Have republicans only lost their minds in the Trump era?

[madaboutharry]

Or have they always been this full of hate?

Maybe the crazy shit we now see, all the hatefulness and bigotry, is who they have always been.

It makes me so sad. It has caused me to lose all trust in people.

[sakabatou]

1. No, it started before him, but their minds completely went bonkers with Trump

[Skittles]

2. they started truly losing it when a black man became president

they have greatly deteriorated ever since....

[In It to Win It]

3. Yup.

They went absolutely rabid under Obama.

Then Trump made it more publicly acceptable to be more of a dick than they already were.

[Skittles]

4. then they made the mistake of thinking they are the MAJORITY view

they ARE NOT!

[DET]

5. I Just Don't Get It

My impression is that a number of Republicans were enthusiastic for and voted for Obama in 2008 - at least enough to get him elected. Obama was a very good, middle of the road President (who could have been great if he had stood up to the wingnuts and prosecuted the opportunists from the Iraq war). Obama was attractive, extremely personable, and had a great sense of humor (plus he was obviously highly intelligent and very well educated). Clearly, there are some people who are just flat out racists, but I’ve never understood what happened to turn ‘sane’ Republicans against Obama - or against sanity itself.

[Skittles]

8. your memory is different than mine

I don't remember any repuke "enthusiastically" voting for Obama

but hell, at least a black man could become prez - but a woman? *NOT SO MUCH*

[ProfessorGAC]

13. I Agree With Skittles

I think a lot of R leaning independents may have enthusiastically voted for Obama, but I doubt that many Rs filled in the oval for him.

[betsuni]

9. The Republican Party was deeply unpopular for destroying the economy and wars (as it was after

the Nixon administration scandals). Why more people began identifying as independents in the last couple years of the Bush administration, I think. Embarrassing to admit you're a Republican after such incompetence.

McCain was too nice and refused to go very negative against Obama besides calling him a celebrity, wasn't anti-immigration or anti-trade or anti-Muslim, not hateful and populist. At the time white people were about equality divided between the two parties. Any Democrat would've won that election because of the Depression-panic of the economy. Wasn't about the candidate.

[old as dirt]

6. This goes back 5 centuries here in America. (nt)

[madaboutharry]

7. I know.

It seems like we haven’t evolved at all.

[old as dirt]

17. Note the repeated references to refugees, which Steve King's sidekick rode to the White House.

I've bolded the references to refugees.

San Basilio de Palenque

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Basilio_de_Palenque

San Basilio de Palenque or Palenque de San Basilio, often referred to by the locals simply as Palenke, is a Palenque village and corregimiento in the Municipality of Mahates, Bolivar in northern Colombia. Palenque was the first free African town in the Americas, and in 2005 was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.[1]

History

Spaniards introduced enslaved Africans in South America through the Magdalena River Valley. Its mouth is close to the important port of Cartagena de Indias where ships full of Africans arrived. Some Africans escaped and set up Palenque de San Basilio, a town close to Cartagena. This community began in 1619, when Domingo Biohó led a group of about 30 runaways into the forests, and defeated attempts to subdue them. Biohó declared himself King Benkos, and his palenque of San Basilio attracted large numbers of runaways to join his community. His Maroons defeated the first expedition sent against them, killing their leader Juan Gómez. The Spanish arrived at terms with Biohó, but later they captured him, accused him of plotting against the Spanish, and had him hanged.[2]

They tried to free all enslaved Africans arriving at Cartagena and were quite successful. Therefore, the Spanish Crown issued a Royal Decree (1691), guaranteeing freedom to the Palenque de San Basilio Africans if they stopped welcoming new escapees. But runaways continued to escape to freedom in San Basilio. In 1696, the colonial authorities subdued another rebellion there, and between 1713-7. Eventually, the Spanish agreed to peace terms with the palenque of San Basilio, and in 1772, this community of maroons was included within the Mahates district, as long they no longer accepted any further runaways

[True Dough]

10. I've seen quite a few

videos posted here on the DU over the past month or two showing Republican primary debates from the 1980s and the candidates at least sound civilized on topics of immigration, abortion and the rights of minorities.

Maybe they just hid their true feelings better back then.

But news also emerged the other day about a Republican plot to undermine Jimmy Carter by persuading Iran not to release American hostages before the 1980 election. That was really scummy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/20/jimmy-carter-republican-sabotage-iran-hostage-john-connally

And, of course, Nixon was a sleazebag.

But Trump is far worse than any of that.

[Meowmee]

11. I think it was always there in larger numbers than most care to admit

The fascism, but it was given freedom to be publicly expressed in a way it had not been before. After the psycho was installed in office, really before that, with Comey’s announcement, we became a police state, and it was anything goes. With norms and laws broken every step of the way, and people were too cowardly to stop it. Fascists who voted to overturn a valid election are now running the house.

[B.See]

12. I agree that they came out of the closet with Trump, but...

... their propensity for evil (like others here said) started way before him.

In fact there was an interesting article about this that appeared yesterday on rawstory.com and dailykos.com.

Here's a link:

America has ignored GOP crimes for long enough — it’s time to put Trump in prison - Raw Story

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Remember "Welfare Queens In Cadillacs"?

That was 43 years ago.
It was a racist dogwhistle then, and still is.
The difference seems more the openness of their hate of "others".

[Mr. Sparkle]

15. The op presumes that they had a mind to lose, in the first place

what they have lost is their discipline to hide their hate , who they really are and that what we have long suspected.

[Whiskeytide]

16. I think we tend to forget that Тяцмp changed the ...

… demographics of the Republican Party.

Every post in reply to your OP is an accurate contributing factor to what happened. But I think one of the biggest contributing factors was the record setting new voter registrations of people previously disengaged from politics. They were out there, but we didn’t see them well because they distrusted government and refused to participate in the election process. Тяцмp‘S overt racism activated these people, and they registered and got involved.

Now, they won’t go away.