A PRO-WORKER PARTY WITHOUT ALL THAT SILLY ECONOMIC POPULISM

Axios reports that Marco Rubio wants a new Republican Party, one that cares about the concerns of ordinary citizens rather than Big Business.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will call for Republicans to break up with Big Business when he addresses the National Conservatism Conference on Monday, Axios has learned.

... He's using this speech to differentiate himself from traditional economic conservatism by branding himself as a leading proponent of the working class.

So he wants the GOP to stop helping the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of us ... right?

Not exactly.

"There would be a lot less craziness in America’s corporations if the people voting their shares were actually firefighters and teachers, rather than their union bosses or Wall Street," Rubio will say, based on a prepared text of his remarks.

"Promising to cut more regulations and corporate taxes will garner the applause of campaign donors and glowing coverage in media outlets focused on the stock market."

"But it leaves millions of hard-working Americans who do not want a 'woke' socialist America with no voice in our politics, and no answers to their problems."

Is Rubio arguing that the GOP should stop trying to cut regulations and corporate taxes? Not based on these excerpts. He's conveying the impression that he's against those tax and regulatory cuts without actually saying they're bad things.

And what do ordinary people want? Not more money, apparently. Ordinary people want to stop living in "a 'woke' socialist America" (imposed by capitalists, oddly).

He'll call for a requirement that company boards are committed to U.S. national interest and devoid of conflicts of interest with nations such as China.

Rubio will contrast that with what he says are "requirements that companies’ board of directors be sufficiently 'diverse,' like what the Biden administration is pushing."

We know what this is -- it's Fox News ragebait instead of ideas. Fox viewers hate China, though they probably can't tell you why, and if they have concrete reasons, they're probably based on conspiracy theories. In the Ross Perot years, they might have been angry about U.S. companies shipping jobs to China, but now they're angry because they think the COVID virus was designed by the Chinese as a bioweapon and because they're sure China printed fake Biden ballots on bamboo paper.

And the Biden policy Rubio attacks here has nothing to do with money -- it's putting non-whites and women or corporate boards.

"More challenging," Rubio is expected to say, "is how to take power away from big institutional shareholders that use regular retirees’ savings to push 'woke' policies at corporations by voting in corporate elections on their behalf."

He'll argue the solution is that institutional shareholders transmit the votes of their clients — like the firefighters and teachers he described — instead of casting votes on their behalf.

More ragebait: Workers who have shares of stock in their 401(k)s should get to vote individually on matters put to stockholders -- which is an interesting idea, but it's an idea that Rubio says is appealing because the workers should have a chance to demand fewer LGBT couples in TV ads, not less compensation to already overpaid CEOs or better pay for workers.

And remember, this is the reformist wing of the GOP.

White nationalist parties in other countries, such as Hungary, actually make the social safety net more generous, at least for the some of the people (immigranrs don't count). Rubio wants to seem like an Orbanesque populist without making ordinary citizens a dime richer or capitalists a dime poorer.

FUN FACT: In 2019-2020, according to Project Vote Smart, Marco Rubio had 100% ratings from the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation, the American Forest and Paper Association, Associated Builders and Contractors, the National Electrical Contractors Association, and the Plastics Industry Association. He had a 96% rating from Americans for Prosperity -- and a 0% rating from Public Citizen. So, no, this guy is not really demanding that the GOP break up with Big Business.