THE GOP ISN'T REALLY A POLITICAL PARTY -- IT'S A FULL-TIME PROPAGANDA OPERATION THAT ALSO RUNS CANDIDATES

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, a holiday that falls on a different date every year, following the lunar calendar. Yesterday was also Transgender Day of Visibility, which falls on March 31 every year. When President Biden commemorated Transgender Day of Visibility this year -- as he has in previous years, commemorating it in addition to commemorating Easter, as he also has in previous years -- Republican propagandists organized a coordinated phony-outrage freakout.

Chris Geidner of Law Dork found this appalling:

This weekend’s gaslighting from the right around Easter falling on the same day as Transgender Day of Visibility is a stark sign of how empty the Republican Party has gotten — and how dangerous Donald Trump is, not only to transgender people, but to America.

If you, blessedly, have no idea what I am talking about, congratulations, you live a life free from what I think is best thought of as “No-News Weekend Internet.” In short, when nothing is happening, something must happen. It will always be stupid, but, in the past, sometimes that meant stupid-fun. Now, it means stupid-dangerous.

But there's nothing particularly Trumpian about all this. For decades, Republicans have been masters of coordinated performative indignation based on distorted facts -- they find a story, they report the facts in a dishonest way, and they stamp their feet in theatrical rage at an offense to their sensibilities that they invented. This past weekend, it was Easter. Fifteen years ago, it was a provision of the Affordable Care Act that guaranteed coverage for end-of-life conversations with doctors, an aspect of the plan that right-wingers falsely described as "death panels." Sixteen years earlier, President Bill Clinton nominated Lani Guinier, a Black law professor, for the job of assistant attorney general for civil rights, and Republican operatives called her a "quota queen" because she'd advocated alternative voting systems -- not quotas -- that might make elected bodies more representative of the population. They lied about Guinier, and her nomination was withdrawn. I'm sure you can think of many other examples.

The Republican Party isn't really a political party, if you define "political party" as an organization that has publicly stated political principles and runs candidates for office who openly profess those principles. The Republican Party is a full-time anti-Democratic Party propaganda operation that also runs candidates for office.

Republicans need to be good at anti-Democratic demonization because they'd never win elections if they ran solely on their actual agenda: cutting taxes for the rich, cutting regulations for big corporations, slashing the social safety net, restricting reproductive rights, and so on. It was widely noted that Republicans didn't issue a platform in 2020. What they have instead of a platform is the message Democrats are evil. Vote for us.

Unlike members of normal political parties, Republicans seem angry if you talk about their actual agenda. Many party members were upset when Senator Rick Scott released a 12-point plan to "rescue America" and reporters and Democrats pointed out that the plan would allow Social Security and Medicare to "sunset" if they weren't specifically renewed by Congress. Donald Trump's campaign has denounced reporting that links Trump to the authoritarian Project 2025 plan for a possible second term -- a plan concocted largely by close Trump allies.

The GOP has an agenda, but doesn't want voters to know what it is. Republicans would rather run on "Democrats suck." And the party is very good at spreading that message.