There is perhaps no more indelible image of the Jan. 6 insurrection on the United States Capitol complex than that of sedition-mongering Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, pumping his fist at — and in support of — the assembled crowd that would become a violent mob intent on overturning the 2020 presidential election.
Okay, that’s not entirely true: there’s the image of a howling “Q shaman,” and shots of the racist “Camp Auschwitz” guy, and panoramas of the Capitol facade shrouded in smoke and bodies and a gallows in the distance. But other than that, Hawley’s smarmy gesture of solidarity with the would-be overturnistas has come to embody not only the insurrection itself, but the degree to which it was encouraged and instigated by members of the official body that was being targeted in the first place.
