The Republican Party almost always seeks to implement public policies which take wealth away from the poor and middle class sectors of society, and which transfer that wealth to the very richest sectors of society.

     Examples of those policies include privatization of public resources, deregulation, welfare “reform,” tax cuts, reduced environmental protections, large military budgets, shrinking social service budgets, tort “reform,” and large no bid contracts. That is not a complete list. You can come up with many additions if you put your mind to it. In each case, they are after the money.

     The problem for the Republicans is that most people won’t support their political agenda if their slogan is “Vote Republican! We’ll take from the poor and middle class and give to the rich.” Since that won’t work, they have to find other ways to get people to support them.

     In recent decades, the Republicans have relied in large part upon the four horsemen of fearmongering, racism, scapegoating and fundamentalism to achieve their political goals. Unfortunately, they have been quite successful with all four tactics.

     Their fearmongering started with anti-communism. Better vote Republican or the Communists will get you. The notorious McCarthy era in the 1950s represents the height of that tactic, but not the end of it. For many years the Republicans continued to milk fear of communism to bolster their support.

     After communism largely collapsed, the Republicans thrashed around while trying out fear of drugs, crime, and narco-terrorism. None of those really caught on with the public. Then came 9-11, and their search for a new boogeyman was over. Once again, fear is king.

     The Republican use of racism has been just as blatant. After the Democratic Party started passing civil rights legislation in the 1960s, it was Richard Nixon who successfully argued that the Republican Party should adopt a “southern strategy” to appeal to the racist whites in what had been a solidly Democratic south. That racist strategy has been the key to the transformation of the south from a Democratic stronghold into a Republican fortress. This is why right wing talk radio today is full of overt appeals to racism.

     The Republicans are also very fond of scapegoating many different groups. Feminists, gays and lesbians, atheists, welfare recipients, socialists, abortionists, secular humanists and many other types of people have been demonized by the Republicans and blamed for causing society’s problems. They seem to believe that the world would be perfect if we were all good Republicans like Michael Milken, Charles Keating and Ken Lay.

     Finally, the Republicans have enthusiastically embraced and pandered to religious fundamentalists in the United States. Some of these American Taliban want to use the power of the government to impose their religious beliefs on other people, and the Republicans are happy to help them out in exchange for their votes.

     One of the common elements among the four horsemen of the Republicans is that they allow their adherents to feel superior to the “bad guys.” These people can say to themselves “sure, my life is miserable and I live paycheck to paycheck with no health care, but at least I am better than “those” people. It is pretty pathetic, but feeling superior to some despised minority is the only way that some people are able to feel good about themselves.

     Hard core Republicans have no qualms about exploiting these base emotions. They don’t want dignity or self-respect. They would rather have the money.

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