American Conservatives Have Become Everything They Once Feared
June 7, 2025 · Greyson TigheOnce the self-proclaimed guardians against state tyranny, the modern Republican Party has become everything it once warned us about — and worse.
For decades and up until very recently, Republicans warned about the dangers of "big government", centralized control, and government overreach. They developed and preached a culture of distrust and suspicion particularly about the federal government, but also extending to their state and local officials too. Today however, we see that as soon as they get into power, they strengthen the same centralized authority they built careers opposing.
Barry Goldwater warned “A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.” Ronald Reagan famously declared “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” These weren’t just slogans, they were the ideological backbone of modern conservatism: a suspicion of central power, a belief in individual liberty, and a deep mistrust of federal overreach.
But today’s conservative movement doesn’t just tolerate government overreach — it embraces it. Where Reagan once joked about the uselessness of politicians and government workers in providing assistance, today's conservatives attempt to solidify that uselessness as a key feature of government, not a bug — actively working to cripple the state's capacity to help, while simultaneously consolidating state control and supercharging its ability to punish and ruin.
Electoral democracy itself has become a threat to today's conservative movement. As Republican policies and culture war crusades grow increasingly unpopular, the GOP no longer adapts. When elections don't go their way, they attempt to delegitimize the results or sabotage them outright.
If a Republican candidate loses, it’s rarely accepted as a reflection of public will. Instead, they baselessly claim voter fraud, question the intelligence of the electorate, or even try to overturn the outcome outright. And when the law prevents them from nullifying an election directly, they go after the systems that made it possible.
Take Missouri. In 2015, voters in St. Louis approved a modest minimum wage increase. In response, lawmakers in Jefferson City — over 100 miles away — passed a law preempting local wage ordinances [1]Missourinet, 2017: "Legislation to override St. Louis minimum wage hike could see quick action in state Senate." [2]Kansas City Beacon, 2024: "Missouri preemption law blocks Kansas City minimum wage vote." , effectively canceling the vote and slashing the wage back down [3]KSDK, 2017: "Thousands in St. Louis likely to see wage drop with new law." [4]EPI, 2017: "Missouri’s new preemption law cheats 38,000 workers out of a raise." . It was one of the only times in recent history that a U.S. city had its minimum wage forcibly lowered in defiance of a democratic vote. [5]The Atlantic, 2017: "St. Louis’s Minimum-Wage Reversal, Explained."
Or take reproductive rights. In 2024, Missourians successfully passed a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion as a healthcare choice [6]Center for Reproductive Rights, 2024: "Missouri voters amend constitution to protect abortion." [7]Ballotpedia, 2024: "Missouri Amendment 3, Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative." . But within months, Senate Republicans invoked rare procedural rules to shut down debate and pass a bill overturning the amendment. [8]Missouri Independent, May 14, 2025: "Missouri Republicans shut down Senate debate to pass abortion ban repeal, sick leave law." Previous court-ordered injunctions that provided relief from regulations designed and put into place specifically to limit access to reproductive healthcare were overturned on a technicality [9]Missouri Independent, May 27, 2025: "Missouri Supreme Court reinstates abortion restrictions, imposing de facto ban." [10]Reuters, May 27, 2025: "Missouri Supreme Court allows abortion ban to continue." , once again shuttering the few clinics that provide care within the state. [11]New York Times, May 28, 2025: "Missouri Supreme Court ruling effectively ends abortion care in the state." Almost immediately, new legislation was introduced to place a new referendum aimed at repealing it entirely. [12]Politico, May 27, 2025: "Missouri voters will again vote on abortion." When democracy delivers results they dislike, they don't adapt, they throw a tantrum and try to break the machine. [13]CNN, Nov. 5, 2021: "A timeline of Trump's attempted coup on January 6."
But breaking the machine isn't just about overturning elections. Sometimes it's about making sure the /wrong/ ideas never enter the public conversation to begin with. If the conservative movement can't win in the marketplace of ideas, it simply tries to shut the marketplace down.
In Republican-led states, we've seen a wave of legislation designed not just to ban actions, but to criminalize expression. In Florida, teachers faced punishment for mentioning LGBTQ people in classrooms. [14]PEN America, Aug. 17, 2023: "Florida adopts even more punitive provisions against teachers and students to implement new controversial education laws." In Texas, books about race and gender are being pulled off shelves. [15]ProPublica, Oct. 17, 2023: "Texas officials are quietly banning books across the state." In Tennessee, drag is treated as inherently obscene. [16]Tennessee Lookout, June 3, 2023: "Federal judge overturns Tennessee’s ban on drag shows." [17]Tennessee Lookout, July 21, 2023: "U.S. appeals court upholds Tennessee drag show ban." None of these are about protecting children or families — they’re about regulating which ideas are allowed to exist in public life. These aren't just culture war skirmishes. They're full-blown campaigns to control thought and police the mind. [18]San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 1, 2024: "Editorial: Texas' school library censorship is about control, not children." The conservative movement would sooner arrest you for committing a thought crime than they would provide funding to fix a pot hole.
