Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
The modern republican electoral ecosystem is sustained through rage and hatred. Their entire campaign strategy is built around the assumption of having a target of some form. Republican voters are simply not able to be activated to go vote (and to stay voting republican) in sufficient quantities without a rage-hate target.
Republicans fundamentally need something to target and hate and be rage filled about. Whether it’s gay marriage, Obamacare, abortion, ebola (remember that in 2014? forgotten the day after the election), immigrants, mask mandates, critical race theory… They need something, anything, no matter how illogical, unethical, or completely incoherent it might be. They do not care about any of those negative details.
Trans people became the conservative rage-hate target of the moment. They throw everything at the wall and this was the target that stuck for the present day.
Republicans are fueled by hate. Issues do not matter to them. Hate and anger matter to them.
Not true, the most popular issues in politics (jobs, roads, economy) used to be the strongest in GOP messaging. This kind of culture war nonsense gets more views on news shows, but polling shows people care about money, healthcare, education, and security more than anything else when it comes to actually voting.
“Used to be” being the operative term. The GOP you speak of is dead, has been dead for many many many years, was dying for many years before it died, and will remain dead until the current party coalitions break down and we see a new alignment of the electorate.