There's a very primtive brain function that reacts to 'us' and 'them the enemy'.
Republican propagandists often tap into it. It's that simple.
The Republican Party has an agenda that wouldn't hold up too well in public. It's pretty much to oppose the US revolution that overthrew corrupt concentration of power and wealth and give the people democracy, by doing so within the constraints of democracy, using the available tools: making big money donations only they have a crucial part of the system, using propaganda to get voters to vote for them using whatever slogans work, etc.
So you see the Republicans always, always using the 'enemy' argument, whether it was saying FDR would doom the nation, or that the government was infiltrated by communists who wanted to overthrow the country, or that JFK was far too liberal and unable to protect the nation as it needed, the 'commie' and 'socialist' stuff has been abused by them as an attack as long as the words have existed. Other variations include the Willie Horton 'soft on crime' type themes, the implication that Republicans are better religiously, and others.
In my view, these propaganda campaigns are insidious - they work on a very irrational level so that the people who fall for them become highly, irrationally biased against the 'enemy', not for rational policy differences, but almost in a programmed manner, where they view everything 'the enemy' does with great animosity and suspicion, and give great latitude to 'their side' because anything they do wrong is small compare the importance of 'beating the enemy'.
You see this for example when Obama rolls out a tax cut plan saying he'll cut taxes for 95% of Americans more than his opponent, and the righties instead of saying they agree with that, attack it - saying 'you can't trust him' or 'it's trying to buy votes' (without noting the hypocrisy they don't say that about their side doing it) or simply ignoring the facts and declaring him the bigger taxer whateve his policy.
It's a poisonous culture in which democracy cannot function as needed rationally - merely in the mechanics of the propaganda victims voting for their side.
But it does help a side with a bad agenda to be electable, as they run on the flag and the work ethic and honesty in government and fiscal restraint and puppy dogs.
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