The libertarian rhetoric of the convervatives has generally or always been a front (perhaps Goldwater was an exception, at least in some respects, but much of his support was not). Look at Reagan: for all that property rights are supposed to be sacred to the conservatives, for the sake of the War on Drugs it turned out that property could be confiscated without a legal determination of guilt. For all that the family is sacred, and state-sponsored schools suspects, public schools were made to encourage children to turn in their parents for possession of drug paraphenalia or for other evidence of drug use. Before that, look at Nixon: an authoritarian by any standard. Even under Eisenhower, the "good" Republican, the government got deeply involved in massive covert operations against and experiments on its own people (Cointelpro, MK Ultra). Admittedly, those programs continued through the great liberal administrations of the sixties - the Dems are not what they are cracked up to be either - but it seems to be the Republicans that always up the ante.

None of the recent presidents have a good track record when it comes to human rights. In the aggregate, the Democrats represent a somewhat slower road to fascism than the Republicans do. But probably just as sure a destination. Cointelpro was formalized under Eisenhower's presidency, but the basic tactics go back to at least Roosevelt and Truman. Under LBJ Cointelpro went from one agency to six.

There does seem to be a fundamental (pun intended) change in the Republican party over the past 25 years or so. Rational discourse seems to have lost all meaning. Smears have always been a part of politics, but the magnitude of their brazenness has reached new highs.
Religion has been co-opted to include political beliefs without question on a national scale. Covering up crimes by members of one's own party is incredibly blatant. Rostenkowski was nailed for $8000 in abuse of postal funds. Cunningham stole over $700,000,000 (his share was $2.4 million) from the DOD in time of war, was defended until the end, and is still defended by some Republicans today.

There used to be at least an appearance of concern for what was best for the nation. The so called conservatives no longer seem to even care to put themselves in costume.

it's what fascism becomes when it discovers focus groups and marketing.

They made it quite obvious who was the bad guy: He wore a black hat (like Jack Abramoff) and had a sinister mustache (like Bolton) and he had an arrogant way of speaking, insisted on torturing people...

Hey, these Republicans are Bad Guys!

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing