There's a simple reason why Republicans default to the culture wars. It is because it doesn't cost their donor class any money.

If Republicans pass laws banning transgender people from bathrooms, that doesn't hurt the Koch brothers, it doesn't hurt Sheldon Adelson, it doesn't affect them at all.

If the Republicans pass legislation saying that Muslims can't run for political office, unless there's a Muslim right-wing billionaire out there it doesn't affect them.

And that's why Republicans attack gay people and the whole spectrum of LGBT, they attack people of color, they attack people whose first language isn't English, they attack immigrants, because none of those attacks cost the donor class of the Republican Party a single penny.

The Republicans will never ever speak out against pollution because the donor class is making money on that, against guns because the donor class is making money on that, against the obscene profits the pharmaceutical industry is making because the Republican donor class is making money off that.

Many industries are making obscene profits as a consequence of the extraordinary expansion of our trademark and copyright laws, largely at the behest of companies like Disney and Microsoft, so that those companies have these government-granted monopolies that last for centuries in some cases, decades certainly.

The Republicans will never talk about any of those things because those are the things that affect their donor class but they will enthusiastically kick around people of color.

The good news here is that the Republicans went all-in on Trump's racism over the last three weeks in Virginia. Ed Gillespie, everybody thought it was going to be a neck-and-neck race.

Ed Gillespie went in full racism in the last couple weeks of this election and it looks like it actually hurt his numbers, and when the Republicans figure that out then the donor class will start being concerned about race.

The billionaire class will get that they can't just rely on the votes of white people anymore.