What if I told you that the President of the United States doesn’t really run our government? Or that most people in Washington, D.C., don’t really believe in representative democracy? Or that a government of, by, and for the people is just an illusion? Because all of those things are closer to reality than the idea that we are still a republic in which all power flows from the people to their duly elected representatives to create a government that promotes and defends the interests of the American people first and last.
It’s time for the American people to understand that the past century has seen a slow regime change, a gradual coup, undermining our Constitution and Constitutional Republic. This internal insurrection has undercut the original intent of the Constitution, eroded our freedoms, undermined our civil liberties, and called into question who is actually governing this country.
The coup I’m referring to is the focus of my new book, American Leviathan, which examines the Progressive Statist movement that began in the early 20th century and gave rise to the unconstitutional and un-American Administrative State that now dominates Washington, D.C., and, by extension, our country.
The Progressive movement, led by such men as Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Croly, Robert La Follette, and Theodore Roosevelt, was a complete rejection of the original intent of the Constitution. In fact, the Progressive movement, as John Marini wrote in Unmasking the Administrative State, “has as its fundamental purpose the destruction of the political and moral authority of the U.S. Constitution.”
The Progressives’ goal: build a massive bureaucracy filled with unelected bureaucrats, separated from political accountability, who would do the actual governing in this country. Viewing the all-powerful state as salvation for society and mankind, the Progressives weren’t shy about their aims: “We are not bound to adhere to the doctrines held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence,” Wilson declared. “We are as free as they are to make and unmake governments.” So they set out to unmake the American Republic.
Progressive Statists deeply resented the separation of powers, the essence of our Constitution and the greatest protector of our natural inherent rights, so piece by piece they pulled apart the machinery of the Republic. The diffusion of power in their minds was the greatest hindrance to progress, so they set out to consolidate the legislative, executive and judicial powers in the Administrative State in the name of “progress.”
Vehemently opposed to the idea of a rights-based government, Progressives rejected the ideals of the Declaration that “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.” A rights-based government was too limited in size and scope for them to achieve their grandiose “progress.”
As the separation of powers meant to protect those rights was a hindrance to progress, so, too, was a rights-based government: one could not have efficiency in the pursuit of progress if every individual was demanding his or her rights be secured and protected. No, in their thinking, the State was all, a living organism that subsumed everything else—corporations, individuals, individual rights—and the State, for the sake of progress, would return those rights if it deemed it advantageous to the State.
In the end, the Progressives triumphed. They built their Administrative State, consolidating in many ways the executive, legislative, and judicial powers into one entity. Over the course of the 20th century until the present day, this State, which primarily resides in the Executive Branch, has become a sprawling bureaucracy, the American Leviathan, filled with powerful, unelected bureaucrats who owe nothing to the American people, who feel in many ways they rule the people.
This unconstitutional state and its ruling class are now the greatest threat to our freedom and inherent rights.
The question, now, is: What will be done with it? Every aspect of the Administrative State is deeply antithetical to our founding and the idea of representative democracy. When threatened by Donald Trump’s idea that he, as the duly elected representative of the American people, was the one to decide both foreign and domestic policy—with Congress serving in its advise and consent role—the State lashed out, declaring political war on Trump and his supporters.
The American people gained a significant victory against the State earlier this summer when the Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondi overruled the “Chevron doctrine,” which for the past 40 years allowed the Administrative State to “reasonably interpret” a regulatory statute regardless of congressional intent. In other words, the bureaucrats could do what they felt best regardless of what the other two branches of the government told them to do. As a result of Loper Bright, a host of regulatory and bureaucratic overreaches can now be rolled back to the benefit of our country.
A far more aggressive rollback should take place by Trump when he wins in November: he should declare on Day 1 of his administration that he will break apart the Administrative State, devolve it, returning legislative powers to the Article I branch, that he will break the State to drain the Swamp and then bring about the great restoration of our Republic.
