What changed in the GOP?

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What was the big catalyst in the GOP's hard-right shift?

Even during W's presidency, we didn't hear about voter suppression, "heartbeat" abortion laws, or bathroom laws.

I think it happened when the emphasis switched from policy to personality -- likely during the Reagan administration.

The legalisation of gay marriage is largely responsible for the GOP's actively anti-trans stances. American Evangelicals are funding anti-trans campaigns around the world, and dressing it up as "women's rights" or even "gay rights".

Donald Trump is responsible for most things. And of course there's the general "death of the centre" as both parties increasingly refuse to compromise. In the case of the Democrats there are still quite a lot of "moderates" in prominent positions but they're largely unwilling to work with the Republicans. On the other hand, the Republican leadership has just become more nationalistic and kooky.

I think you're somewhat underestimating how bad it was before though. Remember Rick Santorum? Newt Gringrich? Mike Huckabee? Ron Paul? Even David Duke? Plenty of prominent wingnuts in the party for a long time.

Like all things, it is based on what came before and we could trace the current state of the republican party to its genesis in the 1850s, but in my opinion a few watershed moments in recent Republican history have turned it into what it is today.

Nixon, Watergate, and hippies
Hippies were the bane of both the democratic and republican administration throughout the 60s and 70s. However, when the watergate scandal broke Nixon became the face of all that was wrong with the previous establishment (both republican and democratic). The next democratic candidate (Jimmy Carter) would be an honest outsider and as the hippies grew up they would get behind the honest outsider.

The Reagan Revival and Becoming the Party of Personal Responsibility
By the party of personal responsibility I am speaking rhetorically, plenty of Republican politicians have behaved irresponsibly. Ronald Reagan revived the Republican Party. How do you position yourself in contrast to Jimmy Carter and the hippie counterculture? By becoming the party that preaches personal responsibility. Just say no to drugs. Don't have abortions. Religious values. Obviously these ideas had momentum before Reagan inside the republican party, but this is when the party really took on its cultural stances.

Newt Gingrinch takes over the house and impeaches Bill Clinton
Ironically in the wake of the MeToo movement there is probably much more support for Bill Clinton's impeachment today than in the 1990s, but at the time it was mostly just a political maneuver. Newt Gingrinch pursued an electoral strategy of getting energetic young staunchly conservative candidates to win and wrest control of conservative districts across the country (many were still in the hands of Democratic incumbents whose party had long since abandoned the ideas). Then to cement status as the party of personal responsibility impeached Bill Clinton for his irresponsible behavior. It is my opinion that this Republican consolidation of conservative voices, and politically motivated impeachment of a sitting president kicked off the nasty era of hyperpartisanship.

Obama rams healthcare through Congress
In the wake of the economic crisis the Democrats had a super majority in the Senate and commanding majority in the house. Despite this health care reform is notoriously difficult legislation to pass, and several Blue Dog democrats held up the affordable health care act. With the death of Ted Kennedy and subsequent special election to take his seat falling to the Republicans, Obama in an act of desperation needed his leadership to come up with an eleventh hour vote to actually get the darn thing passed. The result was the complete removal of Republicans from the process, a sweeping bill that "we have to pass to find out what's in it" and a very bad precedent of majority parties completely bullying minority parties. Whatever you think of healthcare reform, the political process by which it was achieved set some nasty things in motion. The first of which was an immediate and violent backlash from the Republican party and segments of the american population who formed the Tea Party.


Donald Trump BS stands out in crowded field
Most people have forgotten this, but there was a time when most of the republican party was anti-Trump. Trump nearly finished 3rd in Iowa and 70% of the New Hampshire primary voted for someone else. Trump did not win over 50% in a state until well after super Tuesday. What Trump did have was a passionate base, and a heavily divided field. Jeb Bush was handicapped by his family name and being just weak in the early debates but had most of the establishment money. Marco Rubio had broad appeal across the republican party, but could never really establish a base. John Kasich espoused too liberal a philosophy to resonate with mainstream republicans. Thus none of these candidates got enough traction to defeat Trump. Ted Cruz locked down the evangelical right, leaving Trump with a bizarre mix of supporters who were anti-Cruz, anti-establishment, or alt-right. After he won the primary the party consolidated around Trump because he wasn't Hillary Clinton. After his surprise victory the party strongly embraced the cult of Trump "because it wins" ignoring the fact that Rubio, or Kasich proabbly would've beaten Hillary much more handedly than Trump did.

