Simon & Schuster no longer bound to former book deal with Senator Josh Hawley
Aux Features Simon & Schuster
We are not ones to typically quote Kim Kardashian, but we’ll gladly paraphrase her here: It’s what he deserves.
Per The New York Times, publisher Simon & Schuster has decided to cancel an upcoming book with Missouri senator Josh Hawley after the Republican congressman opted to challenge the ratification of the election results. Hawley has been accused of being one of the pro-Trump officials who essentially incited Wednesday’s insurgence at the Capitol through his continued complicity with white supremacy. His book, The Tyranny Of Big Tech, was due to be released in July.
“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement to NYT. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: at the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.” Hawley made a statement in response to the publisher, signaling “cancel culture” and threatening to take the company to court.
Simon & Schuster has published a number of books from conservative authors before—including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson—but an attempted coup certainly adds a new layer of context. Also, the company likely wanted to avoid immense public pressure, which has led to a number of failed deals in the past: In 2017, Simon & Schuster cancelled a book from conservative shill Milo Yiannopoulos after public outcry reached a fever pitch. Last year, its imprint Hachette dropped its relationship with filmmaker Woody Allen amid the staff’s protest of the then-impending release. Another publisher could potentially snap up Hawley’s book, along with the deals of any other departing politician that may face the same result. (It’s pretty typical for publishers to await the nonpartisan exodus in time for later releases—even if the book isn’t necessarily tied to their time in office, as is the case with Hawley.) But now (!), Simon & Schuster seems to be drawing somewhat of a line.
How does that old saying go? “Play exceedingly dangerous games that threaten our democracy, when fitting prizes?” Eh, we’ll look it up later.
101 Comments
“His book, The Tyranny Of Big Tech…” Free market!
“His book, The Tyranny Of Big Tech…”
…meets the bottom line of old publishing.
Sounds like quite the page turner.
He didn’t even hide his career ambitions given how he’s clearly researched where the livefeed camera is and stared at it like the creature from a horror film throughout his entire screed.
Hachette is not an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Hachette is its own publishing house, with imprints including Grand Central Publishing, Little & Brown, and Orbit, among others. The two are wholly unrelated.
Complaints about “violating his First Amendment Rights” from people who don’t understand the Constitution in 3…2…1….
Well Hawley, who is a “constitutional lawyer” with a JD from Yale Law, is already claiming just that…
His professors must be so proud.
Speaking of mentors:
He was also an associate professor teaching the Constitution – those poor students may want a class action suit for a refund.
I watched an interview with his law professor, and he said Hawley and Cruz were both colossal douchebags.
As a civil rights lawyer with a T-14 (albeit not Yale) degree myself and a background in constitutional history, he’s full of shit.
Oh most definitely. The idea that a constitutional lawyer is out there saying that something is a violation of their first amendment rights, when it 100% is not, is very WTF.
A dude with some college here, I too agree that Mr hawley is full of shit!
all that statement does is make me respect Yale even less
Well he also said “irregardless” while staring directly into a TV camera for five straight minutes, so you already know what kind of person he is.
Well, to be fair ‘irregardless’ has been a real word now for at least 3 months so I heard on Reddit.
Words become “words” sometimes because of “common usage,” because we have to keep track of all the ways uneducated people use words. Covfefe is basically a word now. People have been saying “irregardless” for over a hundred years, and yeah it’s in the dictionary. But people still sound like dolts when they use it.
And my personal favorite, “grok” was made up as a futuristic slang term for “understand” by Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land.
Not just to understand, but deep or complete understanding, viscerally and cognitively. It’s a good word, one we needed.
They are trying to sound intelligent.#HasTheOppositeEffect
Did he also say: “I could care less” Another shooting offence.
Oh I’m sure he knows it’s not a violation, but this is all a performance to rile up his supporters who don’t know it’s not a violation.
Yeah, Hawley and Cruz really aren’t doing their best at marketing an Ivy League education these days, gotta say.
Indeed, Josh Hawley tweeted a twashbag of twaddle including the line “It’s a direct assault on the First Amendment” at 3:42 PM · Jan 7, 2021.
