Josh Hawley: Capitalists Are Marxists!

We see these corporations pushing relentlessly this Marxist agenda, pushing relentlessly this religion of woke. >> That was Missouri Senator Josh Hawley claiming that capitalist companies are actually Marxist and that they are pushing a religion of woke. He then went on to criticize Republicans who he felt were not sufficiently being gung ho towards fighting a culture war. >> And you know, some Republicans, I've heard recently, some Republicans have said, but I don't like culture wars. I don't wanna have to engage in a culture war. And they also say, but don't criticize corporate America, we mustn't do that. I just say to those people, listen, we may not have started this culture war, but we're going to win it. >> [APPLAUSE] >> We are going to win it. >> Now, he said some other pretty insane things during that speech. But Cenk, I couldn't bring up those other things before we actually address the idea that corporations are Marxist [LAUGH]. >> Okay, so apparently the date is June 1984 because words don't have meaning anymore. So, capitalism is Marxism. George Orwell would think, nah, they didn't go that far. No, they did, you just saw it. You saw it with your own eyes, you heard it with your own ears. Corporations are Marxist, but that literally, technically is not possible. Corporations, first of all, they don't have an ideology because they're not humans, they're legal machines that we created. Second of all, by definition they're capitalists because they're corporations. So, the question then arises and it's an inescapable one and I'm sorry, but I have to ask it. Is Josh Hawley maniacally stupid or does he think his audience and his voters are that stupid? >> I mean, we know the answer. He thinks that they are dumb enough to not understand that he's throwing a word salad at them that's just designed to get them angry and to trigger all the little dopamine receptors that they get that they hear when someone criticizes the word Marxism. None of them know what any of these terms mean. None of them know what Marxism is. And you see this on all the man on the street types of interviews at like Trump rallies and such, they have no idea what they're talking about. They've just been fed this line that gets them angry and that gets them, sorry, that gets them to the voting booth and that's as far as they have to go. The fact that all of the policies that are being promoted in support of stopping this quote unquote, corporate Marxism, the fact that those policies are terrible for the voters, voting for them isn't part of the equation for them. I mean, this guy sucks because he knows exactly what he's doing and his voters or his constituents and the people listening to him have no idea what he's doing. And it's so embarrassing to watch from the sidelines where you go, are you really buying this? Are you really applauding for this just actual literal nonsense? There's no way to examine it. And if you ever challenge any of them on it, they'll just start spouting a bunch of other buzzwords that are also nonsense. And it feels like kind of this unwinnable downhill and uphill battle at the same time. And on the one hand it's exhausting, on the other hand, it is just so ridiculous that you do kind of have to laugh at times. >> Okay, by the way, I have the answer just in case you guys are wondering. Josh Hawley went to Stanford and Yale Law. So, sorry, that's not the end all be all, but that means he probably is not a dummy. So, he knows that corporations are the epicenter of capitalism. In Marxism, you don't have any private property, so you can't possibly have corporations. So he made an active decision, I think my voters don't know anything, I think my voters are ignoramusists. Watch, I wonder if he did it as like a gag with one of his Republican friends backstage. Watch, I'll tell him corporations are Marxist, and they'll believe it. [LAUGH] Wait, is somebody here? And start running. >> Well, he's definitely someone who knows how to play to his audience because he was speaking at a religious right activist conference when he delivered this line, which was, there is not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus Christ is not lord, the time for Christians to rise is now. But I think both of you were exactly right in your points that he's playing on their stupidity as he delivered this next line that, honest to God, the first part of it sounds like something you might hear on TYT. He said, corporations are not people and there's no reason why corporate America should control this country. Of course then he followed it up by calling for woke corporations to get out of politics. However, unlike us here at TYT, Josh Hawley actually doesn't mean what he's saying. And that's really evidenced by what Peter Montgomery wrote here in Right Wing Watch. He said, Hawley's anti-corporate posturing is remarkable given his ardent support for the Hobby Lobby Corporation and its lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act's requirements for contraceptive coverage and insurance policies. A lawsuit that led the conservative Supreme Court majority to rule