WASHINGTON – The Republican Party is showing signs of softening its trademark fiscal conservative brand in favor of a new populist approach, a potential shift as the party becomes more dependent on blue-collar white voters after Donald Trump’s presidency.
The last time Republicans were ousted from power in 2009, they cut a shameless vision of tax cuts and spending to find their way out of the desert. The party is now going a different way, as ambitious figures are trying to gain voters’ favor by creating a larger state safety net that includes cash to families and a minimum wage increase.
The new approach comes at a time of deep economic problems – growing income inequality and rising costs of health care and university education – exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The trend, if it continues, will test the long-standing alliance between the IDP and large corporations and could shape the future of US policy-making.
“I hope there is support to give working people a fair chance. Most Americans – they do not want to be cared for. However, they want a fair chance – to be able to get a job, to educate their family,” he said. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Said.
Hawley’s rhetoric reflects progressive people who believe that government plays a greater role in equal economic opportunities. He was a big supporter of direct cash payments to Americans, and even recently collaborated with Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., On the issue.
But despite his interest in fiscal liberalism, Hawley sharply breaks with the Democrats by accepting Trump’s cultural conservatism, skepticism about immigration and even promoting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election result – a potential new model for the party.
“Republicans need to have a broader discussion about what we’re going to do to support working people, working families in the middle of the country, where I come from, but across the country,” Hawley said. “So I hope this is the direction we are heading.”
‘It’s time’
The party line voted on Saturday for the passage of a bill on $ 1.9 billion Covid relief shows that there are still economic differences between the two parties. Yet 48 Republicans voted in the process to spend $ 650 billion on measures, including direct cash, unemployment assistance and child care.
Perhaps no Republican personifies the change, just like Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
He ran for president in 2012 on a platform of tax cuts, increasing the retirement age of social security and reducing Medicare spending. He chooses his leading partner Paul Ryan, the vanguard of traditional fiscal conservatism.
Now Romney is leading the efforts to expand its safety net with a substantial child allowance and a minimum wage increase to $ 10 per hour, coupled with stricter immigration enforcement. And he was an early proponent of direct payments amid the pandemic.
“As far as each of the plans is concerned, the effort is to make our safety net more effective,” Romney told NBC News, stressing that his plans are being paid for.
In some ways, Romney is Trump’s opposite and main antagonist – the only Republican who has twice voted to plead guilty to a charge of indictment. But Trump’s stance on spending and anti-immigration has made room for the policies Romney insists on.
For example, his minimum wage proposal is sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., One of the chamber’s most conservative members and someone considered a likely presidential candidate.
“It’s time for the minimum wage to be raised. It has not been raised for a long time,” Romney said. “But do it gradually and in line with the inflation rate – and marry it with immigration enforcement to make sure there are no people coming in illegally and taking away work from those at the entry level.”
Although Romney is hardly a favorite among conservative grassroots activists because of his widespread criticism of Trump, some were excited about the proposals, especially his child care plan. With the plan, households will provide up to $ 4,200 per child annually, while reducing existing legal programs.
The idea of using federal power to advance the nuclear family is at the heart of this change in the GOP’s policy-making process, and a number of other legislators such as Hawley and Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Want to lead in this area.
“I think Romney’s proposals are interesting,” Don Thrasher, chairman of the GOP in Nelson County, Kentucky, told NBC News. “I think [GOP policy] must address the inequality of what goes to corporate America versus what goes to Main Street America. And I think part of what Romney says does. ‘
Republican strategist Andy Surabian said some in the GOP are moving away from fiscal orthodoxy.
“There is a lot more openness to policy proposals that are more populist in nature and in some ways less concerned about kind of orthodox, libertarian conservative economy,” he said. “But I think it’s also very easy to exaggerate the extent to which it’s true.”
He added that it was wrong to assume that conservative activists no longer cared about spending and debt, or that they were “suddenly paying for a bunch of liberal economies” such as a national minimum wage of $ 15.
‘Lack of stinginess’
Republicans in particular talk less about national debt and would rather attack the Democrats’ Covid bill than a ‘liberal wish list’. And the tea party activists who stormed politics in 2009 with complaints about government spending are nowhere to be found. A recent poll by Economist / YouGov showed that the bill is supported by 66 percent of Americans, with only 25 percent against it. It has support with nearly four-in-10 Republicans and 30 percent of Trump voters.
A Nebraska Republican, who asked anonymously to provide an honest assessment of Republican messages, said much of the base ‘is more comfortable accepting a larger economy’ because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented government relief. role for the government “- as long as” it actually benefits the American citizen. “
“I think the days of a party dedicated solely to deficit hawkishness are waning,” this person said. “I think you will see a much larger number of freshmen move to the middle on the issue in 2022.”
Some Democrats say that this shift shows Republican peers looking for an identity after four years of Trump and then his defeat at the re-election.
“The Republican Party is currently a snowball,” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis, said. ‘They do not know if they are QAnon, if it is a tea party, if they are fiscal conservatives, if they are a religious rights party – they do not know. And during that time you will see a lot of shit falling from the sky. ‘
But Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., Said the decline in fiscal conservatism is good for the country.
“If the legacy of the Trump era is maintained within the Republican Party, it means that there will be much more room for negotiation with Democrats, as they will no longer be committed to the root-channel-like budgetary policies focused on the application of more pain, ‘he said.
However, some Republicans believe that Trump’s vision of spending has actually attracted more voters to the party – mostly disgruntled Democrats.
Trump “brought a lot of people to the party who were traditional Democrats,” said Senator Richard Shelby, R-Ala., A former Democrat who changed party in 1994. “Just hope we hold on more.”
Trump inflicted the party with a mixture of economic populism and nativism that many Republicans initially resisted. Now, even after his defeat, it continues to affect the party.
“Probably one of Trump’s biggest changes has been to have a more populist approach, especially to help people,” Sen said. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., a former Trump critic, has become a fierce ally, said in an interview. “I think it’s good.”
Sahil Kapur reports from Washington. Allan Smith reports from New York.