Josh Hawley and the Republican Populists, at War With Their Party

The lone Republican vote in the Senate last month to protect consumers from bank overdraft fees came from an unlikely Democratic ally: Senator Josh Hawley, the archconservative from Missouri best known for calling out “wokeness” in all sectors of society, and for raising his fist to offer solidarity with supporters of President Trump hours before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

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Mr. Hawley belongs to a conservative intelligentsia that includes Oren Cass, the influential founder and chief economist of the think tank American Compass. Like Mr. Hawley and Mr. Vance, Mr. Cass, 41, came of age not during the laissez-faire economic policies of the Reagan era but during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. “A key driver for us,” Mr. Cass said, “is the fundamental insight that free markets aren’t delivering on the things we care about the most.”

Some Republican legislators have dipped their toe to test the populist waters, according to Mr. Cass. He included in the group Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who has proposed increasing the minimum wage through an e-verify system; Senator Jim Banks of Indiana, who has teamed up with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, to address how private equity consolidation is affecting fire truck manufacturing and the communities that rely on effective firefighting; and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who has worked with Senate Democrats to reduce credit card swipe fees.