[ Narrarator: it was not. ]Y’know, it’s almost as if Hawley (and Cruz for that matter) is saying something which he knows is not at all true.There should be a word for that.
He is just a greedy piece of turd. Exactly what is preventing him from self publishing? Wanting more money. What is preventing him from posting the book online? Wanting more money.He is just full of shit and playing to his morons even while knowing he is lying with everything he says. He is unabashedly performing for donations from the base.
FIRE!!!!!!
Put aside the 1st amendment issue… we all know, even Hawley knows even if he won’t admit it, this has nothing to do with the constitution.What pisses me off the most: this is textbook (pun sort of intended?) capitalism. Simon & Schuster is a multi-billion, multi-national corporation. They sell books to make money.S&S decided it did not want to do BUSINESS with Hawley. That’s fucking capitalism. Everyone doesn’t get a book deal; everyone doesn’t get a participation trophy. Stop you’re fucking whining and go compete in the marketplace like everyone else.
Can’t believe my state elected this dipshit.Well, I mean, I can, we’ve been solid red for over 15 years and show no signs of changing (our last Dem senator was Claire McCaskill who was a big coal booster) but like of course it’s our guy encouraging a goddamn coup attempt.
Hell, my state is blue and “we” elected a high-school dropout who said she’s going to bring a gun to the Congress.
as someone who used to live in Missouri, you elected more than one member of the Blunt family, too. This ain’t a one-off
I can’t believe he can even represent a state where he doesn’t own a home and uses his sister’s address on his voter registration. It’s always these assholes who do exactly what they accuse others of doing.
His right to have a book published is right there in the Constitution next to where it says the Vice-President can overturn an election.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, climb out of bed, and throw my arms wide open to the light streaming through a window.
bet Sen. Hawley’s doing the opposite of that right now, no book deal for him.
People keep saying this guy is gonna be the next Trump. I don’t see it. He comes off as too much of a weenie.
So like Trump then?
I mean Trump is a weenie but he’s good at convincing stupid people that he’s not
I know, I just couldn’t resist!
You can go far with that.
More like Jared Kushner.
Fuck that super D-bag.
People keep wondering if you “can have Trumpism without Trump.” There’s just no way. You’d basically need a 1992 Mazda Miata to come to life and start being racist to capture the sort of pretend luxury, name recognition, and racial grievance that Trump was able to capitalize on. It’s basically the same questions as “what does the Republican party look like after Trump?” To which the answer is… it looks like the Republican party. It’s not like all the racism and grievance didn’t exist in the Republican party before Trump, and it’ll be there after him. MAYBE it’ll be a little quieter, but that’s about it. No one can try to imitate Trump because Trump himself has no idea what he’s doing. He ran for President because Obama roasted him at a dinner. He makes policy based on what he sees on Fox and Friends. Any halfway competent or intelligent person would just accidentally think himself out of any sort of Trumpism.
When I worry about Trumpism without Trump, I worry about his cult following passing to someone who shares Trump’s bigotry and authoritarianism but not his incompetence. It’s not the prospect of repeating the formula but of “improving” on it.
That’s terrifying. But they’d presumably also have to share his privilege and psychological damage, and it’s awfully hard to imagine all of those things co-existing so potently alongside anything resembling self-control or awareness.
I wouldn’t presume any of those things. Neither Orbán nor Erdoğan came from a background of privilege, and they’ve both been more successful at consolidating their rule than Trump.The United States was lucky that the opening created by a decades-long descent of one of its major parties into authoritarianism was seized by a figure so uniquely flawed, and therefore so uniquely inept. Perhaps that uniqueness means that he alone could’ve seized it, though I doubt that. But now the opening is there for others to see.Competent Trump would’ve avoided the massive self-inflicted wound of not taking COVID-19 seriously. Competent Trump wouldn’t have allowed Infrastructure Week to turn into a joke to avoid a fight with his party’s fiscal tight-asses – one he could’ve won, but with not enough time left for golfing. Competent Trump wouldn’t have confused the adulation of his crowds with broader popularity and attempted to win reelection with a base strategy. Competent Trump wouldn’t have road-tested his physical, verbal and ideological surface in front of people who’d never give negative feedback – you focus-group that shit. Competent Trump wouldn’t have publicly advertised the fact that he wanted to use the Postal Service to interfere with the vote. Competent Trump would’ve kept any disparaging thoughts he had about the military to himself, may even have a military record in fact.Competent Trump could also be described as Even More Shameless Nixon.
