Recently came across this 1982 article about the religious right's patron saint of government deregulation, trying to warn people about how fucked up the religious right was.

For some reason nobody listened to the man so often credited with helping to shape their entire political ideology, when what he had to say was in conflict with their entire political ideology:

Barry Goldwater is a true Westerner, a man who prizes free will and open spaces, and he is particularly perturbed by the linkage of conservative politics with religious leaders. In his view, they have prix-fixe moral menus: no substitutions allowed. ''They say that you have to go along with them 100 percent or, by God, they're going to get you,'' the Senator asserted. ''That's wrong, that's the way the Communists talk.''

Barry Goldwater at the end of his political career trying to warn America that the religious right had gotten it all wrong. Then coming to the realization that it was too late. Republicans never actually cared about small government, they just used his arguments to create a propaganda machine that destroys civil rights and liberties for their own profit.