It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump

by Stuart Stevens

the looming threat of some socialist takeover of America or Sharia law becoming the new Supreme Court standard is all nonsense. And most Republican elected officials know it’s nonsense, just as they know Donald Trump is an unqualified idiot. But what many Republican politicians actually do believe is that they represent the “real” America, and they are somewhere from uncomfortable to frightened by America’s changing landscape. Instead of embracing the change that renews America and defines America, Republicans have more often than not reacted like the white neighborhood that feared property values would drop once the “wrong” kinds of people moved in. You see this in the very language used by Republicans: “working-class voters” usually means white working-class voters. “Ordinary Americans” means non-urban Christians, mostly white. It is reminiscent of when Mississippi’s governor Ross Barnett addressed a Jewish group in Jackson, Mississippi, with “We are all good Christian men and women.” The common thread is fear. Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of losing power while forgetting the purpose of power.