I dunno…I wonder if Competent Trump might not be a hard sell on the die-hards…given that he doesn’t really sound that much like Trump at all!
(Seriously, though…we’ve spun our hypotheticals on different axes, I suspect — and if I’m working with a traditional Rubik’s cube, it may well be you’ve plunked for one of those fancy 5×5 deals. Which is to say, you’ve given me some things to consider.)
I think the only possible person who could take up the mantle would be Don Jr., who by now must REALLY be hoping Sr. gets impeached and removed so he can’t run again, and hands the reins to Jr. Of course, Don Jr. is basically a racist scarecrow who doesn’t even realize he NEEDS a brain, so I just don’t see that happening.
After Romney lost to Obama, how many people thought Trump would be the next Republican candidate? Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. So I’ll limit myself to predicting that there will be a Trumpism after Trump.
He looks like a old Ken doll from the 60s that’s in really bad condition. I bet if you take off his pants he would have no dick just like a Ken doll.
No way this guy can develop a cult of personality like Trump. I don’t like Trump and never have, not when he was a joke playboy in the 1980s, not on Howard Stern, not in pro-wrestling, not on TV, and not as president. But that career trajectory is an indication that many, many people find him entertaining. Josh Hawley is not entertaining.
Josh Hawley is just another Ted Cruz, except Hawley wasn’t the Zodiac killer and thus far less talented with cryptography than Cruz is.
Somebody introduce the man to Lulu.com.
“This is the Left looking to cancel everyone they don’t approve of.” The very calculated cognitive dissonance here is enough to break a brain. The “Left” canceling a book contract is much worse than Hawley’s Right canceling a presidential winner by thuggery and bs Congressional moves because they don’t approve of the legitimate democratic EC winner, right, you piece of shit? I swear they can’t make these contrary, hypocritical, illogical statements transparent enough for even a jellyfish not to notice. And yet people have been brain poisoned enough that they don’t.
It’s like why astronauts have to ride an exercise bike when they’re in space for a long time. If they don’t, the muscles will atrophy. And the Republicans haven’t had to make a cogent, consistent argument in forever, because their base will just believe anything they say without question. I think most Republicans have literally forgotten how to make a logical argument. I saw someone grudgingly call Ted Cruz a great debater, and that blows my mind. He’d lose a debate to a junior high debate team alternate.
Whenever Cruz farts out some blather on TV, I often flash back to a news clip during the Republican primary race when the big orange turd had branded him “Lyin’ Ted”, and some trumpublican at the time confronted Cruz in public, got right in his face while he was trying to give his speech, declaring “Lyin’ Ted!”.Granted it was pretty rude and disturbing and disruptive, but Cruz was apparently totally flabbergasted and stunned. He basically just shut down and slunk off, as I recall.So yeah, Cruz a great debater? Maybe not so much.
Not just him. Remember when “Little Marco” Rubio was supposed to be the young intellectual wunderkind of the Republican Party?
God I remember that. Then he drank water weird and people started making fun of him. Hes never recovered.
I’d actually managed to forget it until now. Thanks, jerk.
Just doin’ my bit to spread evil.
Haha, yeah, him too. We don’t seem to hear as much from Rubio these days as the orange-wannabe’s Hawley and Cruz.Maybe it’s noteworthy that Hawley doesn’t have a too cool nickname like Lyin’ Ted and Lil’ Marco. I guess he’s not in the club yet, maybe later ….
