Why the Hawley hype?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Hawley terrifies me and I am convinced that he will become President. His record isn't spotless (e.g., being anti-RTW and signing onto ACA lawsuits) but he knows rhetorically how to paint himself as a worker friendly trad-con. He's been in the Senate for a year and a half and he's already become basically the Senate figurehead for the "traditional" social conservative movement. My sense is that there are plenty of people in the intellectual trad con world who already adore him (e.g., the press they've given him after the Bostick case).

I think he has much better odds of capturing the post-Trump GOP mantle than someone like Haley or Cotton. Haley is basically an establishment-foisted stiff who is squishy on Trump and will reek of an unpopular establishment. Cotton is hawkish, disdainful of the WWC outside of culture war red meat, and uncharismatic. If he didn't light himself on fire in 2016 I could actually see the Rubio of 2019/2020 being competitive in a national primary but people's memories aren't that short.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Hawley terrifies me and I am convinced that he will become President. His record isn't spotless (e.g., being anti-RTW and signing onto ACA lawsuits) but he knows rhetorically how to paint himself as a worker friendly trad-con. He's been in the Senate for a year and a half and he's already become basically the Senate figurehead for the "traditional" social conservative movement. My sense is that there are plenty of people in the intellectual trad con world who already adore him (e.g., the press they've given him after the Bostick case).

I think he has much better odds of capturing the post-Trump GOP mantle than someone like Haley or Cotton. Haley is basically an establishment-foisted stiff who is squishy on Trump and will reek of an unpopular establishment. Cotton is hawkish, disdainful of the WWC outside of culture war red meat, and uncharismatic. If he didn't light himself on fire in 2016 I could actually see the Rubio of 2019/2020 being competitive in a national primary but people's memories aren't that short.

I think Haley has done a good job appealing to both sectors and represents a Nixon to Trump's Goldwater in the form of triangulated policies which may be necessary to win a primary and general. I'm not convinced the GOP is ready to go full Hawley yet since the party clearly hasn't let go of their traditional economics. It'll take a little longer. Hawley could still win but it's a much riskier choice, like Reagan in 1968 over 1980.

Haley just doesn't seem like a candidate the base will like at all. Maybe she could have been a more effective Rubio in 2016 but like a lot of other people in the GOP she got sucked into and shredded by the Trump administration. She has a stench of weak and effete party elite about her when the base wants a brawler. I am sure she will have a ton of institutional support when she runs, but I don't think that's enough to win a GOP primary anymore.

The GOP is clinging to economic conservatism now; we'll see how long that lasts. Trump was the first breach in the wall, but he's too lazy and self-serving to see a lot of his 2016 campaign to fruition. This means he basically left it up to the people around him, which is why you have a Ryan/Reince 2017 tax bill. Turns out the GOP base was really only rhetorically interested in the fiscal conservatism now (e.g., moralizing about welfare cheats rather than actually being opposed to welfare itself). But I think once Trump has laid out a blueprint for how a politician can differentiate himself from a despised party establishment, Hawley is already showing signs that he is interested in exploiting it while pulling a "no true Scotsman" against people associated with Trump (like Gorsuch).