Musings: How the Right Win Elections

It should be well known to the majority of American voters that the GOP's actual constituency are Corporations and the wealthy elite. You only need to examine their one and only major legislation in the past two years since Trump: The Tax Bill. This legislation handed the wealthy 1% a hefty tax break, carved in stone, over the next ten years. The bill barely touched the 99%, offering zero relief for working class Americans. In the GOP'S second attempt at legislation was repealing Obama Care without replacing it. This failed in the Senate by a few votes. There has been no major bills put forth by the GOP since. One begs the question, how does the Right win elections, when it is blatantly evident that they have no concern for the people, and promote bills that actually hurt the common citizen? More specifically, how did a Reality Game Show Host become president of the United States?

Fake Populism

Populism: a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns have been disregarded by wealthy elites.

In Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, he struck a collective nerve in the American people. As the majority were sick and tired of neoliberalim, the economy favouring the rich, and a health system that favours the pharmaceutical corporations and big insurance agencies; add expensive and needless wars over seas, and people were disillusioned and ready for a big change. Enter Donald Trump. Similar to many right wing pundits around the world, Trump promised major change. He bashed Obama Care as unworkable. He claimed that Afghanistan and Iraq were big mistakes, and promised to end US occupation. He promised money for much needed up grades in infrastructure. More importantly, Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs that had been outsourced overseas. Over two years into his presidency, none of these promises have been kept. True, the US economy appears to be doing well, but is measured by Wall Street, and the Stock Exchange. This measures the wealthy's economy, not the common citizen. Indeed, unemployment appears to have dropped, but the normal working class family have had to work three jobs, merely to make ends meet.

The GOP will promise everything that voters want and need, but as we have seen, jobs are not created, and the rich are getting richer. So, the Right get into office by appearing to understand the working man's dilemma. This fake populism, the very approach that got Donald J. Trump elected.

Pin-Point-Marketing

The GOP know their target market. They have studied various pockets of the population, gaining a uncanny understanding of their hopes and beliefs. Most right -wing pundits know how to drive a point home, whether true or not. To be sure, bombastic confidence plays a big part. That said, the common tool is manipulating the emotion of Fear. They know their audience and will play on those fears. Who are the Right-Wing's audience?

Neo-Confederates or White Nationals.

Whether one wants to admit it or not, racism plays a major role in contributing to GOP votes. Take the time to observe one of Trump's rallies. Most of his base consist of white voters. Of course, you have the occasional Latino and Black American, but they are few. Trump was supported by many militant right wing organisations: namely the KKK. After the riots in Charlotsville, the majority being white nationalist, announcing that “Jews will not replace us”, protesting the take down of Confederate monuments, the crowd turned violent. This ended with the killing of a young woman. Trump famously said, “their were good people on both sides.”

Trump is a racist and knows his base.

Immigration can be safely put in the category of racism. “Built that Wall” cry resonated with many people across America. By using Fear as a tool to gain votes, Trump has hobby horsed the immigration issue. Many studies have shown that a simple wall will not stop the immigration of people coming over the American border. Trump also claims that the majority of this immigrants are dead set criminals and drug dealers, ready to swarm the US with drugs and violent crime. This again, is simply not the case. He has been quoted many times as calling these refugees “animals”, when in fact, they are families escaping prosecution in their home countries. Trump has reinforced the fears of his racist base.

Evangelical Community.

It is no secret that the popular “Christian” Evangelical community simply adore the right wing and Trump even more. To the extent, really, of calling Trump the “second coming”, descending from above to “save” the United States. Any rational mind would dismiss this idea as absurd. Abortion is the right wing's central issue, pushing the act as murder. It is interesting to note, that the GOP back in the 70's and 80's, never had an sue with abortion. But GOP strategists realised that this portion of the US population, were vehemently pro-life, thus the GOP captured this “value” and made it their own. Guaranteed votes. In the era of Trump, states like Georgia has now legislated that abortion is a federal crime, punishable with 30 years in jail. In addition, any woman caught crossing the border to gain an abortion could face 10 years in jail. This is barbaric, pulling the US back into the 18^th century. What's next, burning suspected witches?

Most disturbing of all, this religious-racist-fanaticism has spread into the realms of War. Since 9/11, the prosecution of Muslim Americans had sky rocketed and, during the Trump administration with the Muslim Ban, Moreover the countries been banned, are countries that the US has bombed back into the stone age. My personal fear is that further war overseas will be justified based on the right wing intrinsic hate of Muslims world wide.

Conclusion.

The GOP's first and only constituents are the Corporations and the wealthy elite. In order to get votes to gain office and remain in office, certain cultural issues needed to be harnessed and sold to these US voters. Since the 90's, the GOP realised this, and have been selling these issues as basic “American” values. More insidious, is they have been so successful, they will attack anyone contradicting these “values”, as UN-American. This has been seriously divisive within the population. Since Trump, this divide has become a chasm, where violence has spread across all 50 states. Ironically, the GOP's central value has always been less government. In my lifetime, I have never seen such interference into the lives of everyday Americans under the GOP.

The GOP and their members, for the most part, do not care about these issues. What they do care about are their donors. Driving policy forward which only benefits the corporations and their vested interests. That said, the current Democratic party is just as corrupt. Where most of their donors are weapon manufactures, war is inevitable, despite the majority of citizens are sick and tired of war.

To be sure, the GOP has pulled off a ingenious ploy, lying to the American people, appearing populist, by and while, screwing them at the same time.

Change is certain to come.