Michael R. Strain, Columnist

What a Pro-Worker Republican Party Really Looks Like

Conservative “populists” peddle a view of America that simply isn’t true.

December 31, 2020 at 12:30 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Josh Hawley is looking in the wrong direction.
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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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.