The Republican Party is moving in a very dark direction, and has been for years now.
Decades.
It's really hard to put a starting date on it. I think of it as beginning in the 1990s. But that's a follow-in from the late 60s, when civil rights caused the re-orientation of the parties. And before that, the anti-communist movement which upset the post-Civil War alignment.
Regardless... I have memories of the 80s and early 90s when it felt competitive and rude but not utterly hopeless. Since then it has seemed to me that it has grown monotonically worse -- and I see no reason to think that the direction is going to change.
> It's really hard to put a starting date on it. I think of it as beginning in the 1990s. But that's a follow-in from the late 60s, when civil rights caused the re-orientation of the parties.
Pretty much nailed it: the 1990s is when the new partisan alignment had pretty much shaken out, the 1960s and particularly the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was the trigger for the second part of the double realignment leading to that new alignment from the one that had held basically from Reconstruction; the first trifger starting with the Great Depression and more specifically Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition.
It started with George Bush senior. He basically undid the optimistic conservatism of Reagan (small government, favor individual liberty, Constitutional originalism...), and reverted to his own just-play-to-win style that gave us Dick Cheney and Neoconservatism.
Trump's populist tribalism stuck the knife into the conservative movement. The heart's still beating, but it's faint.
Decades.
It's really hard to put a starting date on it. I think of it as beginning in the 1990s. But that's a follow-in from the late 60s, when civil rights caused the re-orientation of the parties. And before that, the anti-communist movement which upset the post-Civil War alignment.
Regardless... I have memories of the 80s and early 90s when it felt competitive and rude but not utterly hopeless. Since then it has seemed to me that it has grown monotonically worse -- and I see no reason to think that the direction is going to change.