The only sophisticated thinking Republicans have to do anymore is when their friends in business bring them the elaborate deregulation and tax cut scams they use to screw over the American public. When actually dealing with voters, they deal entirely in cliches and buzzwords, which is why Hawley’s invoking “cancel culture” and willfully misinterpreting the first amendment. Meanwhile, a publisher uncoupling itself from a toxic would-be author is the most most “free market” idea imaginable. What, they should be obligated to associate their brand with a dickweed who greeted domestic terrorists with a Breakfast Club-style fist pump, just because he’s a below-average U.S. Senator? That idea smacks strongly of socialism!
Republicans don’t even have to think about the tax cuts. They just let the lobbyists write the legislation and put their names on it. Sometimes they forget to take the lobbyists watermarks off.
He’s mad that they aren’t cancelling the big-advance antifa books.
Hawley, explaining how his 8th amendment rights are being violated.
No meat touching, ma’am!
Why are her hair, bracelet and shoes made out of meat? It does seem like some kind of metamorphosis is going on there.
It’s Lady Gaga.
It’s rich that he’s going on about the “woke mob” when he actively helped encourage an actual insurrectional one. And oh, if that mob got in before the Congress members were cleared out, does he REALLY think they would have had any idea of who was who before they started attacking the first ones they could get their hands on?
He probably had his klan hood at the ready if they busted in.
Fuck this piece of shit. Dude should have to wear a scarlet “S.” That “raised fist” photo should follow him to his grave.
That should be the photo they use in every news story about him from now on. That or the one of him sneezing on Marisa Tomei.
Shame on the Democratic Party if that image, as well as photos, video and audio, are not used in every campaign ad for every town, state and National campaign, for the next decade.
How come these big shot politicians get to sneeze on Marisa Tomei and I don’t?
Why and ‘S’?
“S” for “sedition.”
Sedition.
Thanks
Is it really “Orwellian” and a “woke mob” or more of “the free market exercising its option to do business or not do business based on perceived marketability”?No you’re right, you’re very oppressed Josh.
It’s the worst kind of oppression; the kind against him.
“This book needs more Hawley. Rejected.”
That’s pretty rich use of the word “mob” there, Joshy.
We are not ones to typically quote Kim Kardashian, but we’ll gladly paraphrase her here: It’s what he deserves.
Seems more of a normal sentence said by many than a quote specifically attributable to Kim Kardashian.
If you’ll permit me to paraphrase my mother, who has always been very encouraging: You’re right.
“We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement to NYT. “
Just this once it would have been nice to come to a decision lightly. “ Frankly, we’ve given more thought to our morning bowel movements,NYT.”
“Its a direct assault on the First Amendment”Stanford and Yale Law and this dick doesn’t get that the 1st Amendment is about the government limiting your free speech. Everyone else can call out your bullshit and tell you to fuck off.
He likely does, but his target audience does not, nor has that audience actually read any of what Orwell wrote or know why Orwell wrote it.
you are right. Hawley and Cruz are the lowest of the low. Ask their supporters if they read Orwell and they will probably reply “Orwell? Reddenbacher? I thought he just did popcorn.”
I always confused Orwell and Orson. Nanu Nanu
Unless you regard book companies as bound to publish any book anyone brings them, this would appear to be based on the Constitutional principle of “no backsies” instead.
Telling that he expresses more outrage over this than the death of five people caused by his actions.
Zero sympathy with Hawley who is clearly a chump, I just find it funny that Simon & Schuster have had no issue with publishing the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
They’re absolute scum, but they did manage to not openly encourage sedition against the government that they were members of.
Oh well, that’s all right then.
Oh, just in case I didn’t make myself clear, they absolutely aren’t. But nevertheless, there’s at least one teeny moral hurdle they managed to get over.
Mitt’s daggers at Hawley give me flashbacks of my dad after me wrecking the family car….
“They cancelled my book deal!”
Boy, talk about your white people problems.
This isn’t free speech, this happens all the time, business’s don’t want bad press so they distance or fire people all the time. S&S clearly decided that Hawley’s actions didn’t fit with the image they wanted.
I’m sure he can hock his shitty book on ebay someday, I’m thinking for a title something like “I thought I was gonna be president but just ended up as an extra on the real housewives of Missouri”
Hey Senator A$$hat, you can always get your book published with….