Today's Republican party is an agitated, schizophrenic admixture of 2 ideologies: (1) an oligarchic faction with its own golden rule ("he who has the gold rules" ) and (2) an extreme libertarian near-anarchic ideology (""I am free to do anything I want to regardless of the consequences" ) Neither provides a rational basis for productive civil order. But together they provide a basis for political and social chaos.
Number two, is the bait to keep those who are not oligarchs, voting for those who are.
While keeping their attention fixated on the nearly none existent socialist menace, keeps them for noticing that the gold is coming out of their own pockets.
While using schools and churches, to stifle real education, stops them developing the mental self sufficiency real education brings, and keeps them digging the gold out of their pockets to buy consumer goods from the oligarchs, in the hopes they will fill the void within.
Makes perfect sense really.