Watch Josh Hawley

On the shaky assumption that Donald Trump won’t declare marshal law and cancel the 2028 elections, Republicans are already trying to figure out how to be the next Trump.

Their problem is that, because there may be a God after all, there is only one Donald. And when he’s gone I don’t see anybody else out there who can pull off this kind of act. Nobody else has this combination of self-absorption, insecurity, callousness, crudeness, willful ignorance and complete lack of scruples or moral standards of any kind. He is mercifully unique.

And so trying to fill his shoes just isn’t likely to work. It’ll have all the success of the New Coke. Remember the New Coke? No? See?

So, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is smart to choose his own lane, which right now is occupied by virtually no one else. The lane Hawley has chosen might be described as a more pure populism, which builds on resentment of both cultural and corporate elites.

In his first speech on the Senate floor, in May 2019, Hawley criticized “big banks, big tech, big multinational corporations, along with their allies in the academy and the media” as aristocratic architects of a society that “works mainly for themselves.”

The inclusiveness of that statement is what counts. Bernie Sanders would agree with the first part, but shy away from the phrase about “their allies in the academy and the media.” Most Republicans these days would lustily join him in his attacks on those entities but shy away from the first part about the banks and corporations.

What Republicans have lived off of, going back to Reagan, is a half-baked populism that takes full advantage of blue collar resentment of liberal elites in Washington, New York and Hollywood while corporate elites laugh all the way to the bank.

Now, I do think that Thomas Frank gets it wrong when he writes about this in What’s the Matter With Kansas? The problem with Frank’s argument is that he treats cultural, moral and religious values as second class citizens. Blue collar voters aren’t necessarily being hoodwinked. Rather those cultural values are, in some cases, simply more important to them their own economic self-interests.

What hasn’t been tried recently is Hawley’s tack: go after both economic exploitation and liberal cultural values at the same time.

To be clear, I don’t like any of this. I am no populist by any stretch of the imagination. My problem with populism — either left or right — is that at its center is resentment. It’s based on hate. It identifies a scapegoat. The reason for all your troubles is some devil — “the one percent” or “the illegals” or “the pointy-headed intellectuals,” etc.

My view is that people are not merely members of some privileged or victimized group, but first and foremost individuals who are primarily responsible for their own lot in life. So, I have a fundamental disdain for populism. It think it’s a cancer.

Further, I agree with George Will who described populism as “the belief that the public knows what it wants and that public opinion should be translated into policy without being delayed or diluted by intermediate institutions. It’s the exact opposite of what Madison talked about in using Congress to filter and refine public opinion.”

And yet, if we’re in a period where some form of populism is going to be ascendent, then Trump’s version is the worst strain of an awful disease. He’s exploiting some legitimate (and some illegitimate) concerns blue collar voters have about cultural elitism that disrespects their values to line his own pockets and that of his family and hangers on. He’s a grifter.

Hawley does not seem to be that. He might carry on the same battles Trump has against things like DEI (though probably more skillfully) while also fighting cuts to government programs that benefit blue collar families, like Medicaid. There’s no evidence that he’s corrupt.

I thought Hawley was especially effective a few years ago at a Senate hearing where he tried to question a Berkeley professor on issues related to how a woman is defined. It seemed to me that Hawley came off as reasonable while the prof got herself tied up in knots over the simple question of what a woman is. If you look at the YouTube videos of the same back and forth, the one titled “Far Left Berkeley Professor Melts Down” has 3 million views while the one titled “Law Professor Slams Sen. Hawley” has only 300,000 views. I think that’s a pretty fair straw poll about how the general public viewed that exchange.

Hawley’s record could give you whiplash. As Missouri’s Attorney General, he went after opioid manufacturers. Later, as a Senator, he was one of Trump’s staunchest supporters in his impeachment trials and he was the first Senator to object to certifying the 2020 election results. But at the same time he was working with Bernie Sanders on a Covid relief bill that provided direct $1,200 payments to Americans. And he was a defender of Joe Biden’s nominee for the Federal Trade Commission. She had a reputation as a trust-buster. He questions extending Trump’s tax cuts weighted so heavily toward the rich. Then again, he introduced a bill defunding Planned Parenthood. See what I mean?

Hawley took the next step in what might be his move toward a presidential bid by penning a piece in the New York Times last weekend. In it he wrote:

“Polls show Democrats down in the dumps at their lowest approval level in decades, but we Republicans are having an identity crisis of our own, and you can see it in the tug of war over President Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.” The nub of the conflict: Will Republicans be a majority party of working people, or a permanent minority speaking only for the C suite? Mr. Trump has promised working-class tax cuts and protection for working-class social insurance, such as Medicaid. But now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans — call it the party’s Wall Street wing — is urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance. This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

Just to clarify, that was not written by Bernie Sanders.

If his Republican colleagues slip a Medicaid cut into their budget proposal will Hawley take the opportunity to break with his party — and possibly with Trump himself if he demands a ‘yes’ vote on this “one big, beautiful bill”? It seems like he’s setting himself up for that. And then he’ll have to see how staunch Trump voters in Missouri react. If he doesn’t take a big hit for departing from what Trump demands he might be onto something.

Look, I’ll never vote for a guy like Josh Hawley. I’ll never support a populist of any stripe and there are just too many big issues on which I disagree with him. But if we’re stuck with a populist there are worse ones to have, including the grifter who now occupies the White House.

In any event, Josh Hawley is the most interesting thing happening in the GOP right now.