Maybe it was all before your day, but Republicans have moved left on lots of issues. They used to be completely against drug reform, same sex marriage and other lgbtq+ issues, they used to be almost 100% in denial of climate change, they’ve come around to health care reform such as allowing pre-existing conditions. They even used to be harder on immigration and social security. You can’t imagine how much further right the Republicans were on many issues in even just the 80s and 90s. It’s not necessarily because they wanted to. It’s because they had to in order to keep getting voters.