John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, had once viewed Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) as a “once-in-a-generation” talent — a young, upstart politician with a promising future in Washington.

Yet after a mob of Trump supporters burst into the Capitol on Wednesday, Danforth said that campaigning for Hawley to take his old seat was “the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”

The senator had been set to release a book with Simon & Schuster titled “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” about how big tech companies “represent the gravest threat to American liberty since the monopolies of the Gilded Age."

“We take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom,” a statement from the publishing house said.

Hawley responded by decrying the publisher as a “woke mob” and pledging to fight its “cancel culture” in court.

Yet much of the backlash against Hawley was in fact coming from other Republicans — and in at least one case, from the man whose donations fueled the senator’s political ascent.