Socialist and Liberation. Because everything old is new again, PSL is actually a communist organization.
To see just how coordinated and consistent these allegations are, they’re the ones named in the New York Post’s breathless “reporting” four days ago. The New York Post made sure to point out that CHILRA has received government grants: “The radical group also received around $450,000 in grants for ‘citizenship education and training’ between October 2021 and September 2024 from the DHS—the very agency the group was protesting last week.”
Ah, yes. The well-known “you can’t protest the government if you ever got money from the government” exception to the First Amendment.
As far as the criminal part, Hawley’s letters say that “bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct.” Josh, buddy, do we have news for you about Jan. 6.
Hawley isn’t just seeking donor lists he wants: all internal communications related to protest planning, coordination, or funding; all financial documents related to protests over immigration enforcement; all contracts and grant applications related to immigration enforcement; travel records for anyone supported or reimbursed for protest activities; and all media strategies.
In the past, Hawley was a big fan of insurrection, a real free speech warrior. Though let’s be honest: he clearly had some very complex feels on Jan. 6. On that day, Hawley was the living embodiment of the “how it started/how it’s going” internet meme. He began the day with his fist aloft in solidarity with the Jan. 6 crowd, but then had to flee from that same crowd once they breached the Capitol.
And while Hawley is extremely concerned with the protesters in LA allegedly committing violence against law enforcement, he’s completely untroubled by Trump’s pardon of people who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6. When asked what signal that sent, Hawley’s answer was “That he keeps his campaign promises.”
So, to recap. Donating $20 to a pro-immigrant organization last year is aiding and abetting criminal conduct because the protests in LA are illegal. Doing an insurrection and then getting pardoned by the dude you did an insurrection for? For Hawley, that’s totally fine.