Why the MAGA movement lacks true 'economic populism': journalist

07 February 2023

When Patrick Buchanan ran against President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 GOP presidential primary, he campaigned on a pseudo-populist mixture of economic angst, social conservatism and white male resentment. It was a message that most Republican strategists and organizers rejected at the time, arguing that instead of resenting the rich, Americans should learn from them and try to be more like them.

But Buchanan’s ideas eventually found a home in former President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, and Trump-inspired Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio have a lot more in common with Buchanan than they do with President Ronald Reagan or the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona).

In an article published by The Nation on February 3, journalist Jeet Heer examines GOP efforts to brand itself as a “working-class party” — and lays out some reasons why MAGA Republicans are not practicing what they often preach.

“Trump’s success in 2016 and his near-victory in 2020 — Joe Biden’s narrow triumph resting on fewer than 44,000 votes in three states — was due to the former reality-show star’s strong appeal to white non-college-educated voters,” Heer writes. “To be sure, the white working class was trending toward the GOP before Trump arrived on the scene. But in 2016, he solidified and intensified this trend through a shrewd message of economic populism: Trump eschewed traditional Republican calls for cuts to Medicare and Social Security, hinted that he’d replace Obamacare with his own better version of health care, criticized globalism in the form of trade agreements that led to the loss of manufacturing jobs, and called for immigration restrictions as a way to bolster wages.”

Heer adds, “There’s evidence that Trump’s populism in 2020 helped him to gain traction not just with the white working class, but also, with blue-collar people of color, especially Latinos.”

The journalist goes on to stress, however, that many MAGA economic policies haven’t been pro-working class.

“Notably, the tax cuts (Trump’s) party pushed through skewed heavily toward the wealthy,” Heer observes. “Trump’s failed bid to repeal Obamacare didn’t offer any replacement. Nor has Trump ever fulfilled his promise to deliver an alternative plan. But in the wake of Trump’s electoral strength and partial policy success, a new faction within the political right emerged that claimed to take the agenda of economic populism seriously. This group often calls themselves national conservatives or NatCons.”

Heer cites Hawley, Vance and billionaire donor Peter Thiel as examples of Republicans with a “national conservative” message, arguing that in reality, the GOP “shows little interest in economic populism.”

“For the Republicans, stoking the culture wars remains the easiest way to keep white working-class support without alienating the wealthy,” Heer explains. “It’s hardly a surprise that the two frontrunners for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis: both masters of pouring fuel into the fire of transphobia, xenophobia and racism. Rather than Hawley’s meager gestures at pro-worker economic policy, they represent the future of the GOP.”

Read The Nation’s full article at this link.

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