A memo from Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) urges that House Republicans must embrace policies supported by working-class voters if they intend to succeed in flipping the House in the 2022 midterm elections.
Banks, who chairs the Republican Study Committee (RSC), details in the memo, dated March 30, key issues affecting the working class, including immigration, trade, “anti-wokeness,” “Main Street vs Wall Street,” and big tech, and provides a set of action items for his Republican colleagues as they set their sights on next year’s races.
“President Trump gave the Republican Party a political gift: we are now the party supported by most working-class voters,” Banks begins. “The question is whether Republicans reject that gift or unwrap it and permanently become the Party of the Working Class.”
Banks provided a copy of the memo to Breitbart News:
Banks notes the Biden administration’s immigration policies — on both legal and illegal immigration — are unpopular among voters and points to the growing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which has been spurred by a recent, massive influx of migrants.
“Opposition to illegal immigration and increased legal immigration remains popular among both working-class Americans and the electorate at large,” Banks states, adding that Trump administration pursuits such as building a border wall, enforcing the Remain in Mexico policy, and standing against amnesty were “successful” in controlling immigration.
On the issue of trade, Banks correlates tough-on-China policies to American industry and job creation. “Republicans should state clearly: Our opposition to China is a corollary of our support for working Americans,” Banks writes. “The reverse is also true: Democrats’ coziness with China results from their coziness with Wall Street.”
Banks’s memo also ties “wokeness” directly to the Democrat Party and states that “wokeness and identity politics aren’t pro-Hispanic, pro-African American or pro-LQBTQ; they’re anti-American, anti-women, and most of all, anti-working class.” Evidence, Banks says, can be found in Hispanic voter turnout for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election and in Hispanic and black voters’ overwhelming opposition to the Equality Act.
Other issues Republicans should zone in on, Banks writes, include the “draconian” coronavirus lockdowns that have resulted in the mass shuttering of small businesses across the country and big tech entities’ “egregious” suppression of conservative speech.
A list of actions items on the memo include holding roundtables and creating task forces centered around boosting working-class voters’ voices as well as prioritizing individual donations over corporations’ donations, the latter of which, Banks contends, has been a “preference for the Democrat Party.”
He concluded, “Democrats will keep alienating working-class voters because that’s what their donors demand, and Republicans should welcome them with open arms by fully embracing an agenda that’s worthy of their support.”
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.
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