The Wall Street Journal's Siobhan Hughes seems really keen on Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton's "fascism without Trump's bungling criminality getting in the way" and believes he might be the man to carry the burning banner of white supremacist America in the years ahead.
Sen. Tom Cotton has been a longtime adviser to President Trump, both echoing the chief executive’s bare-knuckled rhetoric on subjects like immigration and China and at times pushing him to take even more aggressive positions.
Last week, the Arkansas Republican and the president were again making different versions of the same argument amid protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody. While Mr. Trump weighed whether to invoke an 1807 law to send active-duty military in response to largely peaceful demonstrations that included bursts of looting and other violence, Mr. Cotton was more definitive, explicitly calling in a New York Times op-ed for an “overwhelming show of force” by federal troops and local law enforcement. That column led to the resignation Sunday of the news organization’s editorial page editor James Bennet.
Mr. Cotton’s willingness to court controversy by backing—or exceeding—the president’s agenda puts him in the spotlight as Republicans jockey to influence Mr. Trump, and as a potential carrier of the president’s banner when he eventually leaves the White House.
“Tom Cotton is indeed setting himself up to be the heir to Trumpism,” said Geoffrey Kabaservice, director of political studies at the Washington-based think tank Niskanen Center, who studies Republican politics. “In some ways, I think his case to lead the Trump wing of the party after this era has only been strengthened by this past week.”
Back in Arkansas, Mr. Cotton’s supporters believe he is destined for bigger things. In 2015, Republican Bart Hester, a state legislator, helped put into state law a measure to enable Mr. Cotton, 43, to run for the presidency while simultaneously serving in the Senate.
“He always has a very valid basis for what he believes and why he believes it, and I think he has the best for all Americans in mind at all the time,” Mr. Hester said.
Although the senator and president have foreign-policy differences—Mr. Cotton is more hawkish and in favor of keeping troops in northern Syria, while Mr. Trump ordered a withdrawal, for example—they are frequently on the same page. Mr. Cotton’s op-ed calling for the president to invoke the Insurrection Act was just the latest example of the two men running on parallel tracks.
Oh good, all the straight cartoon fascism without the cuddly senior events and wacky temper tantrums. As I keep saying, Trump is the worst president since the Civil War mainly because there are other, worse Republicans who haven't become president yet, and Tom Cotton is definitely on the top of that particular list.
Oh, and Cotton is up for reelection this November. The lone Democratic candidate in the primary dropped out six months ago, so Cotton is basically running unopposed.
Keep an eye on this guy.
He's dangerous as all hell. A competent version of Trump would absolutely be the end of America.
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