This Is Not Conservatism

It’s Fascism

I didn’t want to be in DC on election night. I was sick to my stomach. But I went anyway, because if Harris won, I wanted to give people hope, and if she lost, I wanted to make sure no one could spin it as just another “normal” Republican victory.

On Sky News, I sat next to two grinning Republicans celebrating their win. And I said it plainly: this isn’t conservatism, it’s fascism. The panel looked at me like I’d dropped a bomb. But I wasn’t exaggerating. I was describing what’s right in front of us.

We watched Trump try not to leave office in 2020: the fake electors, the call to “find” votes in Georgia, the pressure campaign on DOJ to send fake fraud letters. He came within inches. The only reason he failed was because a handful of officials refused. Those people are gone now. Next time, there won’t be resistance.

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Conservatism vs. Fascism

Real conservatism — the kind conservative Founding Father Buckley defined after WWII — was about prudence, restraint, small government, and respect for institutions. It was Eisenhower building NATO, Reagan celebrating it, Bush Sr. rallying it in Desert Storm.

Fascism is the opposite. It glorifies the strongman, purges bureaucrats, demands loyalty oaths, and uses the state to crush dissent. It says women’s bodies belong to the state and the press must serve the regime.

That’s what the GOP is today. Not conservative. Fascist.

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How It Happened

It started with the Southern Strategy. Civil rights drove white Southern conservatives out of the Democratic Party and into the GOP, where Nixon and later Reagan built a new coalition on racial grievance.

Then came abortion. In the 1970s, even the Southern Baptist Convention welcomed Roe as a matter of conscience. But strategists weaponized abortion as a wedge issue to mobilize evangelicals. Today, abortion bans don’t shrink government — they give the state ownership over women’s bodies. That’s authoritarian, not conservative.

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Cultural Authoritarianism

The Nazis made women leave jobs, rewarded them for producing babies, and preached traditional dress and submission. Trump and J.D. Vance echo the same themes today, railing against “childless cat ladies” and promising baby bonuses.

And look at Oklahoma. Superintendent Ryan Walters blew $70,000 on Trump Bibles, imposed loyalty tests on teachers, and is forcing every high school to open a Turning Point USA chapter. That’s not civics. That’s indoctrination — a modern Hitler Youth in polos and khakis.

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The War on Institutions

Trump recently declared: “The broadcast media is 97% against me, and they aren’t allowed to do that.” Not shouldn’t. Aren’t allowed. That’s a demand for censorship, a vision of state-controlled media.

Then Stephen Miller took the stage at the Charlie Kirk memorial and thundered: “You have NOTHING… you are nothing. You are wickedness… They cannot conceive of the army they have arisen in all of us.” That’s not political rhetoric. That’s mobilization language, a call to arms.

Benny Johnson followed him waving a sword, literally. These people aren’t joking.

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Call It What It Is

So let’s stop pretending: the Republican Party of Eisenhower and Reagan is dead. The GOP today doesn’t defend institutions — it threatens them. It doesn’t limit government — it weaponizes it. It doesn’t conserve — it destroys.

This is not conservatism. It is fascism. And if we don’t say it plainly, and fight it as such, we’ll be sitting in another TV studio one election night soon, blinking in shock, wondering how we missed what was right in front of our eyes.