True, the Republicans have always been the liberal party. If you define liberal by it's original meaning. That's why the Democrats became the progressive party. Then the word progressive became toxic and they stole the word liberal like the Nazi's stole the swastika from ancient Buddhism. They were progressively more racist and hateful and that tradition carries on to this day.
The left can't explain why so many Democrats wear or wave communist paraphernalia. Communism being the largest genocidal ideology in all of human history.