Republicans Are Now The 'Liberty For Me But Not For Thee' Party

In the era of Donald Trump, the Republican Party has been transformed into an authoritarian movement counter to their own claims of "individual liberty."

Former U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a rally at The Ted Hendricks Stadium at Henry Milander Park. Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images.

One of the hallmarks of the Trump era has been the transformation of the Republican Party from a libertarian-leaning, “conservative,” small government party to one that enthusiastically embraces authoritarianism and the wielding of government power over all aspects of people’s lives.

Donald Trump has never hidden his dictatorial tendencies, of course. From his constant undermining of elections even when he wins them, to his “I alone can fix it” mantra, to his promise that he will be a dictator “on day one” of his second term, Trump has been crystal clear about his desire to be king of the United States, not just president. 

But what’s been remarkable is the speed and ease with which his party has given in to Trump’s worst instincts, casting aside its supposed small government principles in the interest of pure political power. 

And they are in complete denial about it.

Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, touts on his government website the perils of “government encroachment” and the notion that government is “less corrupt when it is limited in its size and scope” —even as he advocates for a federal abortion ban and the criminalization of private sexual conduct.  

And it was just two short years ago that Glenn Youngkin rode a suburban post-Covid “parental rights” education wave to a surprise win as Virginia governor. Yet Republicans seemed to take from that victory quite the opposite lesson. A spate of Republican lawmakers around the country began asserting governmental vetoes over the power of parents on issues from books in schools to gender-affirming care for minors.

How rich it has been to see the same people who resisted mask and vaccination mandates in the name of “freedom” turn around and ban books and gender-affirming care, and force women and girls to give birth against their will.

Right before our eyes, the operative Republican motto evolved from “don’t tread on me” to “liberty for me but not for thee.”

In today’s The Big Picture, I’ll explore this transformation and what it means for our politics, and the state of our nation, moving forward.

A quick pledge break before we dive in! If you’ve been meaning to support our work, now’s a great time!

“Parents’ Rights”…Riiiiight…

It was a bit jarring to hear a friend of mine recently ask if I’d seen the film “What Is A Woman?” I explained that, of course, I hadn’t seen it. The film is anti-trans propaganda from a hack Christian nationalist podcaster. My friend conceded that the one who introduced the film is a born-again Christian Trumper. But despite my friend’s own fairly standard liberal leanings, the film raised some problematic questions for them, chief among them: puberty blockers for minors.

After listening to a laundry list of all the issues over minors being prescribed puberty blockers, I had one question for my friend: So, you’re saying you know better than the kids’ parents what’s good for them? You think the government should override parents and doctors when it comes to what medications their children should be prescribed? To this my friend had no response.

It was bizarre for me to suddenly be on the “parents’ rights” side of things, which has traditionally been a conservative rallying cry. But over the past few years, it’s become clear that the “parents’ rights” crowd actually has no interest in empowering parents at all, but rather simply to wield governmental power to impose their own values on the rest of us, parents or otherwise. 

It turns out, this notion that parents should have decision-making authority over the medical decisions of their children, just as women should over their own bodies, has become the progressive position. It asserts the liberty of the individual over the authoritarian rule of the tyrannical conservative minority.  

As odd as that exchange was, however, it was even stranger to see this very conversation play out during the most recent GOP presidential debate, with Chris Christie essentially adopting my argument.

When debate moderator Megyn Kelly accused Christie of being “way too out of step” on the issue of gender transition for minors, Christie fired back:

"No, I'm not," Christie replied, "because Republicans believe in less government, not more, and less involvement with government, not more involvement in people's lives."

He tied the issue to broader issues of parental choice: "You know what, Megyn? I trust parents. And we're out there saying that we should empower parents in education, we should empower parents to make more decisions about where their kids go to school—I agree. We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in in their homes without the government telling them what those values should be."

You can watch the exchange below:

It’s ironic, of course, that Christie’s very response only served to prove Kelly’s point: Yes, when he insists that the Republican Party “believes in less government,” he is demonstrating how patently “out of step” with the current Republican Party he is. He’s describing a party that no longer exists, and as the one candidate consistently calling out Donald Trump’s authoritarian excesses, he is running to lead a party that will never have him.

Libertarian vs. Libertine

In a way, watching Chris Christie make that argument was refreshing. It was a dose of reality injected into a debate otherwise awash with disinformation and head-in-the-sand denialism. 

