[Answered on Quora.com by Andrew Weill]
The Republicans of today have two terrible problems:
They don’t dare run on their actual agenda, because it is highly distasteful to large segments of the electorate.
They have surrendered leadership to an embarrassingly incompetent and corrupt person incapable of management or statesmanship, who has contempt for democratic norms.
These are major substantive problems. Thus, they have little choice except to resort to the most common cowardly, dishonest tactic of the demagogue: manufacture a scapegoat, harness rage, and foment disorder.
Thus, suddenly transvestites doing library readings become a threat to the republic. (We’ve had Drag Queen Story Time in the Bay Area for over a decade without any ruckus.) Similarly, faux transphobia rage has been manufactured, targeting a group of people who are far more threatened than threatening. (These bullies, being contemptible insecure weaklings, of course target those they perceive as most helpless.)
This targeting happens because lies about what to fear work for demagogues. The “Red Scare” briefly made Joe McCarthy powerful. Racism has fueled many political careers. Father Coughlin and others harangued the public with blatant antisemitism.
Thus, today’s Republicans are compelled to resort to crude demagoguery.
What else do they have?
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