Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) argued in a memo on Tuesday that the future of the Republican Party demands a fresh focus on the working class asserting that former President Donald Trump had created a pathway for working class voters to support the GOP.
“President Trump gave the Republican Party a political gift: we are now the party supported by most working-class voters. The question is whether Republicans reject that gift or unwrap it and permanently become the Party of the Working Class,” Banks wrote in a memo to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) obtained by Axios.
In the document, titled “Cementing GOP as the Working Class Party,” Banks suggested that presidential campaign contributions demonstrate how supporters of former President Trump are members of the working class.
“What do janitors, restaurant owners and car repairmen have in common that motivated each group to donate their hard-earned income to the Republican presidential candidate?” Banks asked rhetorically.
He then listed off a series of statistics that showed professors, bankers and marketing professionals donating to the 2020 campaign of President Joe Biden at higher rates.
“President Trump didn’t just shift each party’s role — he caused a paradigm reversal,” Banks said.
The Indiana lawmaker, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, then laid out his own recommendations for how Republicans could make further inroads with working class voters.
“Our electoral success in the 2022 midterm election will be determined by our willingness to embrace our new coalition,” Banks said. “House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the Party of the Working Class.”
Among his key recommendations were continuing to hammer on “Biden’s border crisis” while going after Big Tech and arguing that Democrats have cozied up to China a trend stemming “from their coziness with Wall Street.”
Banks further suggested in the memo that Republicans should intesify efforts to paint Democrats as classist and elitist by homing in on woke rhetoric.
“Wokeness and identity politics aren’t pro-Hispanic, pro-African American or pro-LGBTQ; they’re anti-American, anti-women, and most of all, anti-working class,” he said.
Banks urged for Republicans to host “working class roundtables” or town halls featuring “natural members of our working-class coalition like electricians, nurses, factory workers and police officers,” and pushed for a working families task force led by House Republicans from blue-collar districts.
The Indiana Republican insisted that these efforts, and others, would be critical to hanging onto the droves of working class voters which he said were a gift from Trump.
“There is an embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful, but President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt,” Banks said.
