The gist of it is the "religious right" got in bed with all the big money/exploit-the-world old white men. Then, messaging to voters becomes "I LOVE GOD!" inst

The gist of it is the "religious right" got in bed with all the big money/exploit-the-world old white men. Then, messaging to voters becomes "I LOVE GOD!" instead of "All your money flows up to me." The "poor people vote republican" line of thought follows from people believing poorer/more-religious people vote only on religion above all else without regard for how much their representatives also want to exploit/maim/kill/cancer them. Recent evidence doesn't entirely support that conclusion, but it makes for a convenient story. What we end up with is the representatives not keeping up to date with reality. The reps stay "god god god religion god god jesus" while the world drifted more to "Uh, actually everything is pretty okay. Just stay out of our way." You can see that effect in southern "we hate all the gays" politicians while most real people don't want oppression/repression/persecution of them at all. But—to get your way—all you have to do is scaretivate (scare+motivate) a small vocal base into voting for your overton candidate. (See: 2004 GWB election where "kill the gays" was set as a constitutional amendment in a dozen states along with "Vote for GWB!" — Drag the crazies out to vote for their delusional pet social bigot issue while also catapulting your candidate pet back to victory (well, victory against a droning sedated sloth, but victory nonetheless))