Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., raised more than $3 million during the first three months of 2021 despite efforts by members of both parties to punish him for objecting to the Electoral College’s certification of President Joe Biden’s election win.
Republican grassroots support Hawley’s conservative agenda, which focuses largely on holding Big Tech and other massive corporations accountable.
Hawley reportedly plans to introduce a bill that would curb out of control “censorship” and punish leftist activism by “woke” businesses.
The “Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act” would ban mergers and acquisitions by firms with a market cap over $100 billion, lower the threshold for prosecution under existing federal antitrust laws, require companies that lose federal antitrust lawsuits to “forfeit all their profits resulting from monopolistic conduct,” and give the Federal Trade Commission more power to regulate “dominant digital firms,” according to Axios.
“This country and this government shouldn’t be run by a few mega-corporations,” Hawley said in a statement.
The Republican Party “has got to become the party of trust-busting once again. You know, that’s a part of our history.”
“We tried it the way that the big corporatists wanted,” he added, “and it hasn’t been a success for the American consumer, for the American producer, or for the American economy.”
Hawley’s message has resonated among former president Donald Trump’s base, especially in light of Big Tech’s decision to ban Trump from online platforms.
Trump voters also supported Hawley’s decision to challenge the Electoral College’s vote for Biden, according to Hawley’s fundraising haul.
He raised more than $600,000 in donations during the two weeks immediately after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to Politico.
Hawley faced bipartisan criticism for his Electoral College challenge, but he defended it as a necessary part of making sure the 2020 presidential election was “fair, free, and open.”
“I never said that the goal was to overturn the election,” he said. That was never the point and it was never possible. What we need to have are elections that are fair, free and open, and I think Congress needs to do its job and look into election irregularities.”
