I’m pretty sure they always have been. IIRC you’ll find op-Ed’s praising Hitler and Germany leading up to WW2.

They also deliberately slandered the guy that broke the (CIA admitting cocaine from Nicaragua into the US to fund right wing militias) story that often gets told as “the CIA introduced crack into black communities”. They effectively discredited the story, which turned out to be true.

The Behind the Bastards episode on it is p good

Yeah, the delusion is only growing. I saw a woman involved in a state Republican Party post that she “saw through Newsmax’s liberal bullshit” and that while her husband still likes them she “knew the truth”.

We’ve far surpassed dangerous levels of delusion.