WE'RE RACIALLY DIVIDED SO REPUBLICAN VOTERS WILL REMAIN DISTRACTED

Here's a response to Bad Bunny's joyful Super Bowl halftime show:

Beyonce and Ricky Martin performed at Bush's 2000 inaugural is a thing I think about a lot when considering how much more culturally isolated and extreme the right has become.

— Zeddy (@zeddary.bsky.social) February 9, 2026 at 10:16 AM

In the 2000s, a number of Establishment Republicans -- George W. Bush, John McCain, Lindsey Graham -- wanted comprehensive immigration reform and wanted it to be identified with their party. They hoped this would win them favor with Hispanic voters. But the right-wing messaging that resonated most with their own voters was anti-immigrant. Bush's immigration push died in 2007.

Immigration reform wasn't the GOP's main goal. Its main goal was to cut taxes on the rich, cut regulations for big corporations, and slash the social safety net. It's an agenda that's not easy to sell to voters -- so, over the years, the GOP has distracted voters from this agenda by stirring up anger and hate. The GOP knew that Fox News, talk radio, and right-wing online publications were building party loyalty, and they gave propagandists more or less free rein to make voters angry at immigrants, Black people, white liberals, the media, gay people, feminists, entertainers, and gun-control advocates (that's a partial list).

For the most part, this permanent campaign of distraction was electorally successful. Even when Democrats scored big victories at the polls in 2008, Republicans came roaring back in the 2010 and 2014 midterms. And then Trump won two victories, and nearly scored an Electoral College win in 2020.

For the GOP, on balance, distraction has worked. Trump's major legislative wins have funneled huge amounts of money to the wealthy. And even if we have free and fair elections in November and Democrats do well, the GOP might still control the Senate as well as the White House and the Supreme Court.

Was building an electorate that hates half the country and cheers the brutalization of non-whites and their allies a worthwhile price for the wealthy backers of the GOP to pay? I think their answer would be "Oh, sure." They got their money. They don't care if the rest of us are at one another's throats.