text: From the view of the political historians, your analysis is just a bit lacking.  From those writings, it is clear that the GOP began it's slide into the "party of No" during the Reagan administration, that deliberately courted and aligned itself with the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition.  It grew from there, resulting in groups like the Tea Party and then the politics of Trump, Cruz, and Christie.  As you stated, the wish to become the majority party became an obsession, and the GOP adopted a "whatever-it-takes" methodology which has steadily unleashed the worst political maneuvers ever known in US history.  There was a TOTAL erosion of traditional Republicanism, to the point where every moderate Republican has left (been pushed out of) the GOP.  What is left is the most radical ones who, actually, don't even resemble the party of Reagan.  All that was of a working political party there is long, long gone.  It is imploding now to crash and burn.  What will follow?