Republicans like Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and even Sarah Palin had pushed the party’s Overton Window and created a lane that allowed for Trump’s impossibilities to occur.

In the 1960s, Goldwater founded a strictly conservative movement within the party, intending to combat the then-dominant socially progressive Democrats and the increasingly liberal zeitgeist.

Goldwater tried to address a heterogeneous group of voters, and ushered in a significant shift to the right which today, as the debacle of the speaker election showed, is breaking the party’s unity.

The Southern Strategy, which subsequently became prominent under Richard Nixon, attempted to reach the white voters in the southern states who had traditionally voted for the Democrats but were now dissatisfied with their civil rights policies.

The party’s move to the right thus took concrete form and paved the way for the “Reagan Revolution”, which would have a lasting impact on the party’s future.

Reagan and his maxims of small government, law and order, and peace through strength, achieved landslide victories in 1980 and 1984. He made use of a political strategy that is now the sine qua non of MAGA Republicans, namely a combination of Christian-conservative social policy and a neoliberal economic policy, also known as Reaganomics – that is, lowering taxes for top earners and making cuts in social spending.

The link between Reagan and the party’s status quo today can be found in the 1990s. Two overarching factors in the aftermath of the Reagan presidency made it possible for the party to radicalise itself.

First, with the 1994 congressional elections under new speaker Newt Gingrich, bipartisan policymaking became a thing of the past. Suddenly, social meetings with colleagues from the other party were increasingly frowned upon and compromises were considered treason, as Gingrich spoke of Democrats as “enemies” – an approach that has prevailed up to today.

Second, in 1996, the Fox News television channel was founded, which is now almost the only source of information for many Republicans. Today, moderators like Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham have more influence than many politicians.

After a phase of national cooperation in the wake of 9/11, the subsequent surge in radicalisation arrived with the Tea Party.”. Frustrated by the Obama administration’s new financial regulations, Republicans like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann were the faces of a coalition that sought to appeal to white working-class voters who felt left behind.

Today, the Republican Party has strayed so far from its classic political goals – such as fiscal responsibility, individual freedom and global leadership in the name of liberal democratic values – that there would hardly be a place for a conservative icon like Reagan.

Instead, the party has become a reservoir of different, even extreme groups, most of which care only about their office, rather than policies or legislation. In the age of non-stop fundraising, election cycles and social media, unity, the good of the country and the party have become an afterthought – evidenced in the brutality of the debacle surrounding the speaker election.

And even though McCarthy finally made it across the finish line, the Republican Party is, in all likelihood, facing a fundamental split and will struggle to recover internally. McCarthy has paid dearly for the votes necessary to become speaker.

The extreme elements, the aforementioned individuals, will no longer be members of the House. Some received commitments to be on the rules panel, which usually sets the terms of debates in the House. Others will receive committee chairs. Moreover, the hostage situation the world witnessed is far from over. McCarthy was forced to restore the ability of a single member to call for a no-confidence vote in the speaker.

Democracies have work to do to deserve their good name

The radicals hold power now and will continue to push the envelope of what is democratically acceptable. The Republican Party won’t be able to get this genie back in the bottle, and it will soon make US politics unrecognisable. McCarthy might be the House speaker but, right now, it’s the worst job in all of Washington.

Thomas O. Falk is a UK-based independent journalist and political analyst