Talk radio emboldened people to have and reenforced views that did not allow for any "Republican in Name Only" people in the party and to view anybody center or left as not just political opponents but as a fifth column.

SCOTUS has had a 5-4 conservative majority since 1991, yet only now people are worried about it now that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are on the bench, despite neither being the most conservative justice. Clarence Thomas is the most conservative justice. (For the records, Sonia Sotomayor is the most liberal justice)

I don’t think Roe or Obergefell are in any danger of being overturned even with the new justices. Chief Justice Roberts has likely taken over Anthony Kennedy’s swing vote role, and he is not interested in overturning either. But people think that overturning is an absolute certainty, a mindset that was rare in 1991 (at least with Roe), when the current conservative-liberal ratio was established.

Nixon's southern strategy worked.

Robert Bork rejected for SCOTUS, not for his qualifications but because his views were regarded as too extreme helping to create a zero-sum mentality.

The Democrats becoming "neoliberal" so for the Republicans to distinguish themselves had to be more right wing.

The Great Recession and the ensuing bailouts made the base more angry and uncompromising.

These factors also played a part in the change from liberal to woke left.

I don't think the majority of the Republican establishment is "hard right". The "Freedom Caucus" is a very small group in comparison to the rest of the establishment GOP. When I think Establishment GOP, I think Mitt Romney who is hardly "far right".

Establishment GOP is on a short leash held by the establishment proper. How do we know this? Dubya. Was there venom spitting outrage prior to his inauguration, every second during his presidency and after? No. He was establishment. If Romney would have won against Obama, would there have been 24/7 vitriol? No. He's establishment. Dubya, Romney et al and most of the GOP are part of and led by the establishment.

Trump is an outsider. He was not and is not part of the Political Establishment proper. He's the biggest threat to "the machine" in this lifetime.

While I'm not a fan of Trump, I consider the political establishment, both sides (two sides of the same coin) as low as the bowels of hell.

GOP has been increasingly worse since the 80s-90s. I think a lot of it is due to the prevalence of right wing talk radio like rush limbaugh rising in the 80s and 90s and the removal of the fairness doctrine that led to the right developing more and more of an echo chamber.

Combine this with the GOP taking over congress in 1994 and newt gingrich's contract with america and how they pushed the democrats and went scorched earth against them.

This started the decline of the GOP morally and factually and they became more extreme and insulated in their alternate facts. And since the failure of the bush administration, they're getting far worse. The tea party arose to push for a sense of purity and to get the GOP back to its roots, but then you gotta realize, maybe those roots have issues. They became fundamentalist on social issues despite it causing harm to people and fundamentalist on economic issues during a recession, where people were hurting, causing them to be out of touch.

I would say that's the real break. I mean arguably the GOP has been increasingly out of touch for decades, but the tea party's scorched earth tactics and moral purity during the obama administration was a really...special kind of toxicity.

Anyway i think the democrats had the opportunity to be moral leaders in the face of that kind of abuse, but instead they backed down and tried to compromise and were weak. And I think clinton was a weak candidate. This is how trump got in. While trump has a sizeable loyal voter base, he can't win based on that. it really required the democrats alienating people within their own party that led to the rise of trump.

As far as why trump in particular among the GOP....I think even the party knows that the tea party people are out of it. And they saw trump as a less heterodox and more populist alternative who stoked fears of immigration and promised to make america great again. This was a stark alternative to the pure "small government" message of the GOP causing him to win over a strong plurality of the GOP, and against a candidate with little vision like HRC, he managed to win the general.

And yeah, that's my account of it. It's been a slow descent into madness for the last 30-40 years.

Personally I believe it's karma.