A Republic In Name Only

“In short, Progressive Statists wanted an oligarchy of an expert class, unhindered by a constitution, unbothered by representative interference, and free to do their own “enlightened” meddling with every aspect of society, supposedly for the “greater good” of bringing salvation to the dirty little peasants.” – American Leviathan

After a 248-year experiment, the dismal results are in.  The American republic has failed.  The promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been seized by the powers that be and turned the masses into subjects, not citizens.  In 1913, before the enactment of the Federal Reserve and the Income Tax, federal spending was a mere 3 percent of GDP.  By 2023, government spending had grown to 34.4 percent, at times reaching as high as nearly 50 percent. 

In Ned Ryun’s 2024 book, “American Leviathan”, Ryun tells the story of the Progressive Movement that formed to shift power away from the people and the American Constitution that protected them, and toward a small group of elite experts with the intent to implement an authoritarian system of consolidated power.  From Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, our republican form of government slowly shifted towards an administrative state controlled by bureaucrats outside the political system of voting and checks and balances.  Over 100 years in the making, Ryan’s tale of the birth of the administrative state is the progressive’s rejection of the American Constitution that provided limits they couldn’t endure.

The Founders had the unique belief that our natural rights came from our Creator and that those rights were unalterable under our Constitutional Republic.  The Founders instituted a republican system to limit the power of government and to weaken and limit authority by a separation of powers provision in the Constitution, understanding human nature as it was, and knowing that because men were fallible, power must be constrained. 

On the other hand, Progressive Statists believed that rights come from society, that is, from man.   And that these legal rights could be amended at any time.  Progressives, believing that humans can be perfected, installed an elite class of intellectuals who could solve every societal problem, rejecting the constitutional limits that the Founders set, in exchange for equal outcomes, social justice, and a European system of expertism, that is, rule by experts.  Through the implementation of a mass bureaucracy, progressives worked to concentrate power in the hands of a few.  Insulated from accountability and the electoral process, bureaucrats cannot be voted out. 

The new unelected bureaucratic class began with Woodrow Wilson following the 1912 election, the movement’s first wave.  During its first eight years, four consequential amendments would bring the power shift away from representative government.  Its effects would be further expanded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 with the New Deal that flooded the government with excess new programs, only to be matched by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963 with his Great Society that added a slate of regulatory legislation.  Each iteration grew the state through the expansion of agencies and departments, leading to an explosion of subagencies and subdepartments. 

Federalism, the splitting of power between the federal government and the states and the people, was another defining feature of the Constitution.  An example of federalism was the appointment of Senators by state legislatures, a means of mooring Senators to their respective states.  Progressives shifted power away from federalism when they passed the 17th Amendment, which detached Senators from state legislature appointments and replaced them with the direct popular vote of the state.

To delegitimize the Administrative State, Ryun suggests freezing funding, cutting back programs, and dismantling agencies that are unaccountable to the people.  Large gains can be made by ending departments, namely, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Energy.  For those that remain, a restructuring of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the National Institute of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control.  To accelerate the process, Congress could make bureaucrats fireable by the executive office.  To reduce bureaucratic power in the nation’s capital, Ryun recommends reassigning departments throughout the country.  If DOGE could focus on these areas, we would call that a good start. 

In 1651, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes penned his infamous book, “The Leviathan,” where he advocated for a strong supreme leader to lord over the brutish Rubes who found themselves in constant chaos without their potentate's calming hand.  Both parties, the Uniparty, America’s Leviathan, grow the state, allowing more shared power every election cycle.  The rights-based republic held in check by voters that the founders created is not functioning today. 

Trump was a stick in the spokes of the growing bureaucracy when he first arrived in 2017, but was clearly unprepared for the challenge.  This time around, it appears he’s learned his lesson.  Once people begin to see the corruption of the system, further pruning should come with the cheers and blessings of the public.