Trump Republicans: The party of huge nothingburgers

As we slump toward the 2024 election, America faces harrowing existential crises — climate change, the potential loss of our democracy to neofascism, the attack on women’s control over their own bodies, corruption of our politics with big money, widening inequalities of income and wealth, structural racism, and the growing risk of nuclear war.

All require the public’s knowledge and clear-headed attention. All necessitate the best leadership the nation can muster.

But Trump Republicans are busy denying or worsening all of these. With just five months to go before the 2024 election, they’re diverting the public’s attention to manufactured crises. They’re intent on whipping Americans into a fury about giant nothingburgers, such as:

1. Voting by “illegals”

Convicted felon Trump has made a big deal about voting by “illegals.” Elon Musk is helping stoke this on his X platform. House lawmakers have just passed a bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote nationwide.

But there’s no evidence that noncitizens are influencing election results. Even the conservative Cato Institute has found that noncitizens are not voting in detectable numbers. It’s a nothingburger.

1. The border

Not a day passes without Trump or one of his Republican lackeys railing about immigrants illegally crossing the southern border.

Rubbish. Since the start of May, the southern border has seen a whopping 54 percentdecrease in illegal border crossings from the record highs six months before — all the more notable because immigration typically surges at this time of year. Border Patrol data shows crossings between ports of entry totaled 110,000 to 120,000 in May, the third straight decline. (There are roughly another 1,500 asylum-seekers going through official entrances each day.) Another nothingburger.

1. Crime

Convicted felon Trump wants Americans to think the nation is in the grip of a serious crime wave. He declared recently that “crime is rampant and out of control like never before.” He’s promised to shoot shoplifters and embraced the “back the blue” slogan against liberal changes to police departments.

But homicide rates are tumbling. Murders were down about 13 percent nationally from 2022 to 2023. Other serious crimes — sexual assault, other assaults, and robbery — are also returning to pre-pandemic levels in most of the country. Another nothingburger.

1. Trans people, wokeness, critical race theory

Trump says that one of his top priorities if he’s reelected in 2024 will be a “sweeping federal rollback of transgender rights.” At least 10 Republican states have banned gender-affirming care for minors, and another 21 have introduced bills to do so.

But there’s not a shred of evidence that trans people are threats to anyone. To the contrary, as multiplestudies have found, access to gender-affirming care reduces the risk of depression and suicide for trans children. Targeting trans people is a way to court evangelicals, stirring up the base against people who are different.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared a “war on woke,” claiming that “the woke mind virus is basically a form of cultural Marxism.” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s “day one” executive order banned the teaching of critical race theory. DeSantis and Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, have also banned critical race theory from schools. But CRT simply teaches America’s history of racism, which students need to understand to be informed citizens. Banning it is a scare tactic to appeal to a largely white, culturally conservative voter base.

All nothingburgers.

5. Government spending

Right-wing House Republicans are railing against government spending. But rising spending has been driven by Social Security and Medicare (which is to be expected, as boomers retire) and defense.

The biggest reason America’s debt is soaring is George W. Bush’s and Donald Trump’s huge tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy and big corporations — which have already added $8 trillion and $1.7 trillion, respectively, to the debt.

6. More nothingburgers

Meanwhile, House Republicans continue their attacks on university presidents for allegedly failing to impose sufficient discipline on students speaking out about the bloodshed in Gaza.

They’re threatening Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt for not turning over recordings of the interview that led Special Counsel Robert Hur to report that Biden is a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

They launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden that has unsuccessfully sought to prove he profited from his son’s or his brother James’ foreign business deals or that their professional interests influenced Joe Biden’s actions in office.

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Trump and his Republican sycophants want America to focus on these nothingburgers in the months leading up to the 2024 election. They are based on lies, innuendo, and scapegoating.

The real tragedy is America faces huge and growing existential threats that should be the focus of the nation’s attention in the 2024 election. It’s up to Biden and the Democrats to keep them front and center.

NOW READ: The GOP has chosen hell over America — and there should be no coming back from it

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.