The success of the GOP rests on a number of things.
First, of course, is racism, which has been a foundational characteristic of the GOP since 1968.
After that, we have cheating, mainly in the form of voter suppression, but including voting machine hacks and ballot box tampering.
After that, and related to the racism component, the GOP has crafted a narrative since 1968 that white people, especially rural white people, are under attack by the forces of liberalism.
Under this narrative, anything that does not only benefit white people is an attack on white people.
Jobs programs, poverty programs, and other State and Federal programs that are actually directed at helping poor people in general are seen by GOP voters as actually helping only minorities.
A subset of this belief is when white people will tell others that they get nothing from the Government.
Many times, these white people are Social Security and Medicare recipients, and they might also receive other Government benefits, but they have convinced themselves that they get nothing for their tax dollars.
And Trump supporting farmers see the welfare that they receive as anything but welfare, because in the GOP myth white people never get welfare.
So all of this supports the "white people as victims" narrative that the GOP loves to cultivate.
Last, but also foundational, since the 1960s the far right has been buying up the US media and establishing what they call research institutes to promote their myth and their political agenda. In spite of the fact that 90% of the US media is owned by 6 large corporations, GOP voters are convinced that media outlets are controlled by the liberals.
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