The US right often appeals to liberty – freedom from the state –  as a justification for its policies. But it also seems to oppose liberty in many key political issues, particularly when it comes to the private domain of sexual relations. This seeming contradiction flummoxes liberals – how can the right both defend and attack individual liberty? But there is no contradiction. The right simply has a different conception of liberty, one that, contrary to that of liberals, isn’t universal but applies only to a select few, the “real citizens”, argues Toby Buckle.

Liberals imagine that the US far-right is incoherent on the question of freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth; it has at its heart a vision of freedom that is ancient, coherent, and compelling.

From the perspective of mainstream American liberalism, conservative invocations of freedom seem caught in a mad confusion between its libertarian and authoritarian impulses: The right identifies itself with individual freedom, particularly freedom from the state, and yet will reliably cheer on the worst excesses of state violence from police. The family, it proclaims, is a private domain, yet a central part of its rhetoric is the demonization of those in non-heterosexual relationships. These demonised groups are claimed to be a sexual threat to children, one that requires state intervention to address, yet the right also pushes to make (heterosexual) child marriages more legally permissible. Mandatory masking was rejected as a disgraceful violation of bodily autonomy by the same people who are currently rejoicing that states can now force women to carry pregnancies under pain of criminal sanction. The contradictions seem obvious.