The Republican party has always been evil and the party of big taxes for the rich. They don’t care about anybody or anything but money for the few.
I think this is not really the case. I think there was a struggle for the soul of the party over the last 60 years, a struggle between the Rockefeller Republicans (i.e. RINOs) and the conservatives like Reagan. In the 80s Reagan ascended and I'd say the GOP was overall conservative with a 5th column of RINOs (led by "New World Order" Bush) and after Reagan left office the Bush wing took total control and purged the conservatives. That's when the GOP became a fake party that only pretends to be conservative to fool the people into thinking they have representation.
That's when the republic started to fail.