Sen. Josh Hawley is $3 million richer since Dec. 2020, gathering monetary supporters by embellishing former President Trump's Big Lie about election fraud. The Missouri Republican became infamous for proudly pumping his fist in the air during the Jan. 6 insurrection that tried to block the Electoral College votes from being counted.
While liberals called for Hawley's resignation in the face of giving power to the insurrectionists, loyalists of Trump opened their wallets to his cause. Hawley has acquired upwards of 57,000 donations this quarter, raising nearly $600,000 alone in the two weeks preceding the Jan. 6 attack of the Capitol, as opposed to the $43,000 he raised during the first quarter of 2020. He's tapped into a pool of grassroots donors that could continue to support him if he pursues a 2024 presidential run.
Hawley isn't the only anti-establishment Republican to increase substantial financial gains. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene raised $3.2 million this quarter, even after she stood up for Matt Gaetz amid a sex-trafficking scandal, accused the transgender community of "destroying God's creation," and pushed automatic gun rights after the recent Boulder mass-shooting.
Greene's contributions averaged $32, while Hawley's averaged $52. Last year Hawley ended the year with $1.2 million raised, as opposed to his $3.1 in the last three months.
After Hawley's involvement with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, prominent supporters from Missouri, including state Sen. Jack Danforth and businessman and major donor David Humphreys, cut ties with Hawley and publicly denounced him because of his behavior of inciting lies.
Among the GOP's conservative base, however, Hawley and Greene appear to be more favorable than ever.
Hawley, typically on the side of small government, plans to ban "woke companies" from growing in order to combat cancel-culture. On Monday, Hawley introduced legislation in line with Trump's distrust of big tech corporations.
"I'm introducing legislation to cut #BigTech and the mega corporations down to size," he tweeted Monday.
"A small group of woke mega-corporations control the products Americans can buy, the information Americans can receive and the speech Americans can engage in," Hawley said in a statement Monday. "These monopoly powers control our speech, our economy, our country, and their control has only grown because Washington has aided and abetted their quest for endless power."
The legislation, which he calls "Trust-Busting For the 21st Century Act," bans all mergers and acquisitions by companies valued over $100 billion, which would include Amazon, Google, Pfizer, Costco, Nike, and McDonald's.
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