For generations, New Hampshire has balanced independence with practicality. Our political culture has never been about sweeping ideological experiments. It has been about town meetings, local control and solving problems in ways that keep communities stable and functioning.
That tradition is now under strain.
The growing dominance of the Free State Project and its political allies has shifted the focus of state government away from governing and toward ideological transformation. What once sounded like abstract libertarian theory is now shaping real policy, and the results are destabilizing public systems, dividing communities and overriding local decision-making.
This is no longer a philosophical debate. It is a governing crisis.
In recent sessions, lawmakers aligned with this movement have pursued a steady stream of controversial proposals aimed less at improving public institutions than at weakening or bypassing them.
Expansion of Education Freedom Accounts divert increasing amounts of public funding away from local public schools, including funds sent to families already using private education — reducing predictability for school district budgets.
Repeated proposals to nullify or ignore federal laws, including measures framed as “state sovereignty” bills, raise serious constitutional conflicts and legal uncertainty.
Zoning preemption proposals override local planning authority, limiting the ability of towns to control development in their own communities.
Secession-style legislation proposing mechanisms for New Hampshire to withdraw from the United States would create economic and legal chaos if ever seriously pursued.
Public health rollback efforts, including attempts to sharply limit emergency powers even during crises, constrain the state’s ability to respond to real threats.
Taken individually, each bill may be framed as expanding liberty. Taken together, they represent a systematic effort to hollow out public governance itself.
This is not reform. It is structural destabilization.
The same uncompromising mindset shaping legislation is also visible inside their own political ranks. Reports of pressure, threats and factional conflict have become increasingly common.
Movements built on ideological purity tend to treat disagreement as betrayal. That may energize activists. It is toxic in a governing majority.
A functioning legislature requires negotiation, coalition-building and respect for institutional norms. When political power is exercised through pressure and intimidation, governance becomes erratic and trust collapses, not only among lawmakers, but among the public they serve.
Nothing exposes the contradiction more clearly than the proposed immigration detention facility in Merrimack.
For years, Free State-aligned leaders have championed local control as a core principle. Yet when residents of Merrimack opposed the siting of a large federal detention operation in their community, that principle suddenly became optional.
Town leaders warned about lost tax revenue, strain on police and fire services, and lack of transparency. Residents protested. Local officials formally objected.
But instead of defending municipal authority, free state leaders welcomed the expansion of federal enforcement infrastructure.
Local control, apparently, applies only when it produces ideologically preferred outcomes.
When a town says no, and state leaders override it, that is not liberty. That is political imposition.
This outcome should not surprise anyone paying attention. The long-stated goal of the movement is to concentrate ideological actors in a single state and fundamentally transform its laws and institutions.
That is not representative democracy. It is strategic political engineering.
When policymakers see government not as a tool for serving residents but as a system to be dismantled or remade according to theory, community needs inevitably come second. Infrastructure stability, school funding predictability, public safety coordination and municipal authority all become negotiable, collateral in a larger ideological project.
This is not about whether one prefers small government or large government. New Hampshire has long supported lean governance paired with strong local institutions.
What is at stake now is something more basic: whether government exists to serve communities, or whether communities exist to serve an ideological experiment.
When public schools face funding instability, when towns lose control over their own planning decisions, when federal detention infrastructure is imposed over local objection, and when legislative priorities center on dismantling systems rather than improving them, the cumulative effect is erosion of stability, trust and democratic accountability.
That erosion does not happen all at once. It happens bill by bill. Override by override. Crisis by crisis.
New Hampshire’s political culture has always valued independence, but also responsibility, restraint and respect for local decision-making. Those traditions built one of the most civically engaged states in the country.
The question now is whether we intend to preserve that tradition or allow governance to be replaced by ideological conquest.
Because when theory replaces accountability, and power replaces representation, the damage is not abstract.
It is felt in every town that loses its voice. Every public institution forced into instability. Every community treated as a proving ground rather than a home.
New Hampshire deserves better than to be someone else’s experiment.
Rep. Wendy Thomas represents the town of Merrimack.