The vulnerability of FPTP drives these tactics.

One by-product of polarisation is that, at the margins, it is a statistical certainty that some of the people targeted will engage in racial or religious discrimination, are far more prone to bigotry and dog-whistle messages, and some will commit violence.
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The proliferation of racial violence, Islamophobia, and mass killings, particularly by young men with guns, is exacerbated by these campaigns.

The increase in this kind of violence comes at a time when there has been a 40%, 25 year reduction in violent crimes of all kinds.  That is how potent these campaigns are.
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But the people who run the campaigns are not troubled by those deaths.
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They only care about winning.
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These campaigns have resulted in hundreds of additional deaths over the last 25 years.
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Polarisation has been the knowing and deliberate strategy of The Republican Party, and its Conservative subsidiaries for the last 25 years.
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They own those deaths.