Can the G.O.P. Really Become the Party of Workers?

The most surprising moment of this year’s Republican National Convention may have come on its first night, when the president of the Teamsters railed in prime time against corporate elites and denounced a “war against labor” by business groups. The gasps from some in the hall were almost audible on television.

But in many ways, it was a little-noted speech the week before, by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, that was more revealing about the party’s evolving relationship with organized labor.

If anything, Mr. Hawley, a rising Republican star who is one of the Senate’s most conservative members, seemed to outflank the Teamsters’ leader. His speech, delivered at the National Conservatism Conference, criticized Republicans who “cheerleaded for corporate tax cuts and low barriers for corporate trade, then watched these same corporations ship American jobs overseas.” Mr. Hawley concluded that, “in the choice between labor and capital,” his party must “start prioritizing the workingman.”

Since at least the Nixon era, Republicans have nodded rhetorically at the working class, asserting that their party stands for the cultural values these voters hold dear. And for just as long, Democrats have called that pitch hollow, insisting that Republicans have sought to dupe blue-collar voters into supporting policies that benefit the wealthy. Speaker after speaker at the Democratic National Convention this week went on in this vein.

What’s far less common is for a Republican to agree with that critique. “The recent Republican Party, the 1990s party, privileged the money crowd in just about every possible way,” Mr. Hawley said in his speech.