Who knew the political party that portrays itself as defenders of limited government would be so zealous about nationalizing everything? 

Up until about thirty seconds ago, the Republican Party would have unanimously considered the government acquiring stakes in private firms as some socialist scheme to “seize the means of production.” Similarly, attempts by the president to micromanage and control our economy with nothing more than a “phone and pen” would have been enough to rouse the rabble of supposed Tea Party conservatives just a few short years ago. 

Today, such executive power is, apparently, the Republican Party’s plan to “Make America Great Again.”

However, it’s not merely tech firms and import taxes the new right seemingly wants to control with unfettered executive power. Even the electoral process is something the Trump administration apparently hopes to micromanage during his second term. 

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently requesting personally identifiable information about all Nevada voters — a request that includes driver’s license details and partial Social Security numbers. 

The Nevada Secretary of State’s Office described the request as “unprecedented in its scope, its purported basis, and its purported urgency,” and rightly expressed concern about handing over such sensitive information without first ensuring it’s strictly necessary — let alone legal. 

After all, it’s not as if the current administration has a stellar record of keeping confidential information confidential. There’s a nonzero chance such information might find its way onto an unsecured Signal group chat, be left unattended in a hotel copy machine or potentially used for other policy priorities not directly tied to elections. 

Concerns about data security aside, there are also constitutional and legal questions that loom over the requests. The Privacy Act of 1974 was designed to limit federal efforts to amass personal or sensitive data about Americans, and the details within voter files — such as Social Security digits or signatures — would seemingly qualify as pretty sensitive in nature.  

In other words, without any articulable reason provided by the DOJ, it’s unclear whether the agency even has the authority to access the details it is requesting from Nevada and a handful of other states. And as of yet, no articulable reason has been given beyond the vague insinuation that federal intervention is needed to ensure the “integrity” of our election process. 

To be sure, election integrity is important, but it’s also largely a state issue — which is why states themselves determine how (or if) mail-in balloting is conducted, what voter identification procedures will be set in place, how they will keep voter rolls clean and even much of the process of tabulating votes. 

And, like seizing the means of production or centrally planning the economy, opposition to the federal government getting too involved was something Republicans used to understand. As recently as 2021, for example, Republicans were adamant that elections be left (largely) to the states to administer. 

When Democrats introduced a bill to retool the voting process and ostensibly strengthen voting rights in the wake of President Donald Trump’s temper tantrum over the 2020 election results, Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted unanimously against it. While some votes were undoubtedly motivated by purely partisan grudges, even anti-Trump Republicans joined their colleagues in protecting state-run elections from federal micromanagement. 

But oh, how times change. 

As The Nevada Independent reports, the DOJ’s request for sensitive voter data comes as Trump is ramping up efforts to fundamentally overhaul the nation’s electoral system. Last week it was reported that Trump has asked “the best lawyers” to write up a possible executive order banning mail-in ballots and limiting the use of voting machines as part of his ongoing conspiratorial vendetta against supposed 2020 election fraud. (Obviously, hand-counting ballots never causes controversy, as we all know from Florida circa 2000.) 

Micromanaging elections on the federal level is, apparently, now in vogue on the right — a blatant revocation of supposed “principles” for the sake of political expediency. 

Just imagine how apoplectic the MAGA right would be if, for example, a future Democratic president were to pursue universal mail-in ballots via executive order or sought to unilaterally mandate the use of Dominion voting machines in every state. Or imagine the outrage if it were currently a Democratic administration demanding personally identifiable details of every voter in critical swing states. 

Republican officials would be beside themselves — and plenty of conspiracy theories about some deep-state “cabal” would be floating around right-wing social media to explain the DOJ’s sudden interest in who’s registered to vote. 

To be sure, part of the reason there’s so little Republican outrage about Trump’s attempt to vastly expand the scope of executive power comes down to pure politics — but not necessarily mere partisanship. More powerful is the politics of dissent in a personality-driven political party. Elected Republicans who have dared to oppose any of Trump’s most outlandish attempts to remake American democracy have reliably been primaried, ostracized and called RINOs (Republican In Name Only) by the Trumpian Republicans who have commandeered the GOP. 

Surely, there are still prominent Republicans opposed to nationalizing everything from the means of production to our local elections — but they’ve become surprisingly difficult to find in what is purported to be the party of “limited government.” 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist, and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him on Twitter @schausmichael or on Substack @creativediscourse.

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