They are not the party for people who have hearts and minds.

IME, Republican voters believe:

In being part of a winning or successful team.

In being thought of at least as "good". Being thought of as "better" is optimal.
(One always needs a scapegoat to hold up as a responsibility buffer or other excuse for failure or moral danger.)

Making enough money to have the nice or nicer things than other people have.

Protecting those nice or nicer things from people who don't deserve them.

Having certainty in one's social position.

Fairness is getting what's owed one, and what (so you think) one is entitled to. No more, no less - unless, of course, one really deserves a break, because one really is a "good" person...

Conservatism means "conserving" one's social hierarchy, feeling "certain", rigid strength and orderly, predictable conduct. Liberalism means disrespect for hierarchy, chaos, confused thinking, wishy-washy weakness, and excuse of criminal behavior in general.

Success or failure is a result of morality and "hard work"; it can never be the result of awareness of random opportunities in conjunction to a variety of situational or environmental conditions (which may - or may not - include hard work or application of ethics).

And finally - Modern Republicans believe in having someone "higher up" to ultimately take responsibility for one's success or failure (see "being part of the team - everything one does should be to serve that "higher power&quot .


Haele

They really are white trash America. And they have so much hate in their hearts.

Most of their neighbors, neighborhood, close relatives, and family friends vote Republican. They view politics as a sporting event and do not even bother to see what the other side has to offer in the way of talent and ideas. They only care about the big game. They want to win, and they want the other side to lose. They have little concept of the party platform and history, or how government works, and are not interested in learning.

Please note: I said these are the decent voting Republicans. There are also many that vote Republican that fit into the categories you posted.

And who don't believe the things that you have listed there.

Try, for a moment, to recognize the fact that you can disagree strongly with someone's political views but still view them as a decent human being.

Turns out that almost half of the US (or almost half of the US voters, anyway) are not decent human beings.

That's what gave us Donny and Paul and Mitch and all their underlings.

In the long run, that is worse news than Donny and Paul and Mitch.

America is rotten to the core.

Probably because of more than two decades of balance-free propaganda.

And that propaganda gets an extra kick when it's delivered every Sunday by people claiming to be the official representatives of God.

Now that we know that people don't have a inherent decency, our only chance to rectify this is to do something about the lies masquerading as news.

If our commitment to letting anyone tell any lie and get away with it based on the 1st Amendment supersedes all other considerations, then we can all just quit right now; there's no other hope.