If there is one thing republicans know it's how to game the system. Dating back to the election of 1968 when Nixon's "southern strategy" appealed to racist democrats who detested the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson, the GOP decided it would become the party of white grievance. Working class whites then began to vote against their own economic interests because they didn't want "those people" to get the benefits of economic equality.
The completion of this game came with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and specifically with the firing of air traffic controllers and the throttling of their union. Reagan's terms ushered in an era of stagnating wages and interracial strife. The crime and bankruptcy bills passed during Bill Clinton's presidency exacerbated the situation and the Great Recession under the Shrub completed the evisceration of the middle class. Slow growth in the Obama years due in large part to republican obstruction has brought us the tRump presidency*.
At this point, any pretext of racial sympathy is gone. Republicans have now decided voter suppression, gerrymandering and the Senate's overwhelming tilt toward rural states with outsize representation are the only ways to keep themselves in power. Racist dogwhistles are now foghorns and the wealth and power of the 1% are arrayed against any programs designed to help the majority of Americans. This is the America we are bequeathing to our children.
There is still hope, but the coming election will be more important than any in our history in determining if we are still a democracy or if we will slide into oligarchy and a society of haves and have nots. it is still our choice to make.
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