Last weekend in Hoover, the Alabama Republican Party adopted a series of resolutions that would restrict drag shows in public facilities, close Republican primaries to independent voters and call for greater oversight of large data centers operating in the state.
At first glance, the measures appear unrelated. Yet together they reveal something more significant: how political factions use power—and how easily the principles of limited government can bend when those factions believe they are acting for the public good.
The Founders of this country wrestled with that problem from the very beginning. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” wrote James Madison as he and the architects of the American republic attempted to design a system strong enough to function yet restrained enough to preserve liberty.
Madison understood that people who gain power rarely believe they are abusing it. More often they are convinced they are protecting virtue, preserving order or defending the common good. The Constitution was written precisely to restrain that impulse.
Seen through that lens, the Hoover resolutions raise a question older than the controversies they address: how much authority should government—or a political faction—have over the lives of free citizens?
In Federalist No. 10, Madison warned that factions—groups united by passion or interest—are inevitable in a free society. Liberty itself allows them to exist. As he famously observed, “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire—an aliment without which it instantly expires.” The danger arises when factions gain enough political power to impose their preferences on others.
The resolution targeting drag shows illustrates that tension. Its language frames the issue as protecting morality and preventing obscene conduct in public facilities. Yet Alabama law already prohibits public lewdness and the distribution of material deemed harmful to minors. Those statutes remain enforceable today. If unlawful conduct occurs, the law already provides tools to address it.
The resolution therefore appears less about enforcing existing law than about expanding the role of government from enforcing law to regulating expression.
That distinction matters. A government powerful enough to police cultural expression is also powerful enough to silence dissent.
The resolution calling for a closed Republican primary election system raises a different but equally revealing question about political participation. Political parties certainly possess the constitutional right to define their membership and select their nominees. Courts have affirmed that principle repeatedly.
Yet the practical consequences of that decision deserve careful consideration.
Alabama has become, for practical purposes, a one-party state. In many races, the Republican primary effectively determines who will ultimately hold office. In Alabama today, winning the Republican primary often means winning the office.
That reality means the rules governing primary elections are not merely internal party matters. They shape who governs the state.
Closing the primary also raises a practical question rarely addressed in the rhetoric surrounding it: where do independent voters go?
Alabama has a significant number of voters who do not formally identify with either party. Many are moderates—socially liberal but fiscally conservative—or voters who prefer evaluating candidates individually rather than pledging allegiance to a political tribe. Under a closed primary system, those voters lose meaningful participation in the nomination process.
Candidates are then chosen by smaller and more ideologically committed groups of voters, a dynamic that tends to reward the loudest factions rather than the broadest coalitions.
In a competitive two-party system, the general election often moderates political extremes. In a one-party system, the primary tends to reward them.
Nearly two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville warned that democratic societies face a particular danger when majority opinion becomes dominant. When a single political faction controls the levers of power, the pressure to conform can narrow the space for independent thought and dissent.
There is also a quiet contradiction running through the Hoover resolutions. In one resolution, the Alabama Republican Party invokes the First Amendment and the freedom of association to defend its right to close primary elections to non-members. In another, it urges government officials to restrict certain forms of expression in public facilities.
Liberty, it seems, is an essential principle when protecting the rights of the faction holding power—and a more negotiable one when it protects the rights of others.
The resolution addressing data centers raises legitimate concerns about water consumption, environmental protection and the economic value of tax incentives offered to large technology companies. As artificial intelligence and cloud computing expand, communities across the country are grappling with how to balance economic development with environmental stewardship.
Those are serious policy questions worthy of debate.
Yet the contrast among the resolutions is difficult to miss. One calls for government intervention in cultural expression, while another calls for greater oversight of corporate development. Together they reflect a familiar pattern in modern politics: government power is often viewed as dangerous when it restrains one’s own priorities but necessary when it advances them.
As John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty, “the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it robs the human race.” A society confident in its values does not fear expression it dislikes. It trusts its citizens to judge for themselves.
The Founders were not naïve about human nature. They assumed that every political movement would eventually convince itself that its cause justified a little more authority and a little more certainty about what others should be allowed to say or do. That instinct is precisely what the Constitution was designed to restrain.
As Thomas Jefferson warned more than two centuries ago, “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
The Founders built a system designed to restrain factions, temper political passions and protect liberty even when doing so is inconvenient.
The Constitution was written to restrain factions—especially when those factions are certain they are right.
Factions rarely believe they threaten liberty—until it is gone.
