Republicans like to say the Constitution limits the power of the federal government.

No. The Constitution gives governmental power to We The People, and unbinds that power.

The Constitution limits the power of monarchs and rich feudal lords--folks like Republicans.

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The point of the Constitution, back in 1792, was to eliminate the power of feudal dictators--kings, emperors, and the wealthy manor lords who ruled local fiefdoms. Their capricious whim was the only form of "government" the world knew. Yes, the Constitution limits =that=.

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In its place, the Constitution (imperfectly) gives the power to rule over to The People. This is an =absolute= power, because the power of government =is= absolute. It is the power of life and death, the power to create or destroy.

It is now Ours, not that of feudal lords.

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This is what Republicans object to. Not the idea that government has power, but the idea that =our= government limits the power of hereditary feudal lords.

If you weaken the federal government, you strength the power of individual strongmen like Trump and McConnell.

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The reason the Trump Reich was able to do so much damage to America is not that the federal government was too strong.

It was that the institutional advocates for We The People--which should have been the DoJ, the FBI, the Special Counsel's office--were too weak.

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When Trumpists whine about the "Deep State", this is what they are talking about: the Constitutional limits set on the power of strongman dictators.

The Deep State exists. Its manifesto is the Constitution of the United States of America.

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Republicans want "limited government" because they want their own power--the power of extragovernmental feudal rulers--to be unbridled. They do =not= want We The People to rein them in with the mechanisms and institutions our Constitution provides for that purpose.

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"Small government" means a Trumpist dictatorship with no guardrails, with the will of The People utterly stifled.

"Small government," by definition, means "rule by the few."

"Small government" = fascism.

That is the Republican ideal.

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"Government", by definition, is "that which governs".

There is no such thing as "limited government."

If we are not governed by institutions run by The People, we will be governed by strongmen dictators and feudal lords with no limits on their whims.

Case in point: In the Obama Administration, the ACA had a regulation that required employers to include contraceptive coverage in employer-provided insurance.

The elected representatives of We The People put that regulation in place for Our benefit.

BUT:

Extragovernmental interests objected. Hobby Lobby sued to have that regulation overturned, and it was.

This was not a victory against "government". It was a defeat for We The People. It gave the power to govern on this point over to the whims of feudal rulers like Hobby Lobby.

Understand this point. We are still being governed. The Hobby Lobby decision didn't limit the power of government. It denied the right of We The People to make this decision for Ourselves, instead giving it over to our employers.

We're still being governed, but now by dictators.

No government is perfect. But a regulation enacted by Our representatives is (at least theoretically) created with Our interests in mind, whereas a regulation created by an employer is created with =only= corporate interests in mind.

=That= is the difference.

note: "corporate interests" in this context can mean "the personal viewpoint of a single corporate owner." It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the financial dealings we normally think of as "corporate interests." Ex: It could be raw racism or religious bigotry.