Comment by antonvs
3 months ago
Much of what we're dealing with now has been in the works since at least around 1950. The Southern Strategy is well-documented, for example. The party's position on restricting voting has been consistent over the years.
Reagan's opposition to social programs (demonizing "welfare queens") and outright racism was a big part of why he was elected. (Reagan quote from the Nixon recordings: "To see those monkeys from those African countries. Damn them. They're still uncomfortable wearing shoes.")
It wasn't a coincidence that Reagan began his presidential campaign where civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, with the cooperation of local law enforcement.
That is what is at the heart of the Republican Party, and has been for at least 75 years. There are many other examples of this kind of thing.
What you're describing from a couple of decades ago was essentially a facade, a mask. What's changed in recent years is that the mask has come off - as members of the party feel increasingly threatened by people who they see as unlike themselves, they can no longer afford the pretense of respectability.
The idea that your opponents were merely masking themselves is simply a way of pillorying them. And both sides do it to each other: the right accuses the left of only pretend to care about the poor. And it's wrong, no matter whether the left or the right is doing it.