The Democratic Party is a coalition of sometimes loosely united interests that hope to achieve enough unity to win elections when they come around. Democrats typically get the majority of Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ, Jewish, Muslim, and Asian voters, as well as college-educated white people.
The Republican Party has a coalition of its own, including white Evangelical Christians and non-college-educated whites, with support from factions of Hispanic Americans like Cubans and Venezuelans. Republicans also get overwhelming support from the spectrum of white supremacist groups. Neo-Nazis, skinheads, and the KKK are all part of the base and are rarely denounced.
Those calling themselves conservatives vote Republican, though their candidates no longer demonstrate the conservative values they espouse. American voters are fairly apathetic about elections; in 2020, about 66% of eligible voters cast a ballot. Both parties attempt to whip up their eligible voters to do so; this is where the hate comes in.
The Democratic voters are not without hate; there is a degree of hatred for Trump and what he represents (himself and white supremacy). There are some single issues like the Middle East and Ukraine that stir intense feelings but are intra-party squabbles that thus far haven't thrown the Democratic Party into turmoil. Democrats are demonstrating a high degree of excitement and unity, some based on Trump hate but more often based on issues like a woman's right to body autonomy, support of the middle class, tax benefits for young families, and to love without fear the person of your choice.
The Republican Party, once the Party of Lincoln and founded by abolitionists, has become the Party of Hate. This doesn't describe all Republican voters. Many people have left the Party, ashamed of association with the open racism and hate. They've become Independents or Libertarians, yet in the privacy of the voting booth, ballot box, or mail-in-ballot, they support the Party they publicly deny.
The only voices that matter in the Republican Party are Donald Trump and, to a lesser degree, J.D. Vance. You couldn't describe in more than a couple of sentences what policies they stand for, but you know who they want you to hate. Immigrants are at the top of the list, with Haitians the target of the month. Trump and Vance knowingly lie about the status of legal immigrants who were invited to Springfield, Ohio, to fill jobs and start businesses in a city with a declining population. They were accused of destroying the community and eating people's pets. Even when they knew there was no evidence, the lies continued.
Others piled on, revealing their racism, when they condemned not only the Haitians coming to Springfield but Haitians everywhere. Make no mistake: Haitians are a proxy for Black people. Haiti was but one of the "shithole countries" that Trump described, preferring we import people from nice white countries like Norway. Trump has called for Haitians to "Get Out!" in his rallies. His message is that of hate and little else but self-pity for his legal problems.
Trump and Vance's message isn't by any means limited to Haitians and Black people. Brown immigrants crossing the Southern border are constant targets. Trump's constant criticism is ironic given that his precious Mar-a-Lago couldn't operate without immigrant labor, including Haitians. Trump petitions every year to allow workers on an H-2B visa, attesting that there are not enough U.S. workers who are "able, willing, qualified, and available to do the temporary work." Trump has hired at least 1,670 temporary foreign workers since 2008. The majority of those workers came from Haiti and Romania. I wonder if he describes his Haitian workers in the same terms as those in Springfield.
Republican politicians walk the tightrope of trying to convince non-white voters to support them when their policies cause them harm. The need to keep people of color down isn't totally race-based. Understand that this is a class issue, with race being the mechanism to implement Republican goals. This isn't new in America; using race as the means to control the lower classes gained prominence after Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 when Black and white indentured servants and Black slaves joined forces and burned down Jamestown, the Capital of Virginia. Ever since, the policy was to disrupt and divide the lower and middle classes. Indentured servitude went away, and slavery took over as the primary source of cheap/free labor.
It would be unfair to blame only the Republican Party for the current state of affairs. When Republicans were the Party of Lincoln, the Democrats were the Party of Hate. There was no distance between the Democratic Party and the fledgling Ku Klux Klan; their membership often overlapped. Democrats hated Black people, Catholics, Jewish People, and others, unafraid to use violence to achieve their goals. Voter suppression by Democrats took the form of lynchings, literacy tests, poll taxes, and people with guns standing outside voting locations. People couldn't go to the police, especially in the South, where Democrats were the police.
Black voters were as much as 97% Republican after the Civil War during Reconstruction. Even when Republicans sold them out in the Compromise of 1877 and removed federal troops from the South, adding Posse Comitatus the following year, ensuring they never returned. The first dent in the armor came in 1927 after the Great River Flood. Black people noticed when a Republican administration put survivors in a concentration camp and forced their labor, often at gunpoint. When Democratic President Truman integrated the armed forces and federal government in 1948, Black people noticed. The floodgates opened in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. White Southerners noticed and streamed to the Republican Party as Black people became Democrats in more significant numbers. Somewhere along the line, Republicans became the Party of Hate. They said they were the Party of Law and Order; they meant they were the Party of Control.
Republican hate often singles out the LGBTQ, especially the T. Transgenders have been kicked out of schools, blocked from bathrooms, and had books that feature or even mention them banned. Transition surgeries may be blocked, or insurance may be prohibited from assisting with the cost. The other letters fare little better. An organization purporting to represent gays within the Party, the Log Cabin Republicans have not affected Republican platforms that continually demean them; in the years, they have a platform at all.
I recently watched two Trump rallies on tape, searching to hear a quote regarding taking America back 300 years to a term that included enslavement of Black people and women who couldn't vote (I found it). They were a non-stop stream of hatred with shouting sycophants in agreement with his rants. To their credit, many rally-goers got bored and left early so there is still hope.
I keep wanting to think that Republicans have a belief system rooted in something other than hatred, but I find no evidence of such. I write this the morning before the Vice Presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. What are the odds that Vance won't add to the hatred with lies and diatribes about immigrants and others? It isn't about race; it's about class and power, but the impact is real on those being attacked, so the rich become richer at their expense.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.