The modern conservative movement that grew out of the Goldwater campaign in 1964 understood that the country was changing and that they could benefit from the cultural backlash that ensued. But they always knew they were playing with fire with their appeals to white nationalism and southern Lost Cause mythology as well _ they just thought they could control it. For a long time, they managed to more or less keep a lid on their crazies.
By the time George W. Bush ran in 2000, the GOP establishment had largely outsourced their coarsest rhetoric to the hugely popular talk radio and congressional show-boaters so they could run the presidential campaign as "compassionate conservatives" and pretend that their base wasn't anything but either. They knew they were barely keeping the extremist genie in the bottle but they just stayed with the program. If all those years had taught them anything, it was that the Republican base was active and engaged when they were angry and resentful. But with the new media coming into its own and the radical right-wing feeling their power, it was only a matter of time before the base took things into their own hands. The election of the first Black president broke it all wide open. And when that wild genie burst out of the bottle, the establishment pretty much gave up the ghost.
There's no need to recite all the ways in which Trump made everything worse. We've all lived it. The most obvious example is the January 6th insurrection but there is so much more going on. From the moment armed militants stormed state capitols to protest lockdowns and mask-wearing during the early months of the pandemic, members of the Republican base have been acting like a bunch of thugs, threatening politicians, non-partisan election officials, health care workers, airline employees, parents, teachers, store clerks, waiters and anyone else they come in contact with who follow the pandemic protocols.
excerpt from The economic cost of Republican tantrums: GOP customers are chasing workers out of their jobs
Over the years when Democrats promised to revive the economy after a Republican government ran it into the ground, as often happens, the GOP sets about sabotaging that recovery and then excoriates the Democrats for failing to live up to their promises. It's a cynical trick but falls into the realm of hardball politics. What we are seeing now with the unleashing of the right-wing beast, the economic fallout is very different.