The GOP is dead. A new GOP must listen to working people.

by Josh Hawley,

The old Republican Party is dead. It has been wasting away for years now, and this month’s midterm results are the finishing blow. If Republicans learn nothing else from this election, they must learn that much.

As frustrating as the election outcomes are, the death of the old GOP is no reason to mourn. It just means that it’s time for Republicans to forge something new — a party that truly represents the cultural backbone of this nation: America’s working people.

Many Republicans are primed to learn all the wrong lessons from this cycle. Over the past week, we’ve heard this election is about nothing more than “candidate quality” or turnout operations.

Wrong. The problem isn’t principally the tactics; the problem is the substance. For the past two years, the Republican establishment in Washington has capitulated on issue after issue, caving to Democrats on the Second Amendment and on the left’s radical climate agenda (“infrastructure”). These Republican politicians sided with Big Pharma on insulin and advocated lowering tariffs on our competitors overseas.

For decades, Republican politicians have sung a familiar tune. On economics, they have cut taxes on the big corporations and talked about changing Social Security and Medicare — This tax-and-trade agenda has hollowed out too many American towns by shipping jobs overseas. It has made it almost impossible to raise a family on one income and to find a good-paying job that doesn’t require a college degree. Our trade deficit with China has cost this country 3.7 million good jobs, while a crisis of drug overdose deaths — particularly among working Americans — has ravaged many of the same communities

Republicans must win these voters. We will not be a majority without them. That means waking up to what they care about. Work, family and culture are the touchstones of meaning for working people across the country. They must form the bedrock of a new party agenda.

Right now, the Republican Party stands at a crossroads – – – it’s time for proactive policymaking.

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