The dings against the Republic started at least as far back as 1871, with the Act of that name. The big dents occurred in the early 1900's, with the FED creation, FBI. Then, there was Roosevelt, with the first in a series of "new deals".
and then the 17th and 19th amendments ...
Yes, this communism thing, has been going on for a TON of years. I just hope it doesn’t take as long to collapse, as it did in the Soviet Union, if it even ever did collapse.