“The day after the election, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a rising star of conservative populism, declared: ‘Republicans in Washington are going to have a very hard time processing this. But the future is clear: We must be a working-class party, not a Wall Street party.’ Hawley is right that the Republican Party should become a pro-worker party. But it should recognize that continuing to embrace Donald Trump’s populist policies and bromides will work against that goal. Instead, Republican pro-worker policies should advance traditional conservative commitments to free markets and opportunity.”

“Many in the GOP, including potential 2024 presidential aspirants like Hawley and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, have apparently concluded that the key to taking back the White House is to stick to the Trumpian formula. According to this view, the president would have won re-election if it hadn’t been for the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to the strong pre-virus economy. After all, Trump won millions more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. The GOP gained seats in the House of Representatives, will likely keep control of the Senate, maintained its grip on state legislatures, and increased its support among Black voters and important Hispanic groups. Pointing to Trump’s performance among Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Rubio concluded that the future of the GOP is ‘a party built on a multi-ethnic, multi-racial coalition of working Americans.’ Liberals point out that a lot of the populist pro-worker rhetoric on the right is just that: rhetoric. They are largely correct. The problem with Rubio’s and Hawley’s interpretation of the election results is simple: Trump did scant for workers during his four years as president” – Bloomberg.