It’s not just an issue for teachers, librarians, drag performers, or women seeking healthcare. The conservative movement’s obsession with control and punishment has metastasized far beyond classrooms and state capitols. It now reaches into immigration courts, detention centers, and foreign prisons, and it’s dragging in people who aren’t even supposed to be there.
In March 2025, Kilmar Abrego García, a legal U.S. resident from Maryland who was protected by a federal court’s stay order, was illegally deported by ICE to El Salvador. [19]Reuters, Apr. 1, 2025: "Trump administration admits man deported to El Salvador in error." There, he was locked inside CECOT, a massive military-run mega-prison infamous for torture, indefinite detention, and complete lack of legal oversight. [20]The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2024: "Inside El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison where thousands are held without trial."
For over two months, the U.S. government defied multiple court orders to stop the deportation and then to return him. [21]Reuters, Apr. 17, 2025: "Trump challenges judge’s probes into compliance with deportation orders." [22]Reuters, Apr. 15, 2025: "Judge to consider Trump’s compliance with order over wrongly deported man." Officials claimed they were "unable" to act, portraying the government as too weak to enforce its own judicial rulings [23]People, Apr. 13, 2025: "Trump officials sent Maryland father to El Salvador prison in error." [24]New York Post, Apr. 14, 2025: "Trump, El Salvador president say deported Maryland man can't be brought back to U.S.: 'Question is preposterous'." — until June 2025, when they suddenly reversed course and announced his extradition back to the U.S. to face charges in a sprawling human trafficking conspiracy that legal analysts, lawyers, and reporters widely suspect to be fabricated using AI-generated narratives. [25]Politico, June 6, 2025: "Abrego García to be returned to U.S. to face trafficking charges amid AI conspiracy doubts." <[26]Washington Post, June 7, 2025: "Opinion: The Kilmar Abrego García case reeks of political theater."
The Supreme Court ultimately ruled the deportation unlawful and warned that the logic ICE used could apply to anyone — even American citizens.
The same month, in March, ICE began quietly using an old wartime provision — the Alien Enemies Act — to deport Venezuelan asylum seekers, many of them legal residents, to military-run prisons in Central America. Legal scholars, human rights organizations, and even federal judges described it as an unlawful overreach of executive power that bypasses asylum hearings and violates international refugee protections, enabled by the conservative movement’s broader assault on the United States Contitution and international law.
Among those deported was Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan hairdresser and makeup artist who had fled political persecution. [27]CBS News / 60 Minutes, Apr. 28, 2024: "Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador, held in prison with no charges." Despite having no criminal record, ICE labeled him a gang affiliate based solely on tattoos and deported him to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. [28]CBS News, Mar. 3, 2024: "ICE targets Venezuelans for deportation over tattoos allegedly linked to gang." He was never allowed to plead his case in court. He now languishes in CECOT — denied legal counsel, medical care, and even acknowledgment from U.S. consular authorities.
And it’s not just legal residents. In April 2025, ICE deported a 4-year-old U.S. citizen with stage-4 cancer, along with his 7-year-old sister and their mother, after a routine check-in in Louisiana. The children were removed without access to medical care or legal defense. [29]Washington Post, Apr. 26, 2025: "U.S. citizen children deported after ICE check-in in Louisiana." [30]Yahoo News, Apr. 26, 2025: "Mass deportation effort sweeps up U.S. citizens, including children." [31]Reuters, Apr. 26, 2025: "Two-year-old U.S. citizen appears to have been deported with no meaningful process." A federal judge called the act "indefensible." This wasn't a border case, or a criminal fugitive. It was a dying child with a US passport, disappeared by his own government.
Even when citizenship is not in doubt, ICE still acts as if it doesn't matter. Across the country, US citizens by birth and by naturalization have been detained, interrogated, and threatened with deportation by agents who treat proof of citizenship as a suggestion, not a fact. Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a U.S.-born man from Alabama, was arrested during a traffic stop and held for four days despite showing his birth certificate. [32]The Guardian, May 24, 2025: "ICE detains U.S. citizen for four days over ID dispute." [33]ProPublica, Mar. 8, 2024: "ICE's warrantless arrests spark legal backlash in Chicago." Jose Hermosillo, a mentally disabled citizen from Arizona, was detained for ten days while ICE “verified” his status, even after he presented a Social Security card and valid ID. [34]National Immigration Law Center, Jan. 26, 2024: "CBP unlawfully detains U.S. citizen for 10 days despite valid ID."