for the First time ever that a for-profit corporation could claim exemption from government regulations that run counter to the religious beliefs of company owners. And Cenk, you're someone who's been in the fight to keep corporations out of politics for a long time. How frustrating is it when conservatives try to co opt that language to sell it to their base? >> Well, look, it's terrible news and great news. The terrible part is okay, you wanna get rid of corporate power and politicians get out of policy, okay, you first. Don't take any corporate pack money. No, no, no, give me the money, give me the money, give me the money, money, money, money. And I'm not just talking about Josh Hawley, nearly, I have to say nearly because God damn it, Matt Gates doesn't take corporate pack money. See, we're fair, you don't take corporate money, I disagree with you on other things but massively disagree with you on other things, but at least he doesn't take that money, right? But 99% of the Republican Party is like, I love corporate money, [SOUND] where's your bribes? I want more bribes, [SOUND]. Trains do explode, I don't care, subs going, I don't know. No regulations for anybody. Tax, can lower the tax because we're corporations [SOUND]. And you pigs wanna talk about how corporations are bad, which leads to the great news. Wait, why are they even saying that? These guys love corporations. If they could, they'd have sex with corporations. Okay, anyway, I don't wanna get into how, but I have a pretty good idea. So the great news is, so right wing voters get that big business is screwing them. That corporations are the actual problem. Their instincts kicked in. Look, no one's tougher on right wing voters than I am. The rest of the media is scared to death of criticizing them. They're in the middle of the country, they're real Americans. No, I attack them all the time, okay? But you credit where credit is due. The voters, they're enormously misguided and misdirected, but they hate corruption and now they're onto corporations. They're the real problem. Meanwhile, the Democrats are like, establishment Democrats are like drooling, what corporations? [SOUND] We like them. Well, that is not a very popular position. >> I mean, this is one of the most annoying things where for everybody or almost everybody, the material conditions in this country are much worse than they used to be. And the left is doing their best to try to challenge that and improve it. And we just want people to have health care and we want these massive CEO bonuses and these record breaking profits to be smaller so that people have a little bit more money in their pocket. And so that's the angle we're coming at it from. And then the right takes this honestly similar neopulist approach to say, yeah, we don't like corporations either, but at the same time we're gonna cut their tax rate. We're gonna make sure that everybody on the top from the CEO and the executive branch get these massive golden parachutes. We're gonna make sure that they're able to gamble with the money that is invested in them, and then when they lose, we'll bail them out. It's just this incredible cognitive dissonance that really only seems to, it turns into a language conversation rather than a policy conversation. And so it's ridiculous and it's annoying and it's frustrating to watch and it's kind of hard to see how people don't see through it, but they don't. They just keep voting for it. They keep voting against their interests and the people who are saying this stuff get away with it, it's terrible. >> Hey, guys, I just looked it up, I thought I saw this story back in 21. And you take it with a grain of salt if you like, because there are different ways around this. But in 21, Josh Hawley decided not to take corporate pack money anymore. And maybe that's why he's speaking out against corporations now. Before, he never did that, and that's because he was getting his money from them and so he was their boy. Now, look, sometimes people say they don't take corporate pack money like some establishment Democrats did this trick for a while and they're like, I don't take it personally, but, the corporations give tons of money to my super pack. Well, of course, that is not me, it is my super pack, right? So I don't know if Hawley is doing that and the other guy who announced it with him is Ted Cruz. But Ted Cruz has also been attacking corporations lately. So look, as much as you could tell, I am not a fan of Josh Hawley, I think he's ridiculous, right? Let alone Ted Cruz, let alone Matt Gates. But if they're genuinely not taking corporate pack money, then at least I could live with that. And boom, there you go. The minute they're free, they actually start criticizing corporations. Now, in their case, for all the wrong reasons. They like gay people too much. No, that's not the issue, brother. It's our wages. It's our health care. They're squeezing the life and dignity out of us. And that's why your right wing voters hate it too. But I'm gonna take that as a positive development from the guy [LAUGH] who said corporations are Marxist. I'll take my wins where I can get them.