The Republican Party is not ready to face the challenge of the “great awokening” and a cultural Marxist revolution, Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday.

“The Republican Party as we have known it for the last 30 years is not prepared for the challenge,” the Missouri Republican lawmaker said in remarks at the 50th anniversary celebration of The Heritage Foundation. “The Republican Party must be transformed.” (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Hawley said that in the post-Cold War era, after the United States defeated the Soviet Union, most Republicans embraced global trade at the expense of working- and middle-class Americans.

The Missourian noted that GOP President George H.W. Bush talked about “open borders, open trade, open minds,” after the fall of the Soviet Union. He referred to the North American Free Trade Agreement and allowing China to join the World Trade Organization.

“The politics of the New World Order have failed,” Hawley said. “Economic globalism has failed. Liberal imperialism has failed.”

He said those policies have cost millions of working-class and middle-class jobs.

“This is the great awokening,” Hawley said. “The Soviet Union lost the Cold War, thank God. But Marxism lives on.”

Hawley stressed that the Left has “revised Marxism to fit their own ends.” It’s no longer about wealth inequality, but rather about a “cultural revolution.”

“The Republican Party must move to higher ground,” Hawley said. “It’s not enough to fight DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and woke corporations. We must actively fight for the working-class Americans.”

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