In Illinois, Julio Noriega was forcibly taken off the street and interrogated for hours despite being a citizen. Jensy Machado, a naturalized citizen in Virginia, was handcuffed and detained during a workplace raid, even while carrying his naturalization certificate. [35]The Guardian, Mar. 10, 2025: "Naturalized U.S. citizens detained by ICE despite proof of status." And in Florida, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, born in Georgia, was arrested under the state’s immigration law despite having a U.S. birth certificate — which ICE agents dismissed as suspicious. [36]FOX 9, Apr. 5, 2025: "U.S.-born man held by ICE despite valid birth certificate."
And yet, through all of this — the unlawful detentions, the vanishing of citizens, the open defiance of court orders — the so-called patriots are nowhere to be found.
Where are the Second Amendment hardliners and self-described defenders of the Constitution? The ones who warned that government tyranny must be resisted with violence? [37]The Trace, Aug. 10, 2016: "Donald Trump, Gun Rights, and the Insurrectionist Theory." [38]Rep. Jamie Raskin, Apr. 2023: "The Insurrectionary Theory of the Second Amendment Betrays the Actual Constitution." Who wrapped themselves in flags, stocked up on firearms, and swore they'd never let the government trample their rights? [39]Brady United, Jan. 2022: "Armed and Dangerous: How the Gun Lobby Enabled the January 6 Insurrection." [40]Reason, July 26, 2012: "Obama Still Thinks the Second Amendment Has Limits." Perhaps it eluded public awareness that their vision of "freedom" was always personal, never collective; that their crusade wasn't for liberty in general, but for the unchecked privilege to live above the rules they demand for everybody else. [41]The Guardian, Oct. 18, 2020: "Guns are a way to exercise power: How the idea of overthrowing the government became mainstream." [42]Heather Cox Richardson, 2020: *How the South Won the Civil War* (Oxford University Press). Because under their watch, their guidance, their administration, they are the ones detaining and deporting citizens and legal residents, ignoring judges, and disappearing children.
This is what conservatism looks like now: not limited government, but a government big enough and powerful enough to disappear legal residents, or even citizens, without accountability. A government that sends people into foreign torture facilities based on accusation alone, with no trial, no rights, and no return. A government powerless to provide its citizens with assistance, but powerful enough to ruin lives and even end them.
They're calling it fascism. [43]Reuters, Oct. 23, 2024: "Trump prefers 'dictator approach,' former chief of staff says." Many [44]The Guardian, Oct. 25, 2024: "Former officials denounce Trump: 'This is not conservatism, it’s authoritarianism.’" people [45]6ABC News, Oct. 26, 2024: "Live Updates: Trump rally draws criticism over fascism rhetoric." are [46]Inside Higher Ed, Mar. 26, 2025: "Scholars calling Trump fascist say they were pushed out of Yale." saying [47]Lehigh University News, Feb. 20, 2025: "Fascism in America? It’s happening here, professor says in new book." it. [48]New America, Jan. 19, 2024: "Is Trump a fascist? Peter Bergen explores the evidence." A movement that preaches liberty while practicing cruelty; that professes redemption through Christ but worships Mammon; that swears allegiance to the Constitution while setting it on fire. And it's not theoretical, it is administrative. It's paperwork, court dates, policy memos, executive orders, bureaucracy. It's kids in cages, citizens in handcuffs, and the American Gestapo throwing away birth certificates.
So what do we do? We stop treating this like politics-as-usual and recognize it for what it is: legalist warfare. And as the Heritage Foundation previously threatened the nation with their anti-American [49]Center for American Progress, Apr. 25, 2024: "Project 2025 would destroy the U.S. system of checks and balances and create an imperial presidency." manifesto, it will remain administrative and bloodless as long as the conservatives keep it that way. [50]KHQ, June 18, 2025: "Senator Patty Murray slams Heritage Foundation president’s 'bloodless revolution' comments." A violent civil war hasn’t begun, despite Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller’s best wishes, but the government’s enforcement apparatus has already been supercharged and turned inward, unleashed against its own people. [51]The Guardian, Nov. 12, 2024: "Stephen Miller outlines aggressive immigration crackdown plan for Trump second term." The only question now is how far they're willing to go — and how long the rest of us are willing to let them.
📬 Support Independent Journalism
Have our free newsletter delivered straight to your inbox!
Comments