Unmasking the Administrate State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand today's political crisis at the federal level. In a way, it is an ongoing constitutional crisis brought on by the progressive revolution in American governance that originated with President Woodrow Wilson. The book describes how governance has been distorted beyond all recognition from the founding principles in the Constitution. It was Wilson, the first progressive president, who believed that the Constitution should be more flexible in creating a better society without adhering to a strict interpretation of the Constitution's original text. Rather, it should be a "living Constitution" that adapts to current circumstances. What this essentially did was to nullify many of the timeless principles in the Constitution.
Woodrow Wilson is probably one of the most transformative presidents in American history by initiating this process of revolutionizing the way the federal government works. He basically changed the mission of government from creating and maintaining the conditions for people to create better lives for themselves to directly intervening in the lives of citizens in theoretically making their lives better.
Decades later, FDR implemented the beginnings of the administrative state based on Wilson's progressivism with his New Deal programs. And decades following FDR, Lyndon Johnson solidified the triumph of the administrative state through his Great Society program, which essentially made the federal bureaucracy a government unto itself, removed from direct accountability to American citizens.
The following is a passage from Unmasking the Administrative State that precisely identifies this problem:
America has a problem, not because of our Constitution but because constitutionalism as a theoretical doctrine is no longer meaningful in our politics. A constitution is only meaningful if its principles, which authorize government, are understood to be permanent and unchangeable, in contrast to the statute laws made by government that alter with circumstances and changing political requirements of each generation[.] ... When the principles that establish the legitimacy of the constitution are understood to be changeable, are forgotten, or are denied, the constitution can no longer impose limits on the power of government. limits on the power of government. In that case, government itself will determine the conditions of the social compact and become the arbiter of the rights of individuals. When that transformation occurs, as it did in the twentieth century, the sovereignty of the people, established by the Constitution, was replaced by the sovereignty of the government, understood in terms of the modern concept of the rational or administrative state and established the theoretical and moral foundations of progressive politics.
The power of the federal bureaucracy, AKA the administrative state, has grown exponentially ever since the sixties, culminating in the political crisis brought on by what Trump appropriately called "the swamp." The administrative state has come to serve permanent Washington and its special interests more than it does ordinary citizens, who gave rise to Trump's candidacy and election to the presidency in 2016 on a major campaign promise to "drain the swamp." A short passage from the book: "Trump has appealed to the rule of law and has attacked bureaucratic rule as the rule of privilege and patronage on the behalf of social, economic, foreign policy and political elites."
Some people see how the administrative state serves itself, and some people don't. For those who can see it, you can be sure they voted for Trump and are a part of the Make America Great Again movement.
Looking at Washington, D.C. another way, who is really running the show — Congress and the president or the bureaucracy? Anthony Fauci is one answer, along with Pfizer, Moderna, and social media's content moderation apparatus.
Self-rule and problem-solving are no longer the objective of government. They've been superseded by the preservation and expansion of its institutional power — at the expense of everyone else.
Image via Max Pixel.