Politics

Sen Josh Hawley Lambasts ‘Liberal Language Police’ After Critics Seize On His Use Of ‘Cosmopolitan’ As Anti-Semitic

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Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley lambasted the “liberal language police” Friday after facing backlash for referring to “the cosmopolitan elite,” something his critics found to be anti-Semitic.

The liberal language police have lost their minds https://t.co/OpEI9vp0BT

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 19, 2019

He was accused of anti-Semitism after speaking at the Edmund Burke Foundation’s National Conservatism Conference.

“The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith,” he said in his keynote address. “They regard our inherited traditions as oppressive and our shared institutions — like family and neighborhood and church — as backwards. What they offer instead is a progressive agenda of social liberation in tune with the priorities of their wealthy and well-educated counterparts around the world.”

Some treated Hawley’s references to the “cosmopolitan elite” and “cosmopolitan consensus” as veiled anti-Semitic language.

“So [Hawley] is an antisemite. Full stop,” wrote Adam Blickstein of the Glover Park Group on Twitter Friday.

“If you’re Jewish and the use of ‘cosmopolitan’ doesn’t scare you, read some history,” The New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman wrote Thursday on Twitter.

“Yale-educated law professor [Hawley] chose the word purposefully,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Messenger wrote Friday on Twitter.

So @HawleyMO is an antisemite. Full stop https://t.co/u0b8U5uWLc

— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) July 19, 2019

If you’re Jewish and the use of “cosmopolitan” doesn’t scare you, read some history https://t.co/yc5xTCN2ck

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 18, 2019

Here is @greenfield64 explaining two years ago why white supremacists like Richard Spencer were cheering Stephen Miller’s use of ‘cosmopolitan’ because of its deeply anti-Semitic roots. Yale-educated law professor @HawleyMO chose the word purposefully: https://t.co/rxiD6EOakk

— Tony Messenger (@tonymess) July 19, 2019

Others defended Hawley from the allegations of anti-Semitism. The junior senator had expressed his frustration with “rank anti-Semitism that I didn’t think existed in this country” on “The Guy Benson Show” the same week.

“Sorry but ‘cosmopolitan’ is a normal term in political theory, history and other academic disciplines. It means ‘citizen of the world’ and has no anti-Jewish valence. [Hawley] used it correctly in his National Conservatism speech,” Yoram Hazony, chair of the institute that hosted the conference, wrote Friday on Twitter. Hazony is an Israeli author.

“It’s foolish to act like using the term cosmopolitan upper class is a code word, and doing so comes dangerously close to making any critique of corporate power out of the bounds of liberal discourse. Which may be the point…” Matt Stoller, a former Senate Budget Committee aide under Bernie Sanders, wrote Thursday on Twitter.

Sorry but “cosmopolitan” is a normal term in political theory, history and other academic disciplines. It means “citizen of the world” and has no anti-Jewish valence. @HawleyMO used it correctly in his National Conservatism speech. Let’s take a little tour of how others use it: https://t.co/JbesGcLY2F

— Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) July 19, 2019

It’s foolish to act like using the term cosmopolitan upper class is a code word, and doing so comes dangerously close to making any critique of corporate power out of the bounds of liberal discourse. Which may be the point…

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 18, 2019

Hawley is the youngest sitting senator who is known for calling out Big Tech and recently announced legislation that would put universities on the hook financially if its students are unable to repay their student loans.