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Rich Lowry: ‘Cosmopolitan’ is a perfectly fine word for cosmopolitans

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley used a perfectly good word in its appropriate context, and stands accused of dog-whistle bigotry.

At the National Conservatism conference in Washington, D.C., last week, Hawley gave a keynote address that attacked the coastal elite for being out of touch and out of sympathy with the heartland. He called it "the cosmopolitan elite," described its beliefs as the "cosmopolitan consensus," and accused it of building a "cosmopolitan economy."

Even though there's not a remotely plausible argument that Hawley was in any way targeting Jews, his use of the C-word alone was enough for critics to say he was making an anti-Semitic appeal.