I'm gonna amend this. The all caps "IS" was overwrought and unfair. I'd say Hawley's certainly a hypocrite. And he's *probably* a bullshit artist. But maybe his hypocrisy is reformable.

Here's what I find unsatisfactory about the general progressive-left reaction to Hawley: 1/ https://twitter.com/jeffspross/status/1262785899894579202

My sense of Hawley is that, like a lot of conservatives, his heart really isn't in economics one way or the other. It's in defending a particular way of life, characterized by a set of traditional/reactionary values. And you know what? That's fine. 2/

Hawley's cultural/social values aren't mine, they're values I want the left to keep pushing against, and they're certainly not values that should *govern* society. But they are values lots of people hold, including lots of people oppressed and exploited by the current order. 3/

Whatever society the left is struggling towards, it must be a society that at least has room for people with Hawley's values. They're not going away. And they sure aren't going to join you in the struggles they do share with you if they think you want to wipe them out. 4/

Any just political and economic order must be one where people with "leftwing" and "rightwing" social values can live peaceably alongside one another. I don't know how that "peace treaty" would operate. But I do know "everyone adopts the leftwing values" ain't the answer. 5/

Now, back to Hawley specifically.

Why is so much of his economic platform indistinguishable from Mitt Romney's? It might indeed be that Hawley is just a bullshit artist. But it might also be because Hawley found the GOP the only amenable home for his cultural/social values. 6/

This happens a lot in politics. People enter caring about a few specific things. Those things define which "teams" they join. And then those teams flesh out the rest of their agenda and political value structure that they hadn't given a lot of thought to. 7/

This process is just human. Everyone relies on it. But it's unstable and comes with its contradictions. Which is why, for instance, the more libertarian Republicans and the more socially conservative ones have increasingly been at each other's throats in the Trump era. 8/

And I guess that leads to a rather mundane conclusion: That we should be on the lookout for allies and prepared to find ways we can work "across the aisle" in the name of economic populism.

But now comes the hard part. 9/

What I said earlier applies equally to Hawley: Whatever society he envisions, it needs to make room for leftwing social values. A lot of the left has concluded Hawley has no such interest in that society. I'm honestly not sure. 10/ https://twitter.com/jeffspross/status/1262823981750640640

I do think, in the last ten years or so, there's been a profound shift in US society, in which leftwing social values -- pro-immigration, pro-LGBTQ inclusion, secular, etc -- really have become markers of class status, in a way deeply wrapped up with educational attainment. 11/

And this triumph of leftwing social values has often provided a moral cover for elites' ongoing economic decimation of society -- including the places and communities Hawley wants to defend. I.E. "these people suffer because they're backwards, not because they're exploited." 12/

I suspect this is the part of the thread where I lose a lot of you. But I honestly think a big part of why Hawley sets people on the left off is because, in his own mixed up way, he's put his finger on this problem. 13/

I don't think this entanglement with elite power structures makes leftwing social values wrong or corrupt or whatever. It's just one of those weird turns history took. But I can see how someone coming from Hawley's position would see the two as *inherently* entangled. 14/

Convincing Hawley the two are not entangled -- or, more importantly, convincing the millions of voters who see the world the same way -- will take *work* by the left. It requires that we start figuring out how that "peace treaty" I mentioned earlier would actually operate. 15/

It is a hard reality that many of the everyday working people the left seeks to defend and uplift do not share the left's views on immigration, sexuality, gender, culture in general, you get it. And this tension does not end with the left winning them all over on that stuff. 16/

So. How does it end? That's what we need to figure out.

Maybe Hawley is just an authoritarian bullshitter, as the full scope of his economic agenda suggests. But that's also the easy conclusion. It spares the left the need to do that work. Which makes me uneasy.

FIN 17/17