Why can't Republicans stop sharing racist propaganda?

GOP officials are increasingly spreading racist propaganda in a trend that could permanently fracture the Republican Party, according to political communication experts.

It is a problem that starts from the top down, according to Tim Miller, the former communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign. “There’s a growing crisis within the Republican Party in which neo-Nazis, racists and xenophobes are attracted to the GOP,” he told The Independent.

In recent weeks, Republicans with vast followings on social media have shared inaccurate statistics from a Danish tabloid claiming migrants are raping UK citizens at an extraordinary rate. Iowa Congressman Steve King tweeted the false news report to his nearly 100,000 followers, writing: ”Europe is waking up…Will America…in time?”

Just before that, former presidential candidate Ron Paul tweeted a post which included racist cartoon depictions of a black man with exaggerated features, a Jewish man with a hooked nose, a man with brown skin appearing to be a Neanderthal and an Asian with slanted eyes. The men are all punching Uncle Sam in the face while shouting in unison, “Cultural Marxism!”

“This has an extremely dangerous impact on the party, in that it’s slipping increasingly into a party represented by people who are espousing alt-right, quasi-white nationalist beliefs,” Mr Miller said.

“If the types of people that want to go work for Donald Trump and Steve King are the ones frequenting racist memes sites, those are going to be the folks who go on to get promoted into important positions in the party. Those are going to be the people who run for office.

“Now we’re increasingly seeing people in lower offices who come out of these online extremist communities and decide they want to run. There is a real trickle-down effect happening,” he continued.

Mr Bush, the former governor of Florida and 2016 presidential candidate, employed a team of political communications professionals to oversee his social media profiles and digital outreach along the campaign trail. So, when Mr Trump began attacking his stance on immigration and claiming Mr Bush liked “Mexican illegals because of his wife”, his campaign fought fire with a calm, political approach.

“He’s doing this to inflame and incite and to draw attention, which seems to be the organising principle of his campaign,” Mr Bush said at the time. “To make these extraordinarily ugly kind of comments is not reflective of the Republican Party.”

Attacking Mr Trump’s wife, who is an immigrant, or appealing to racial politics was never an option discussed by the campaign, the communications director said.

Meanwhile, as Mr Trump often doubles down on his controversial statements and false claims, other Republican officials tend to apologise for their racially fuelled messages – especially when they draw backlash online.

Mr Paul walked back his “Cultural Marxism” cartoon, claiming a staff member of his “inadvertently” posted the message, which he said was deleted once he became aware of it. Mr King did not apologise for his latest tweet, but has previously walked back other racially charged comments that were met with a strong rebuke from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Regardless of whether they apologise for it, many Republican officials are using racial politics to sway voters, according to Tobe Berkovitz, whose spent 30 years as a Democratic political media consultant. But they’re not the only ones employing the political strategy.

“The fact is the Republicans and the Democrats use race differently but they both use it to communicate with their core constituents,” he said. “The Republicans use it in a negative way, using racial stereotypes and slurs sometimes, while the Democrats use it to generate support for their policies and their politicians. Race is inherent to American politics and campaigning.”

Under Mr Trump, Democrats have focused much of their efforts in pushing back against perceived racism and hostility towards immigrants put forth by elected Republicans, including the president. This could prove damaging for their outreach efforts to the African-American communities – which often hold the power to sway entire elections – Mr Berkovitz said.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how African-American voters respond to a massive focus on immigration during the midterm elections,” he continued. “Where you used to have so much discussion and campaigning to generate support from African-Americans among Democrats, to some degree some of that has been replaced or overshadowed by the emphasis of immigration.”

The rise in racial politics doesn’t necessarily indicate Republican voters are becoming increasingly racist. Instead, it’s more likely conservatives are taking a page out of Mr Trump’s playbook: if they continue to state a claim, even if it’s not true, some voters will eventually believe them.

“Americans’ beliefs are often swayed by what politicians in their preferred party say is true; although we tend to focus on the newness of social media and the way that’s transforming peoples’ experiences with politics, the larger dynamics of people falling in line behind politicians is not entirely a new phenomenon,” said Kelly Garret, a political communications expert and professor at the School of Communication at Ohio State University.

“There is compelling evidence to indicate that if a political elite says something that isn’t true, people are going to believe it. That isn’t to say Americans are all gullible and believe everything they’ve heard... it’s just that they haven’t put a lot of effort in finding out the facts for themselves.”

It’s a gamble with huge implications, both for the individual candidate and the party. By playing on their supporters’ fears, Republicans are taking a gamble that they’ll be rewarded by voters who have decided to believe immigration is inherently bad, and certain racial stereotypes are inherently factual, simply because their elected officials have made those points.

But when it comes to political messaging, underlying facts aren’t what truly matter for many voters, according to Morgan Marietta, author of A Citizen’s Guide to American Ideology. What it really comes down to is identity.

“When politicians say specific literal things, the more important communication is the underlying values and identities they invoke,” he said. “The problem with facts is that they are not truth. Truth is what really exists but we don’t have access to it. Facts are approximations of that truth endorsed by prevailing authorities like academia and media, which means we have to trust the people who are reporting the facts to us. Trust in media and academia has fallen tremendously on the political right.”

“Conservatives, especially populists, no longer trust elites and instead rely on right-leaning media figures, their own social groups, and especially their own values to tell them what seems true,” he continued.

“Politicians know this and exploit it, but they also do it themselves. As highly politically engaged and knowledgeable actors, politicians project their values onto their facts as much as anyone does. They are true believers in their own value-laden reality.”