Maybe it’s a testament to the power of indoctrination. Or to the power of “white supremacy.” Whatever it is, it works.
Republicans have relied since Nixon on the lie that government programs in the United States serve only to take money from poor, oppressed white people and give it to lazy Black people.
More Republicans are starting to get some reality contact on the issue, but as long as they have had the option, they mostly have refused to expand Medicaid, the health insurance program for poor people, for purely ideological reasons. The money for the program comes from the general federal budget, so all tax payers contribute, and all tax payers should reap the benefits. By refusing to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, which Republican excoriate for no good reason, Republicans thus leave a significant number of their constituents without health insurance and reject a significant amount of money for their states. This is entirely irrational. Ideological rigidity on meth.
Now we have Republicans in various states who are eager to stop their states from accepting extended unemployment benefits from the federal government on the suspicion that they are encouraging people to refuse to take any of the many (shitty, low paying) jobs that are allegedly going begging for workers just now. These avid defenders of “the free market” are happy to use any form of coercion they can find when the question is people’s choices to work or not.
These are only the most recent examples of the basic dynamic that has obtained since Richard Nixon taught his fellow Republicans to win elections using dog whistle racism.
The Trump experience suggests that this tactic is no longer useful. He lost the popular vote twice, getting to play president for four years only because of a “white supremacist” holdover in our Constitution. But “white supremacists” being not very bright, they are turning up the “white supremacist” volume to eleven at the moment, eagerly passing bills to make voting more difficult for African Americans and attacking Critical Race Theory, despite knowing nothing about it.
The Republican officials who pursue idiotic policies like this are a problem, but white people keep voting for them, which is the core problem.
Everything about our politics and policy will improve substantially once we finally eradicate the “white supremacist” impulse from the population entirely.