Fear is at the core of the political divide, e.g., the attack on democracy. Republicans are clinging – with oppression, suppression, deceit, violence, insurrection, and every other nondemocratic means – to what America has been (a mostly white, Christian, and heavily rural nation) to what it is inexorably becoming: urbanized and racially and religiously diverse.

For example:

although two-thirds of Republicans say abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances, 70 percent of all other Americans say it should remain legal in all or most cases. While a 55 percent majority of Republicans say small-business owners should be permitted to deny service to same-sex couples on religious grounds, almost three-fourths of everyone else disagrees. And while about three-fourths of Republicans say discrimination against white people is now as big a problem as bias against Black people, more than two-thirds of everyone else rejects that idea.

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic