Railroad sick leave vote exposes the hurdle to a populist GOP

At some point, policy has to match rhetoric.

Last Thursday, only six of the 48 Republican senators voting supported an amendment to grant railroad workers 7 days of paid sick leave to compensate for forcing an agreement on them.

The vote exposed the gulf between a group of Republicans trying to savvily remake the party as a bastion of non-college educated Whites (with an emphasis on married religi…