Dearest Wonkette readers, I would like to announce that, after weeks of serious reflection and consultation with my loved ones (my cat and my girlfriend M), I have decided not to run for president in 2028. We agree that with only 18 months to go until the Iowa caucuses, it’s important to announce our 2028 intentions now so party leadership and prominent fundraisers can allocate their resources to other candidates who may throw their hats into the ring. We will not be making any endorsements at this time.
We are joined in this weighty decision by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who on Tuesday ruled out a 2028 presidential bid, telling the Washington Examiner in an interview, “I have no intention of doing so, period.”
Also my cat Thornton will not be running for president, and he damn sure isn’t going to take a job with the FBI either, not after that Kash Patel news. In a statement, Thornton expressed interest in sitting on my desk, right next to my keyboard, so he could bonk his furry little head against my chin, with great force if necessary.
Hawley declined to share any other thoughts about the 2028 Republican primaries either, saying only, “I have no insight to offer you on 2028, one way or another. […] I don’t know who will run or what will happen. We need to get through these elections first.”
The Missouri senator also offered no opinion on whether he prefers canned food or dry, although he agreed that Thornton’s habit of only licking up the gravy while not eating the meat bits is “concerning.” Hawley approved of the vet’s suggestion to try another brand of prescription canned food, samples of which he (Thornton) gobbled up with gusto), and held firm in his (Hawley’s) insistence that the abortion pill mifepristone must be stripped of FDA approval, because however much you try to think about something nice like cats, Josh Hawley remains a far-right religious extremist.
He’s bad enough in the Senate; even a losing presidential campaign would give him a wider platform to spread his weird misogyny-heavy brand of Christian nationalism.
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Hawley did have some advice for fellow Republicans, though, explaining that the GOP must forever indulge the agenda of far-right Christian nationalists who have become the core of MAGAworld.
“I would just remind everybody that they are the backbone of this party,” he said of religious conservatives. “You cannot win anything without them. You cannot win a primary without them. You cannot win a general election without them. And I would caution anybody who thinks that you can do without them in our voting coalition — you will have a voting coalition of like 10% without religious conservatives, without evangelical Protestants, without conservative Catholics, without conservative Orthodox Jews. So, I’d be real careful about trying to marginalize that coalition.”
As it happens, Hawley does have something else to say about the 2028 campaign, with the aim of pandering to his beloved Christian Right. This week Hawley launched a drive for all Republican candidates to sign a pledge to vote for a national ban on mifepristone. For tax exemption purposes the preachers partnering with Hawley on his “Declaration of Life” called on “lawmakers from both parties” to eliminate what they call “chemical abortion,” because that’s a far more frightening term than calling a pill a pill, or even “medication.”
At a “First Annual Missouri Prayer Breakfast” Wednesday, Hawley preached to the assembled pastors about the need to “stand for life and confront the scourge of chemical abortion,” because even after the Supreme Court undid Roe v. Wade, too many women insist on having control over their own bodies, and that cannot be tolerated.
The text of the pledge acknowledges Christian nationalists’ abject failure to force unruly American women to submit, even in states that have banned other forms of abortion:
So long as the abortion drug can turn every mailbox in America into an abortion clinic, state laws alone cannot protect human life. We need a national response. As such, we call on Congress to end the scourge of mail-order abortions by banning the abortion drug.
Nice of them to remind us that mifepristone remains widely available, at least.
Hawley was joined at the prayer breakfast by “Family Research Council” president Tony Perkins, who lamented that “the Republican Party has lost its voice on the life issue,” without mentioning that’s because Donald Trump is far more interested in ethnic cleansing and enriching himself than in any pretense of concern for “life.”
Perkins also grumped that in 2024, the Republican National Committee’s platform even lacked the usual plank calling for a national abortion ban, again without reminding the audience that was thanks to Trump’s dodge that the issue should be left up to the states. (And of course Trump and his party still want a national ban.)
The Hill notes that Hawley and his allied pastors hope their ban-mifepristone pledge might someday become as mandatory for Republican candidates as Grover Norquist’s old demand that they promise in writing to never ever vote to raise taxes, an ironclad requirement that 88 percent of congressional Republicans still comply with. We doubt that today’s Goopers will find Hawley’s pledge nearly as influential, though, since Republicans are far more interested in being gross fucking racists these days.
In conclusion, we’d rather write about cats more.
PREVIOUSLY IN THIS FUCKIN GUY.
[The Hill / Washington Examiner / ‘Declaration for Life’]
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I'd rather read about cats more.
And Thornton.
More Thornton would be good.
Hell is when your constituency depends on people who vote for the Apocalypse so they can get raptured.