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Every political era eventually presents its citizens with a choice that cannot be deferred. Ours is now unmistakable. The question before Republicans today is not whether we prefer one party over another, but whether we still believe in the principles that made the American experiment possible.

We now face a circumstance that would have ended any previous presidency. A sitting President of the United States stands credibly accused, in multiple independent contexts, of heinous sexual crimes involving minors and trafficking-adjacent conduct—yet the machinery of accountability has stalled. Not because evidence is absent, but because it has been fragmented, mishandled, and stripped of context within institutions that appear captured by the accused.

What happened to Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of recorded evidence and court filed witness statements. Petti was confronted by federal immigration agents. Pepper spray was deployed. He was driven to the ground. He was surrounded — not by one or two officers in a moment of panic, but by a large group of agents acting in concert, estimated at ten or more. He was struck, restrained, overwhelmed, disarmed, then summarily execute

That principle is not progressive. It is not modern. It is foundational conservatism. Yet today, Americans are being told — by legal doctrine, political allies, and institutional silence — that a President may be functionally immune from criminal accountability while in office, even when grave abuses of power are alleged, even when evidence exists, and even when the harm reaches the most vulnerable among us.

Millions of Americans think they’re being “conservative” because they’ve been sold that word—packaged, branded, and repeated until it feels like identity. But what organizations like the Heritage Foundation market today is not conservatism in the constitutional sense. It is something else.

American citizens have been shot and killed by federal agents deployed under the banner of “immigration enforcement” by an executive branch now wielding DHS like a sword against its own citizens. What began as one tragic killing has now become multiple fatal confrontations—each one eroding public trust, each one testing whether constitutional limits still bind those who wield power.

I am a Republican. I have been my entire adult life. I am also a conservative, not in name, not in fashion, but in principle. And I am not under the spell of Donald Trump. Nor am I captivated by grievance politics, personality worship, or the dangerous lie that one man can embody a nation.

The Federalist Spirit isn’t a church, and it isn’t a personality cult. It’s a way of thinking about government that starts with the Constitution, assumes human nature is imperfect, and insists that power must be restrained. In other words: we’re conservative about power. Not about enforcing theology. Not about controlling private conscience. Not about demanding conformity.

There are times when a nation is tested not by war, but by truth. January 6, 2021, was such a time. We all saw it. We all heard it. And anyone who now denies what happened is not confused—they are lying on purpose.

It is a grave mistake both morally and strategically to conclude that the millions of Americans drawn into MAGA are bad people.

There is a persistent falsehood circulating in American political life: that socialistic programs are an assault on conservatism, a threat to liberty, and a prelude to government domination.

An analysis of more than 200 ICE and DHS contract actions posted since January 20, 2025 shows a rapid and coordinated expansion of capabilities that go well beyond routine immigration enforcement.

Today, the Republican Party increasingly embraces executive centralization, coercive state power, and loyalty over principle. This essay argues that the party is no longer conservative in any classical or constitutional sense and explains why constitutional conservatives must remain as internal dissenters if those principles are to survive at all.