That’s exactly what it is, but no Republican is ever, ever going to admit that. Not even “former Republicans”. Not Steve Schmidt, not Joe Scarborough, not Jeff Flake, certainly not John McCain. Trumpism is a direct, linear outgrowth of the last 30-40 years of Republicanism.
Lee Atwater, Republican operative who ran Bush I’s campaign, complete with the Willie Horton ad:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
“And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.”’
He said that in 1981. Thirty-seven years ago. The quote (although reproduced in many places) is from Bob Herbert’s 2005 NYT column “Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant.” Herbert was discussing the then-recent quote from Bill Bennett that “I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could – if that were your sole purpose – you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”
This is the modern Republican Party. It’s been this way since the Southern Strategy was imagined and implemented. A toxic mix of racism, misogyny, religious fundamentalism, jingoism, and supply-side/Laffer voodoo, all in the service of further enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor.
The rot goes back to Nixon. At least. No Republican, and probably no former Republican (at least not the recent defectors) is ever, ever going to face that.