Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) is taking heat for her scary, robot-wife response to President Biden’s State of the Union address.
To be fair to Sen. Britt, the job of delivering the response is always tough. These days all speakers loyal to former President Trump are stretching the facts to imitate his dark and bloody visions of a failing nation — what he famously described as “American carnage.”
Yes, Britt failed as a messenger by telling a factually wrong story of a chilling gang rape. But the bigger problem is the message.
The number one scare tactic from the Trump camp is an appeal to hatred of immigrants as killers and rapists “poisoning the blood of our country,” to use Trump’s own words. He labels it an “invasion” of immigrants of color arriving “from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”
Trump is right that the U.S. has a troubled, chaotic immigration system. But Trump stopped congressional Republicans from approving funding to solve the problem.
Also, Trump never mentions that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants. And the data show that the newest arrivals are propelling our economic growth.
The second most reliable theme from Trump messengers is hostility toward gays, especially any mention of gays in libraries and schoolbooks.
One Trump-endorsed candidate has called gay and transgender people “filth,” “maggots” and “flies” and said they were equal to “what the cows leave behind.”
He also added the rainbow pride flag makes him “sick every time he sees it.” He has also called straight couples “superior” to gay couples.
That Trump supporter, Mark Robinson (R), North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, has also approvingly quoted Hitler in Facebook posts and encouraged his followers to read Hitler’s writings.
And that fits with Trump calling his political opponents “vermin.. they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.”
Then there is the message of hating abortion rights. Trump is calling for a national ban on abortion. He is reportedly trying to look more reasonable than most anti-abortion activists by considering a limited ban starting at 16 weeks. But a national ban is a ban.
Trump’s message is getting through to abortion opponents. It is also being heard by Americans who back abortion rights.
“We’ve long known where Donald Trump stands on abortion and it is at odds with the majority of Americans,” said Jenny Lawson, the head of Planned Parenthood Votes. “He is chiefly responsible for the ongoing public health crisis that has allowed 21 states to ban all or some abortions and yet he claims to want to find a ‘compromise,’…there is not compromising on the basic right to control our lives and bodies.”
The Trump message on race relations is that he is attracting more Black and Latino voters. But then he steps on that message by voicing opposition to colleges and business investing in racial diversity programs to peacefully heal racial divisions.
Trump has promised to “terminate every diversity, equity and inclusion program,” in the government.
And Project 2025, a group planning the agenda for a new Trump administration has declared its intent to kill off “the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] revolution in labor policy.”
But the most poisonous Trump message is acceptance of lies and indifference.
An ABC poll of Iowa Republicans during the January caucuses found 66 percent agreeing with Trump’s false claim that Biden won the 2020 as the result of fraud.
A nationwide Suffolk/USA Today poll in January showed 59 percent of Republicans nationwide still say Biden stole the election.
Similarly, 42 percent of Republicans said the punishment of people involved in the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 is too harsh.
Then there is the message of indifference regarding Trump being found liable for sexual assault and then ordered to pay damages for having defamed his victim.
And there is indifference to Trump welcoming into his home Hungary’s strongman leader, Viktor Orban. The prime minister is famous for attacking immigrants as well as his distaste for gays.
“There’s nobody better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He’s fantastic,” Trump told the audience at his Florida home.
Trump’s ugly, divisive messages are aimed at an overwhelmingly white, non-college-educated base of his supporters.
I remember election night 2012, when President Obama won reelection and my then-Fox News colleague Bill O’Reilly offered an unsettling political insight to his conservative viewers.
“The white establishment is now the minority…,” O’Reilly said. “The demographics are changing,” he said. “It’s not a traditional America anymore.”
The Republican Party continues to grapple with America’s shifting demographics. Whites remain the majority and the wealthy. But instead of reaching out to educated women and newcomers across racial lines, Trump has the GOP pushing a message of fear.
In his 2017 inaugural address, Trump spoke of “American carnage” and “rusted-out factories, scattered like tombstones the across the landscape of our nation.”
Voters can see that today’s GOP pitch boils down to resentment over Trump’s 2020 defeat, fear of the future and mockery of people who correctly note that America is currently the envy of the world.
Britt is just one more Trump mimic who has that anti-American message locked on a horrifying, unending loop of repeat.
Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.