Trump did not change the Republican party

Hell, he wasn't even the first time they rioted after losing an election. That happened in 2000, when paid republican operatives disrupted the recount that would have confirmed al gore as president long enough for the supreme court to step in and award the state (and, therefore, the presidency) to dubya without counting the votes at all. Google 'brooks brothers riot', several Republican staffers openly acknowledge that they were there to use violence in order to stop the votes from being counted despite initial claims that they were only there to observe the process and ensure that it was fair. This includes congressman John Sweeney, who said "What I essential told my people was 'You've got to stop them.'" Trump thought he could get away with this because Bush already had gotten away with it. They even planned copycat riots in Arizona and Nevada in 2020 because it worked the first time.

In the last 30 years Republicans have won the presidency 3 times despite having only gotten more votes than the other guy once. They have had two riots after elections, one of which successfully delayed counting votes long enough for the Republican to be installed as president, and one which failed to delay certification long enough to install the Republican. They are against democracy and in favor of violence. They consistently act with those values in mind. They are enemies of democracy and freedom.

Absolutely based post. I've recognized what they truly were 20 years ago. There is a slight distinction - the republican party always had 4 stools (people used to say three stools but I never agreed).

First stool is the wealthy just wanting to make more money (tax cuts, tax welfare, regulation capture, etc). This is the true stool in power pulling the strings of all the other stools. They know they can never win a popular vote (why would the workers vote to lower their own wages?). They ride the Santa sled with the big bag of money, the reigns are connected to the lesser stools, and they ride that sled into the bank

Second stool is the religious vote - really captured by Reagan I believe with the invention of the abortion issue, but they go as far back as Goldwater I believe, because he warned about them. These are the reindeer of the money sled

Third stool is the racists, the KKK types in the south. These are also the reindeer

Fourth stool is what I consider the conspiracy theory crowd - they sort of share the stool with the uneducated morons who can't seem to figure out what their best interests are ("get gobernment off my Medicare, vote republican"). This stool might fall under the "undecided" crowd by some metrics, but they fall victim to the usual right wing lies and propaganda all the fucking time, so I don't see why we can't just label them as they truly are, the useful idiot voters of the republican propaganda arm

As a whole, these groups are the same pieces of shit that love Trump because he's talks to them with a bullhorn, not through dog whistles like previous republicans, that's the difference some of you might not appreciate

Edit - one distinction I think is needed is the people who fell for the dog whistles were usually of the authoritarian/fascist type. For example, There were pretty decent religious people or business people who felt the wrong message was being presented by the republican party, but the authoritarians/fascists always fell in line behind the republicans/conservatives. Still the case today

He killed their euphemisms

Yeah, I feel like the Republican Party has evolved (or devolved) into what they are now, but it’s not like they hadn’t already been moving in this direction anyways, he accelerated it if anything. Trump took advantage of a Party that wanted a “strongman”, he brought the racism, billionaire businessman background, toxic masculinity and performances you might normally see in wrestling back room drama or talk radio, and a feigned devotion to the Church (that was probably his weakest trait, thus Mike Pence). He brought together a lot of elements of the Republican Party that were already all there, just not really ever focused in one person with such a shitty moral compass and motivation to take advantage of the GOP. Pre-Trump, the GOP has mostly had boring business people like George Bush, Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, and Newt Gingrich and others, nobody really “inspiring” to them like Ronald Reagan.

I... I think you both are mostly saying the same thing. Just OP considers the "mask removal" a pretty big event (which I would agree with - we likely wouldn't have gotten such extremist behavior with the alt-right if they hadn't felt empowered by their figurehead).

They don't seem to be defending pre-Trump republicanism - just saying that Trump caused a lot of really bad party puzzle pieces to fall into place, and effectively caused the party to implode, which IS shown by infighting, their abysmal midterm results (relative to how everyone expected them to perform), their inability to get on the same page with literally anything and, most of all, their donor money running dry