Republicans made themselves into “Christian libertarians” in order to get along with Leftists, effectively producing the groundwork for the uniparty. As part of this gesture, they praise Leftist ideals like equality while demanding a mere handful of libertarian and conservative notions like free markets.
These positions represent a retreat, not a forward step, which is why they are always styled in moral terms rather than practical ones. The secret to conservatism is that it works better than any other method, and ironically, produces as much of what Leftists want — except subsidies — as can be done in nature.
Many contemporary conservatives adopt cope-hope tropes that they hope seem bold enough to attract an audience. One of these is praise of Calvin Coolidge for doing nothing but reducing government, but this glosses over how Coolidge paired paleoconservative libertarianism with 1870s progressivism to continue the civil war legacy:
Coolidge was also a visionary who championed equal rights. Shortly after assuming office in 1923, he declared to Congress that the rights of African Americans were “as sacred as those of any other people” and that it was both a “public and private duty to safeguard those rights.”
He advocated for anti-lynching legislation but was blocked by congressional Democrats. Coolidge’s opposition to racism and prejudice saw millions leave the KKK, and the lynching of blacks decreased. His central piece of Civil Rights legislation was the granting of U.S. Citizenship to Native Americans living on reservations.
Civil rights replaced natural rights. The latter were designed to restrict government by making its ideological reach untenable, and were paired with a Naturalization Act that demanded only ethnic Western Europeans in the country. Civil rights make government all-powerful.