The Death of Conservatism

Idaho's so-called "Conservatives" have abandoned conservative values and replaced them with enforced Christian Nationalism.

Conservatism used to mean something in Idaho. And not that long ago. Before the mean tweet rants, the purity tests, and the half-baked crusades against library books and pride flags, being a conservative meant you believed in a few simple ideas: limited government, local control, fiscal restraint, personal responsibility, and the notion that your home and business was your castle, not a place for someone else's theological agenda.

Today, those principles are becoming roadkill, eagerly run over by the very people who claim to be their champions.

The new batch of far-right insurgent lawmakers—installed into office with the help of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, Citizens Alliance of Idaho, Stop Idaho RINOs, and their full-time outrage factory—have abandoned traditional conservatism in favor of a much more lucrative enterprise: performance politics. The kind that sells fear instead of facts, grievance instead of governance, and somehow turns scientific research and Pride flags into existential threats to their fragile egos.

Look at House Bill 93. It was sold as a "school choice" win for families. In reality, it carved out $50 million in refundable tax credits to parents who send their kids to Christian private schools, all while public schools, especially rural ones, are barely scraping by. And because it’s refundable, it’s not tax relief. Remind me, when did wealth redistribution, expansion of government, more spending, and corporate welfare become conservative principles? That’s right, they never were.

As if that was not enough, the IFF’s gang of 8 vowed not to add any new taxpayer-funded jobs to the payroll, and they all but Rep. Cayler went ahead and voted for this bill, which added over $500k in salaries for new employees to process the tax credits. Of course, they’ll tell you they were “just following Ron and Maria Nate’s orders.”

Or Sen. Brandon Shippy’s Senate Bill 1036, which tried to ban mRNA vaccines for the next ten years. Because nothing screams small government like legislators dictating which medical technologies you can and can't use. Forget about its use in fighting cancer. Forget about how it enables ranchers to save their herds. Why? Because the base was spoon-fed conspiracy theories saying that all mRNA technologies are dangerous. But let's go ahead and ignore scientific research, or your doctor, or the fact that millions of Americans used their medical freedom to choose to get vaccinated. Let’s just go ahead and kill conservative values to virtue signal to those who watch Alex Jones’ InfoWars religiously.

Then there was Senate Bill 1023, the so-called “Medical Freedom Bill” that takes freedom away from private business owners to decide who they can serve. Remember the gay wedding cake debate? Conservatives used to believe that the constitutionally protected private property rights of business owners were sacred, only to shred all of that because Californians who moved to Idaho during the pandemic were mad about California’s lockdown measures that nobody followed in Idaho. Yet the far-right openly brags about this being one of their biggest wins.

Then there's Senate Bill 1026, which outlawed HOA bans on backyard chickens. On its face, it sounds quirky—until you realize it's the state government stepping in to override private contracts between homeowners. The same people who scream about property rights and personal liberty just nuked both because Sen. Tammy “Karen” Nichols wants to force you to put up with a neighbor who wants backyard roosters and chickens after you’ve already bought a home in that neighborhood. Because nothing says FREEDOM! like having your neighbor’s roosters wake you up at the crack of dawn and walk out to the smell of unkept chicken coops when you open your garage door. America was founded by people who wanted freedom from others’ ideology, religion, and puritanical enforcement.

Meanwhile, they’ve passed bills dictating what flags and banners can be displayed at schools, told teachers what names they can’t use, and let doctors deny patients care if it offends their personal beliefs. That’s not conservatism. That’s theocratic micromanagement.

The elected government representatives closest to the people are the ones who should make decisions for their local constituents. Parents elect their local school board to decide what’s best for their neighborhood schools, not the state overruling local control by local parents. Did someone say parental rights? It looks like that got thrown out with the “truck nuts.”

The irony of all these bills? These same lawmakers rail against government overreach while expanding the role of government mandates into every corner of your life: your healthcare, your neighborhood, your child's classroom, and even your identity.

It’s the kind of hypocrisy that would be funny if it weren’t so abusive and harmful. Idaho doesn’t have a limited government anymore—we have a vengeful one, micromanaged by a culture war cult obsessed with purity, power, and retribution.

And while they’re doing all this, they’re telling you, straight-faced, that they’re the true conservatives.

They’ve built a political machine that gins up fake emergencies, fabricates enemies, and demands loyalty oaths in the form of meaningless votes on non-issues. The IFF scores them not on how well they preserve liberty or protect taxpayers, but on how reliably they punch down as directed, no matter the cost to actual conservative values.

Take the Boise flag drama. What began as legislation aimed at banning any flag other than official government flags outside government buildings quickly morphed into a culture war battlefront. After Boise Mayor Lauren McLean refused to remove the LGBTQ+ Pride flag, the city responded by considering a resolution to designate it as an official city flag—a procedural workaround to a law that never should have been necessary in the first place. Residents of Nampa and Eagle don't have a say in who gets to be mayor of Boise, yet that did not stop Sen. Brian Lenney (R-Nampa) and his racist and homophobic friends from raising hell about it.

Performative crisis actors rushed to scream about the sanctity of flagpoles and the moral collapse of Idaho. And in the middle of it all, David Pettinger, an unhinged local white supremacist activist, hoisted an "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside Boise City Hall—the pine tree flag adopted by Christian nationalists as their pride flag. Not only did these so-called conservatives not condemn this obvious breach of the flag law—they cheered it. Pettinger, an Old State Saloon regular, hails from Eagle but now wants to run for mayor of Boise after this stunt.

And what about the political machine that installed the legislators pushing these daft policies? It’s well-funded, well-organized, and ruthless. If you speak out, they’ll smear you. If you vote your conscience, they’ll photoshop your face on a Playboy magazine. If you ask questions, they’ll call you a RINO and unleash a digital mob to destroy your reputation.

The biggest con in Idaho politics is the idea that these people represent you. That they speak for real conservatives. They don’t. They speak for an ideology so brittle, so ignorant, it has to use fear and force to survive. The rest of us? We’re just trying to live in a state that works for all of us, like it was before the California “conservative” invasion.

You don’t need to abandon your values to reject this madness. If you truly believe in Idaho principles, you need to start paying attention. Stop allowing yourself to be gaslit.

If your values can’t stand unless someone else is silenced, excluded, or punished, they’re not values. They’re insecurities wrapped in a flag and a cross.

And it’s time we call the impostors what they are: frauds. Grifters. Political arsonists playing dress-up with a pocket constitution in one hand, hovering over a flaming tiki torch in the other.

Conservatism in Idaho isn’t dying because of the left—there are not enough of them in this state to do anything to effect change. It’s fading because the people who claimed to protect it strangled it for attention, influence, and control. And unless voters wake up and push back, they’ll keep burning down everything that made this state worth fighting for in the first place.

---

About the Author
Gregory Graf is the creator of Political Potatoes and a lifelong conservative Republican. His articles often criticize the hypocrisy committed by far-right grifters who’ve taken control of the GOP. Graf is the CEO of Snake River Strategies, a strategic communications and political consulting firm based in Eagle, Idaho. You can follow Graf’s work on X, Threads, or Facebook.

Disclaimer
The following is intended to convey an opinion on newsworthy events of public concern regarding public figures and/or public officials in exercising their official duties. No implications or inferences—beyond those explicitly stated in the preceding— are intended to be conveyed or endorsed by the Author. Wherever available, hyperlinks have been provided to allow readers to directly access any underlying assertions of fact upon which this opinion is based.

Do you want to help support Political Potatoes? Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription or leave a tip 😊Your support keeps this work going and is appreciated.