Was Reagan a Precursor to Trump? A New Documentary Says Yes

[Hortensis]

26. The GOP's self-degradation started with the nation shifting

more conservative (the mood of the times) and giving Republicans more power because we could no long act as a sufficient check on their more extreme tendencies. As the dominant party, the power tables were turned.

I watched it start with Reagan. The meanness and pivot from growing general prosperity to shrinking it. Mildly aggressive comments at gatherings, like "you're naive," became more common as they became emboldened. And then, as the party leadership became more extreme and ruthless toward the 1990s they turned to overtly hostile lies meant to deepen divisions and harden antagonistic opposition, progressing in this century to the current intense demonizing meant to incite hatred and violence.

So, I believe yes, since late 1970s/1980 a long, increasingly anti-democracy slide that hasn't hit bottom yet. But Reagan wasn't a cause, he was a manifestation of Americans in general tiring of the half-century-long liberal New Deal era and turning to the conservative Republican Party for new solutions.

Also during this period was at least a quadrupling of national wealth, which was channeled into the creation of new centimillionaire and billionaire classes and the creation of a giant new tool for mass manipulation, the internet.