With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent—no matter what happens in future elections.
They claim to support freedom and liberty, while advocating for a total ban on abortion, rolling back the rights of LGBTQ people and closing the border. They argue that “the Left” opposes equality and liberty established in the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: “It’s this radical equality—liberty for all—not just of rights but of authority—that the rich and powerful have hated about democracy in America since 1776. They resent Americans’ audacity in insisting that we don’t need them to tell us how to live.
They explain what they believe freedom means in the Constitution: “An individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained—to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like” . Thanksgiving dinners? What we ought? His Creator?
They condemn socialism and push free market capitalism, private property and deregulation in the name of liberty: Revert to the Trump administration’s Title IX sexual harassment and assault standards, which placed burdensome restrictions on the ability of survivors to report assault and obtain justice;