From the GOP debate stage, Christie was implicitly calling out the utter hypocrisy of Megyn Kelly as well as his fellow candidates on the stage. They claimed in one breath to be for parental rights while in the next insisting that they know better than parents what’s good for their kids. And by extension, Christie was calling out the voters watching at home for supporting them. 

This inconsistency within the conservative movement was explored in a recent essay by conservative New York Times columnist David French, who explains the evolution the conservative movement has undergone in the last eight years since the emergence of Donald Trump as a move away from libertarianism and toward libertinism.

French defines this shift as follows:

The difference between libertarianism and libertinism can be summed up as the difference between rights and desires. A libertarian is concerned with her own liberty but also knows that this liberty ends where yours begins.

In other words, while libertarianism can be individualistic, it is also “concerned…with the rights of others.”

A libertine, by contrast, is dominated by his desires. The object of his life is to do what he wants, and the object of politics is to give him what he wants…

A libertine rejects any attempt to coerce him personally, but he’s happy to coerce others if that gives him what he wants.

Sound like anyone you know?

Indeed, as French notes, any movement “built in the image” of Donald Trump, whom French labels the “consummate libertine,” will be libertine as well, 

…happy to inflict its will on others if that achieves what it wants.

And as a result, the movement has reaped what it’s sown, as it has lost any moral authority with the electorate, certainly on matters of abortion rights.

Here was a movement that was loudly telling women that they had to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, with all the physical transformations, risks and financial uncertainties that come with pregnancy and childbirth, at the same time that millions of its members were also loudly refusing the minor inconveniences of masking and the low risks of vaccination — even if the best science available at the time told us that both masking and vaccination could help protect others from getting the disease.

Nowhere was this loss of the moral argument more evident than in the Virginia elections last month.

As Virginia Goes…

On November 7th, voters rejected Governor Youngkin’s pledge to pass a “moderate” 15-week abortion ban and ultimately handed both houses of the state legislature to Democrats. Youngkin had bet that he could thread the electoral needle as he had in 2021, this time on abortion rights. 

The difference was that while in 2021 voters trusted Republicans on the issue of parental rights, which was the individual liberty issue of that cycle, in 2023, voters profoundly distrusted Republicans on abortion.

Just weeks before the elections, Data For Progress polled voters in the 16 most competitive legislative districts in the state that ultimately determined control of the legislature. The poll found that not only did 63% of voters rate candidates’ position on abortion of “high importance,” but they also by a 56%-39% margin distrusted Republican candidates on the issue of abortion rights. By contrast, 51% of voters trusted Democrats on the issue.

But the more eye-popping result was on the issue of whether government should be in the business of restricting abortion rights in the first place. 

When confronted with the statement:

“The government should not interfere in a patient's personal reproductive healthcare decisions.”

63% agreed. Almost two-thirds.

Versus 33% who agreed that:

“The government should restrict some types of healthcare decisions if it means protecting unborn life”

Republicans’ Loss Should Be Democrats’ Gain

This poll points to why even in red states, the “pro-life” movement is losing the argument with voters on abortion restrictions. In Virginia’s most competitive legislative districts, in a year that should have been favorable toward Republicans, 26% of Republicans agreed that the government should stay out of “personal reproductive decisions.”

Which, as David French reminds us, is precisely how the pro-life movement continues to lose at the ballot box in red state after red state. 

The pro-life movement could fail so decisively in Ohio only if Republicans voted against abortion restrictions. The same analysis applies to the movement’s ballot referendum losses in pro-Trump states like Kansas, Montana and Kentucky.

In each state, all the pro-life movement needed was consistent Republican support, and it would have sailed to victory.

The reason even Republican voters distrust the pro-life side in these fights?

It’s not just that libertinism robs Republicans of moral authority; it’s that libertinism robs Republicans of moral principle. 

Because:

“Do as I say and not as I do” is among the worst moral arguments imaginable.

Indeed.

The principle of individual liberty, free from an overbearing government hand, long the purview of political conservatism, has shifted in very little time to a distinctly progressive value.

From abortion rights, to same-sex marriage rights, to contraceptive rights to the freedom from criminalization of private consensual sexual conduct, and yes, to the right of parents to decide which books their kids have access to and which medicines they take, Democrats have the better side of the argument on the fundamental principle of individual liberty.

Voters seem to have figured out that the Republican Party has ceded that ground. Democrats should be more aggressive about co-opting that message.

It’s part of how Andy Beshear won reelection in Kentucky in November. And it just may be key to how Joe Biden will beat whichever authoritarian-leaning Republican candidate wins the GOP nomination.