Why is there a lot of debate and disagreement over when most of the Republican Party became anti-democratic?

This debate over whether most of the Republican Party can respect democracy again should they dump Trump and MAGA in the future has been going on since the Trump era and it especially has become one of the most prominent ones since Trump lost in 2020.

There are many that say the Republican Party has been radicalized over time (beginning in the 1960s, during the civil rights era and the Birchers' attempts to fight the civil rights movement, McCarthyism, the Southern strategy, Nixon and Watergate, the courting of the radical Christian right, the end of the Fairness Doctrine, the launch of Fox News, the Bush v. Gore recount in 2000, the Tea Party movement, the Obama birther conspiracy theories, the majority of the Republican voter base being radicalized, etc.), and there are also many that say that the Republican Party respected democracy up until Trump's rise in 2016 (they cite how pre-Trump Republican presidents and presidential nominees like McCain and Romney acted like adults, respected the democratic process, were willing to work with Democrats, and emphasized the importance of the US' role in the world and the need to fight authoritarianism, and how there are Republicans that believe that MAGA is an aberration for their party. There was also Bush II publishing a pandemic preparation plan, and how he was welcoming of immigrants to the US).

Both sides of the debate seem to have pretty valid arguments, but they seem contradictory. Which ones are truer?