A former GOP operative Thursday called out Republicans for the party's complete about-face and acceptance of surveillance under the Trump administration.
Rick Wilson, the co-founder of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, questioned in his Substack why "constitutional purists" have not pushed back on ICE, its use of warrantless arrests and the "special circle of hell for the tech firms" purchasing data on Americans.
"This isn’t just about deportation. It’s about the infrastructure of control. When you build a machine that can track anyone, anywhere, at any time, without a warrant, you haven’t built a tool for immigration enforcement. You’ve built the hardware for a dictatorship," Wilson wrote.
Wilson called out Republicans for their abandonment of traditionally conservative values.
"Where are my Pocket Constitution bros? Where are the FedSoc constitutional purists in all of this? Where are the defenders of liberty who screamed 'tyranny' on a hundred YouTube channels because someone asked them to wear a mask mask during a pandemic?" Wilson wrote.
"They are, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, remarkably quiet," he added.
Wilson described how conservatives appear to have given up on protecting constitutional rights to prohibit law enforcement from unlawful searches and seizures.
"The American conservative movement, once defined by a healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) skepticism of state power, has undergone a lobotomy," Wilson wrote. "The new MAGA-fied GOP doesn’t fear the police state; they want it, provided the right people are being stepped on. They have traded the Fourth Amendment for a 'Thin Blue Line' flag and a sense of grievance."
This shift has a troubling repercussion and something Wilson argued needs to change.
"We’re building a digital cage and calling it 'security,'" Wilson wrote. "It’s time to stop the theater. It’s time to stop the surveillance. It’s time to remind the ghouls in the data centers and the apparatchiks in the government that we are citizens, not data points."
"And if that makes the 'constitutional purists' uncomfortable? Good. They should be," Wilson wrote.