CMV: Conservatism is a fundamentally anti-American ideology.

ETA: When I think conservatism I think small government and conserving traditional yet outgrown values. I hardly use the word Republican anymore because the Republican party is effectively dead haha and it’s not an ideology anyway.

The reason I say this is because the idea of “small government” dates back to the Civil War and the Confederate states.

The southern Confederacy wanted each states to have their own rights so they could keep owning slaves. They did not want any federal accountability, they did not want to be included in the freeing of the slaves. We fought an entire war over this.

America is known for being the greatest country in the world because of everything post Civil War, post Civil Rights movement, etc. We were known as the land of the free and the home of the brave because of the power and voice given back to the people as a result of a larger federal government that held all states accountable for their actions and provided protections to people in all states.

We are not known as the greatest country in the world because of the time when we owned slaves or when women had less rights. We are known for being great because of how we overcame that dark part of our history , and we did so with progressivism and liberalism and bigger government with more regulations so that the racist confederates weren’t able to violate human rights without consequences.

Trumps entire “give everything back to the states” argument is just recycled messaging from the Confederacy. Conservatism is fundamentally rooted in racism and it is not a reflection of the “land of the free, home of the brave”. All it is is trying to take us back to pre Civil War America and all the Southern states really want is to privatize their state governments, take away human rights unless you’re a straight white male, that way they can get back to America’s dark roots of slavery and segregation. Sure, slavery in the 21st century wouldn’t look exactly like it did back then because it’s a different world. Modern day slavery would look much, much different, but as long as you have force people imto unpaid labor in some way shape or form, you effectively have slavery.