Josh Hawley might be Josh Hawley’s own worst enemy as the Missouri Republican Senator runs for re-election.
In a post made on Twitter this week on the occasion of the July 4 holiday, Hawley quoted a source he claimed was Patrick Henry, the Founding Father famous for proclaiming that he sought liberty or death. The problem was that the quote Hawley shared did not actually come from Henry, which the Senator or a member of his staff probably could have figured out if they’d done, what, five minutes of Googling?
The fake quote went as follows: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” An article that was distributed on Twitter in response to Hawley’s misrepresentation of history suggests that right-wing pseudohistorian David Barton, who often promotes a highly specific claim that the founding of the United States was based in the Christian religion, was a main, original source for falsely connecting those comments to Patrick Henry. The rhetoric actually comes from an old article that was published in the 1950s.
“You will be unsurprised to hear that Patrick Henry never said this. It comes from a 1956 article in a magazine called The Virginian. But what’s a fake quote between friends?” author and expert James Surowiecki said, replying to Josh. The substance of that fact-check was also appended to Hawley’s tweet in the form of a Community Note, which means a notation added and overseen by members of the Twitter community that provides relevant information.
Elsewhere, other messages on July 4 from similarly minded Republicans were also odd. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), for instance, took the opportunity to dunk on the United States as supposedly teetering around a precipice, he said. The doom-and-gloom rhetoric mirrors much of what’s often seen from Trump himself, who with support from Gaetz and others also tried to effectively upend the voting rights of millions who’d participated in the 2020 elections.
You will be unsurprised to hear that Patrick Henry never said this. It comes from a 1956 article in a magazine called The Virginian. But what’s a fake quote between friends? https://t.co/PZCEhfNlqW
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) July 5, 2023
