Just like “rule of law” and “family values”, “the troops” and some other stuff, free markets were never something they really care about.

The reality of Republican free markets were about compounding and growing big business and resource extraction at the expense of everyone else.

The rest is all about convincing suckers that getting kicked in the balls is good for them. The most obvious example being farmers. Most aspects of agriculture have been consolidated into oblivion and the markets are not super functional. 80% of the dairy operations in my state are out of business. 60 companies dominate eggs in the US - there used to be 3 in my city.