Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), three self-styled Republican right-wing populists, recently voted to give rail workers more paid sick leave as part of an emergency bill to avoid an economically crippling rail strike.
What’s noteworthy — the sick leave provision unfortunately failed — is it was one of the rare times that the record of these men actually matched their “populist” rhetoric.
They are among the Republicans, following provocateur Steven Bannon and Donald Trump, who depict themselves as populists, selectively anti-business.
Add Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and aspiring House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to this contingent.
“Populism” is open to interpretation: The Democratic left stresses economic inequality and a system that favors the rich; the right stresses anti-globalism and anti-immigration. Any reasonable definition, at least American style, has to focus on improving the economic plight of the working class, comforting the afflicted and — when necessary — afflicting the comfortable.
This is where the Trumps, Bannons and Hawleys usually fall far short.
“They pretend to be populists,” says Thomas Frank, a liberal, who has written several books on populism. “Unless they want to do something about economic democracy, they aren’t real populists.”
With Bannon’s help, Trump presented himself as a populist of sorts in his 2016 presidential campaign. He assailed multinational companies, promised to focus tax cuts on the working class and to eliminate special preferences for the rich, like the carried interest loophole for private equity executives.
Once he got into the Oval Office, Trump still talked a populist game but rarely practiced it, usually — as the New York Times reported — siding with corporate interests: “Trump largely has operated as a conventional Republican, cutting taxes that benefit high-end earners and companies, rolling back regulations on corporations and appointing administration officials and judges with deep roots in the conservative movement.”
His administration drew heavily from financial executives and the corporate board room. No one ever accused Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, or his Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, of populism.
The 2017 Trump tax cut, his biggest achievement, was anything but populist, as “higher income households receive larger tax cuts, as a percentage of after-tax income,” according to the analysis of the Tax Policy Center. Although these tax cuts are slated to expire in 2025, House Republicans have vowed to make them permanent.
The private equity loophole wasn’t touched in the Trump years.
As for Bannon, he was indicted for allegedly fleecing small donors for funds supposedly to build a wall along the Mexican border. He was arrested aboard a 150-foot yacht owned by a business associate, an exiled Chinese billionaire. Somehow it’s hard to envision Andrew Jackson in that situation.
There was a populist party begun in the late 19th century. A centerpiece of its agenda were citizen referendums, giving voice to the people, the record of which has been mixed. But citizen referendums, with the exception of some tax issues, have been antithetical to these Republicans: Citizens have consistently voted to raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid coverage, reform political campaigns — and this November, New Mexico voted overwhelmingly for state-funded preschool education.
These issues do not resonate with the Senate’s self-styled Republican populists. Cruz and Rubio oppose any increase in the federal minimum wage, which has been at $7.25 an hour for more than 13 years. Hawley, who had opposed any increase, now favors raising it to $15 — but only for employers with more than $1 billion of annual revenues, to protect small business. The federal government generally considers small businesses as having less than $40 million in revenue.
Hawley also puts on his populist hat in railing against “Big Tech.” Yet this seems less about bigness or monopolistic power than criticism that they might discriminate against conservatives. He recently wrote a gushing letter to Elon Musk, the new conservative owner of Twitter, urging him to investigate some of the company’s employees.
Similarly, Gov. DeSantis, fast moving to front-runner status for the next Republican presidential nomination, has been depicted as a tough-on-business populist — but this has nothing to do with fighting for economic democracy. DeSantis opposed Disney for its opposition to his anti-gay policies; he opposed the Tampa Rays baseball team for supporting action against gun violence, and he sought to crack down on cruise lines because of their vaccine mandates.
Then there’s McCarthy’s war against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He has demanded the firing of its first woman CEO, Suzanne Clark. McCarthy is upset that the Chamber gave contributions to a small band of moderate Republicans and once vowed not to support election deniers. But it gave a lot to Republicans — including election deniers: $500,000 to North Carolina’s right-wing Senate candidate, Ted Budd, and $5,000 to McCarthy himself.
Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics War Room with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.