A half century ago RW millionaires set out to move the nation farther right using new techniques developed by advertisers,which have become far more sophisticated and powerful since. The internet, supposed to free us, has been an enormous tool for subverting and corrupting people's beliefs and weaponizing whole populations.
And that's only one technique of corrupting our nation. They've also infiltrated hard-right, and eventually extremist, ideology into colleges and universities through donations, and then placed those grads into positions of influence in virtually every field, media, government service, law, media, business, law, media, etc.
Bottom line, conservative weaknesses have been manipulated to turn them into the worst political versions of themselves, and these days they're given only bad candidates to elect to be bad leaders who'll lead them further over the cliff.
They're naturally our most dependable followers, though, and under good conservative leadership they could be better, more normal versions of themselves. Good conservative leaders have been purged from their national party, though, and those of many red states.