It’s actually more involved than that.

My dad, red-blooded every-thing Democra- hating (including now, seeming, Democracy itself) Goldwater Republican has said that Dems are owed payback going all the way back to Nixon. This opened my eyes on a lot of things.

• Nixon literally set up lists of political enemies and went outside the law in order to win an election. Dems cried foul. Republicans said “Deal with it B).” Dems brought Impeachment charges. The tide turned, quickly, against Nixon, to the point Republicans started feeling heat in their districts and told Nixon if he didn’t step down, they’d be forced to convict. Still, they thought Dems crying foul over the dirty tricks in Watergate and getting Nixon removed was a horrible sin against America and started holding a grudge. Chalk up the first GQP Rage Point.
• They really couldn’t get anything on Carter, but they sure tried hard to sabotage his administration, and they were successful thanks to a slew of situations Carter couldn’t manage effectively. They got 8 years of Reagan and 4 of Bush-41 before they’d get their next change to ‘pay the Dems back’ for Nixon.
• Clinton was HOUNDED from day one of his administration. No stone was left unturned in the GOP’s hunt for something…ANYTHING…to hold against Clinton. They found what they were looking for in a stained blue dress. The impeachment was supposed to be payback for the impeachment of Nixon, but…well, they couldn’t convince the 11 Democrats they needed to convince in the 55R/45D senate. In fact, they would have needed an extra 5 votes for Obstruction and an extra 10 for Perjury, because they couldn’t get all 55 of their votes! So, now the angry Righties had TWO injustices to pay the Democrats back for, and thus two Rage Points.
• Bush-43 shat the bed so hard, the hoped for Republican dynasty died in the crib. 50 years hoped for. Only 6 realised. Mostly because Bush was a complete buffoon who is now the SECOND worst POTUS in my lifetime (Nixon was before my time).
• Obama was hounded much the same as Carter and Clinton before him. Like Carter, he didn’t have much to really fault him on. He was a competent administrator who didn’t have the scent of corruption about him, let alone actual corruption to prosecute, but that sure didn’t stop the GQP from trying. They now had TWO things to pay Dems back for, plus the stain on their legacy to erase, plus the guy was half-Black, which pissed the GQP off even more! Proving that Impeachment is a political tool, Burgess of Texas called for Obama’s Impeachment for no other purpose than to stop Obama from “pushing his agenda.” But despite their numerous probes into ways to get Obama out of office, they couldn’t get enough traction even when they controlled the house, and Obama sailed through his 8 years untouched. Another injustice in the GQP playbook, so now three rage points boiling over.
• The Dems nominated someone that I’m sure they WOULD have found justification to impeach her, at least tangentially through her husband, and America, not wanting to have another 4 years of Clinton, AND not aware of how bad Trump really was, picked the Reality TV Show host with a heaping side of Mussolini-style Fascism despite all the warnings against doing that by literally everyone who paid attention. The utter shitshow display of corrupt incompetence was everything the GQP accused the Left of being, and so it was only a matter of time before the shithead was impeached. And impeached he was. Twice. He was not removed because the GQP was in full payback mode by now, and now the GQP has built up a boiling pot filled with five rage points.
• What couldn’t be done through the GQP was accomplished by 81 million votes, and now Biden is in office. That’s SIX ‘crimes’ for the GQP to rage about. And boy are they hunting. But with a scant 4 vote lead in the House, and 18 Reps in districts also won by Biden, AND the fact that voters are kicking the GQP in the teeth even in deep red states like Ohio over Roe, there’s a lot of reality intruding into this, meaning that by the end of Biden’s first term, the GQP rage count will now be up to 7. It’ll increase to 8 if Biden wins 2024, and even more if they try to push an Impeachment and fail.

Needless to say, the GQP is beyond angry that they haven’t paid Dems back for Nixon in 40 years. Team Blue has its grievances as well, but unlike Team Red, we’re not planning the mass murder of their politicans and voters. They ARE for us, and I’m not sure how many more rage points they can rack up before they start putting that plan in practice.