In late June, as the Republican Party’s domestic policy megabill prepared to advance through Capitol Hill, Sen. Josh Hawley raised public concerns about the legislation’s proposed Medicaid cuts. In fact, the Missouri Republican voiced those criticisms in unusually candid terms.
“I think, frankly, my party needs to do some soul searching,” the senator told NBC News. “If you want to be a working-class party, you’ve got to deliver for working-class people. You cannot take away health care from working people. And unless this is changed going forward, that is what will happen in coming years.”
In other words, as Hawley saw it, the GOP’s plan would take health care access from working-class families, which necessarily negated any credible claims the party might try to make about championing working-class interests.
As it turned out, the Missouri Republican put aside his concerns and voted for the package with Medicaid cuts anyway, but he’s nevertheless still focused on the broader question. “We are the party now of the working class,” Hawley told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.
To be sure, such talk isn’t altogether new. Throughout the Trump era, countless Republican officials, insiders, pundits and strategists said the GOP was undergoing a transformation of sorts, becoming less of a corporate party and more of a blue-collar party. Indeed, I’m occasionally reminded of a claim Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas made in 2021 when he claimed: “The Republican Party is not just the party of country clubs. The Republican Party is the party of steel workers, construction workers, pipeline workers, police officers, firefighters, waiters and waitresses.”
The trouble, of course, is the degree to which reality keeps getting in the way.
A working-class party wouldn’t vote for sweeping Medicaid cuts. A working-class party wouldn’t shrug with indifference in response to rising health care coverage costs. A working-class party wouldn’t endorse cutting off SNAP food assistance. A working-class party wouldn’t celebrate a megabill that made the poor poorer. A working-class party wouldn’t champion tax breaks that exclusively benefit the wealthiest of the wealthy.
A working-class party wouldn’t be led by a president who pretends he lowered the cost of living and dismisses affordability concerns as a “con job.”
If Hawley wants the GOP to be “the party of the working class,” that’s great. If he has any ideas about when Republicans might start acting like the party of the working class, however, he should let us know.
