One of the defining struggles in American politics is to make the US political system, dominated by only two parties that are both corrupted by corporate money, actually responsive to working-class needs. How’s that effort going when it comes to the Republican Party, which since the 2020 election has been trying to rebrand itself as a “working-class party?”

As the relatively recent vote on providing railworkers seven days worth of sick leave shows, not very well.

A bit of recent history: as the 2020 election saw the hastening of class dealignment — with Donald Trump’s candidacy leading a surprising number and diversity of working-class Americans to vote for a billionaire whose main accomplishment was giving himself and his wealthy friends a generous handout — Republicans have taken this branding and run with it. The “populist” senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeted that “we are a working class party now” after the election, while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who’s similarly reinventing himself as a pro-worker populist, declared the GOP’s future to be “a multiethnic, multiracial, working-class coalition.” The GOP’s official account recently tweeted that “60 percent of workers report living paycheck-to-paycheck.”