When and how did it happen?

[-misanthroptimist]

8. Like going broke it started slowly, then fast

It probably began in earnest when the New Deal put the mega-rich into a tizzy. They even tried for a coup in the 1930s. That failed but they continued working and plotting.

Then in the 1950s, we went about countering Communism in just about the stupidest way possible.

Add into that the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s which cost the Democrats the "Solid South". Hey, at least the Democratic Party got rid of almost all of their racists.

Additionally, faux-patriots were outraged by our loss in Vietnam.

The Women's Movement outraged another group of barbarians.

In the 1980s, Reaganism (which primarily appeared due to economic issues that were beyond any President's control) took hold. Televangelists also became popular, roping in people who needed a Biblical reason to continue hating those around them.

In the 1990s - 2000s, the internet became a thing. Right-wingers were getting destroyed in debates, what with facts and reality having their well-known liberal bias. This made the anti-American faux-patriots even angrier and led them to just give up on facts for the most part. They began using isolated facts out of context to "support" their arguments, or they just made things up. They discovered that this worked due to the fact that the net allowed their BS to spread around the world at a high rate of speed. So, they just started lying non-stop, knowing that they could just move onto the next lie while the previous one was still being countered by those that had read a book or could think critically.

But the cherry on top was that America elected a...a...a black man President!! Even their lies didn't prevent it. All of their hard work to undermine liberal democracy was at stake.

It got even worse when Democrats nominated a...a...a woman for President! This could not be tolerated by the right wing and allowed them to bring whatever misogynists and chauvinists hadn't already signed onto their movement.

That's the bullet points. Of course, the whole thing start-to-finish descended from the fact that Union didn't hold the leaders of the Confederacy accountable nor the States that joined the Confederacy. Had the South been dealt with properly at the conclusion of the Civil War, little of the above would have happened. Now, we likely have to do the whole thing over again.