American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism
Ned Ryun (Encounter, $25.99, 159 pages)
Ned Ryun, founder of American Majority and Voter Gravity, has written a stinging overview of the origins and growth of the so-called Deep State, the class of bureaucrats that have come to rule American society. Ryun shows how bureaucratic rule quickly becomes authoritarian rule. The U.S. Constitution creates three branches of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, each with a function to play. But at the beginning of the 21st century, true power resides in the administrative state, the “unelected, detached” bureaucracy. Ryun shows how the state has grown since Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, how the expert class within the bureaucracy uses crises such as wars, depressions, and epidemics to grab and hold power, thus becoming a self-perpetuating governing class. As the constitutional order is imperiled, “no one has any rights except those given to him by the state when considered beneficial for the advancement of state and society.” Gone are the traditional protections afforded citizens, such as freedom of speech and conscience, private property, and privacy. The bureaucracy then operates without oversight by the legislature, executive, or judiciary; thus, progressive government soon resembles communist or fascist dictatorships with no brake on its lawfare, surveillance, redistribution, and violation of rights against those who do not toe the line or present any threat to the deep state. “Government thuggery” becomes an inevitability.
Ryun provides a program to uproot the deep state that looks like it might have been read by the Trump administration: incentivizing early retirements, mass firings, massively reforming entire agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Council, and closing entire departments like Education and Housing and Urban Development. If you want to understand the necessity of many of Trump’s early actions to cut and reform government, American Leviathan is essential reading.
