# Josh Hawley — "cosmopolitan elite" > [!quote] "For years the politics of both Left and Right have been informed by a political consensus that reflects the interests not of the American middle, but of a powerful upper class and their cosmopolitan priorities. This class lives in the United States, but they identify as 'citizens of the world.' They run businesses or oversee universities here, but their primary loyalty is to the global community." > — Josh Hawley, National Conservatism Conference, Washington DC, July 18, 2019 ## Context The keynote of the inaugural National Conservatism Conference, where Hawley positioned himself as a leading intellectual voice of the new nationalist right. The speech is a founding text of the [[National Conservatism]] movement's economic-populist, anti-globalist framing. ## Why this matters A receipt for the nationalist right's "cosmopolitan elite" frame — and a flashpoint in the debate over coded language. Critics (including Jewish organizations) noted that "cosmopolitan elite," with its talk of a rootless class whose "primary loyalty is to the global community," echoes the antisemitic "rootless cosmopolitan" trope popularized under Stalin. Defenders read it as a straightforward critique of globalized economic elites. Either reading makes it a key document for tracing how National Conservatism articulates its enemy — hence the `quote/context-sensitive` flag. See [[Antisemitism]] for the disputed lineage of the term. ## Verification - **Primary source:** [Hawley Senate office — full speech text](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-josh-hawleys-speech-national-conservatism-conference/). - **Critique:** [JTA](https://www.jta.org/2019/07/19/united-states/a-missouri-senator-gave-a-speech-opposing-a-powerful-upper-class-and-their-cosmopolitan-priorities-um). - **Status:** Verbatim from the senator's own published text. The antisemitic-echo reading is contested; the wording is not. ## Related quotes - [[Pat Buchanan - religious war for the soul of America]] — the older nationalist-populist current Hawley's NatCon framing updates.