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Brilliant thread. Since the New Deal, conservative talk of "limited government" has functioned as a successful bogeyman to infuse into American politics the false assumption that liberalism is always a slippery slope toward "unlimited gov't," i.e. totalitarianism.
This idea, that the American left is somehow in favor of "unlimited government" is an idea that unites Never Trumpers and Trumpers, both of whom love to generalize about "the left" with the assumption that it poses an existential threat to the republic.
When such folks look to their right they see super-patriots with maybe too much zeal for "freedom," but when they look to their left they see the gulag. That has *never* been an accurate depiction of American politics...but it is an article of faith for Americans right of center.
It helps explain why conservatives have never taken racism or white nationalism seriously as a political threat to be confronted head on...meanwhile labor unions, community organizers, and anti-war churches have to be closely monitored as entering wedges for godless Communism.
