Follow The Bouncing Ball*

Yep. And DeSantis has been very shrewd at picking the windmills he chases.

— Dennis Herring (@dcherring) May 12, 2022

It doesn't matter. It's "being seen as a fighter" that counts, not the fact he loses most of them or they're actually ineffective.

"His" voters believe Trump was the greatest economic President in history despite having the worst jobs record in decades.

— Wolfie (@dbgbdwolf) May 12, 2022

Yes, but all of Trump's supporters and all of Trump's men couldn't get Trump back into office again. And his prospects are looking even worse for 2024.

He wins by losing too. That's what people don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around. These people NEED a grievance

— JIM JONES (@JIMJONE19598667) May 12, 2022

Hawley is an unimportant Senator (like Cruz he gets noticed on the internet, but not otherwise) and DeSantis is the governor of America's Wang.  I say that because the twitter discussion started here:

Read @fordm on Josh Hawley's performative joke of a bill attacking Disney:

"If he hoped that this bill would help put him back in the running with more successful culture warriors like DeSantis, he might find himself sorely disappointed."https://t.co/eByv21plu5

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) May 12, 2022

Yeah, that bill will never be heard from again, unless Hawley tweets about it.  And frankly, outside Twitter and the obsessives who read Greg Sargent (he's good, but he's no William Safire back in the day; or Russell Baker.  He's not even David Brooks, who was once considered important to read.  I like Sargent, but he's not as influential as columnists of days gone by), nobody has heard of this bill by Hawley now.  Here, I'll quote from the New Republic article linked above to bolster my point:

It’s been a rough few months of unproductive battles for Hawley. His anti-Disney bill comes just over a month after he led a right-wing campaign to smear Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, as friendly to child sexual predators. Those smears failed to take hold in Congress or the American public. Polls showed that a majority of Americans still supported Jackson’s confirmation after a week of televised attacks by Hawley and his colleagues, and three GOP senators even voted for her confirmation.

Yeah, I read about that.  Mostly I read about it on Twitter.  It had no impact, as Ford says, and did not leave Hawley politically richer for the investment in smear and lies.  I daresay polls would have also shown a majority of American's never heard of Hawley's smear campaign, or connected him to it; or have heard of Josh Hawley.  He's not only powerless in the Senate, he's pretty much a cipher outside of it, too.

Both Hawley and DeSantis have about as much political life on the national stage as Greg Abbott will ever have, which is zip and none. Yes, they are obnoxious people and DeSantis, like Abbott, is doing more harm than good to his state. But they are not about to take over the world as we know it.

They will make it a more miserable place to live in. Don’t be like them.
 

*or is that reference too dated to be meaningful?