The GOP grievance machine — and how Republicans weaponize fear to win

As you’re reading these words, Trump and his Republican allies are spraying “a firehose of lies” accusing Democrats of responsibility for the fires in LA. Gays are going to convert your kids, immigrants are going to kill or rape your wife, schools are going to cut off your son’s penis, Haitians in Springfield are going to eat your cat, poor people are stealing your tax dollars with welfare payments, women who get empowered will deny you sex, Jews are funding Hispanics taking your job, Joe Biden is causing your inflation, Democrats want to take away your car, Black Kamala is trying to take a job that’s rightfully a white man’s role, “woke” teachers are training white children to feel guilt for things their relatives did, the “deep state” is making your life miserable through over-regulation… Every one of those and more were specific — and false — grievances used at various times by the Trump campaign to win the 2024 election. — Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson used grievance around Britain’s “taxation without representation” to spark and win the Revolutionary War. — The Klan, Woodrow Wilson, then George Wallace, and today Trump and his MAGA movement exploit racial grievance against Blacks and Hispanics “taking” privilege, jobs, and power from white men. Democrats should come up with people qualified to take every job from Defense Secretary to EPA to Transportation and every time one of Trump’s people takes an action, the “shadow secretary” for that department should hold a press conference criticizing that action and offering a better alternative to help Americans.