Joe Biden regrets dropping out of the race, and wishes he had four more years. But as Lew Rockwell reminds us, it isn’t more or less of Biden’s dereliction of duty, defective morality, or diminished mental state that’s the problem.
The problem is the Executive Branch itself. It is an imperial ruler with its imperial class presiding over its ever-expanding empire. The modern American president has become the intermediary between God and the people, an American Pharaoh. Unlike the real American Pharoah, limiting his activities to food, drink and sex, our American Pharaoh is working to set the world on fire, destroy his imaginary enemies, and subvert economies and human life all over the planet – often for no more rational reason than Because. He. Can.
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Instead of worshipping the presidency, we must consider the extreme danger the bloated Executive Branch poses, not just to Americans, but to every person on the planet. We must withhold our support as a rule, and only lend our support when the actions of the president and his unlimited executive branch conduct themselves in accordance with the hard-earned, hard-won fundamentals of the Constitution.
Rockwell writes, “If there is ever a time to get behind a president, it is when he withdraws from the world, stops wars, and brings the troops home. If there is ever a time to trip him up, question his leadership, and denounce his usurpations, it is when he does the opposite.”
Our duty has always been to trip up, question and denounce the President – and how do we know this? Because it is the opposite of what the state demands, from our very earliest education until we, in our final days, lose our ability to think and speak. The state reminds us every day to submit, never question, and always laud the Executive Branch, in all its acts, decisions, and aspirations.
Over 500 years ago, De La Boettie in Politics of Obedience notes of kings, conquerers or elected presidents, “For although the means of coming into power differ, still the method of ruling is practically the same; those who are elected act as if they were breaking in bullocks; those who are conquerors make the people their prey; those who are heirs plan to treat them as if they were their natural slaves.”
The US state – contrary to the intent of the Founders – concentrates destructive power over life, limb, and property, and grants the very definition of right and wrong into the hands, head and heart of a single, greatly flawed man or woman. The executive office may unleash nuclear warheads, enact economic sanctions, and define “justice” at home and abroad. It creates the wars in which our friends and parents and children will die. It bans free trade at home and abroad, with vicious sanctions that starve the children of other countries, while enslaving the parents and neglecting the children at home. It determines which crimes are punished, and which criminals are rewarded.
One might say, well, yes, so we want a moral and ethical President – yet, as an example seen in the many critiques of the late Jimmy Carter, he was a most moral man but a terrible president. Of course this critique is not true – no American presidents have, or can maintain, the slightest claim on morality. I am reminded of Vice President Pence in Trump’s first term, whose morality (or lack of it) prevented him from eating dinner with a female counterpart who was not his wife, but that same ethical spine melted like butter at the opportunity to support Israel’s apartheid and US political assassinations abroad, and the many other murderous alliances and little wars so treasured by the American executive branch.
Biden reveled in politics, using his various skills to warmonger, tax, spend, promote the state over the people at every opportunity, without thinking much about any of it. An unimpressive third-tier entertainer, politics rewarded him in ways that the comedic stage would never have. He aspired to be an Irish storyteller, weighed down with a dysfunctional family, a bit of perversion, a superficial Christianity, and a craving for power and recognition. Even in his diminished mental state, Biden remains the iconic American politician.
Our next president shares many of these qualities. Like Biden and the vast majority of Americans, Trump lacks a core philosophy of government. Today, only a minority of Americans intuit the fundamental definition of the state: the entity exercising a monopoly on the use of force over a defined territory.
This factual definition, if recognized by more Americans and Mr. Trump himself, would accomplish three important things.
First, the US would reject roles of global policeman and global superpower, and refuse a unipolar world order directed by Washington, DC. Knowing that the US does not have, nor should it ever seek, a monopoly on the use of force abroad would immediately end every boutique war and diplomatic manipulation the US currently fuels, funds and participates.
Second, Americans and the Trump team would more seriously debate the nature of state monopoly in general. This debate would reflect the idealized nature, if not the scope, of a classical Republic – small, representative, servant government. The debate might begin with security, domestic policing and the role of states. It might expand to maintenance of a truly defensive military – and debate its very necessity, given the federation of powerful states, and our 2nd Amendment culture. It would branch off into the definition of a monopoly, and for every group enjoying a government or government-enforced “monopoly,” two or ten others or a million others resent and are punished by it. We would further debate what has happened to our money, and who benefits from the Federal Reserve, and who is harmed. For every group that the Fed benefits, multitudes are diminished and impoverished. Monopolizing government policies in health insurance, pharma, communications, data, energy, trade, small business, the IRS, domestic surveillance, education, the post office – all would be discussed by people from the perspective of state overreach and mal-execution of its constitutionally limited monopoly.
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Third, as Americans and Mr Trump begin to understand that the state is simply a construct by which the use of force over territory, and by extension, the population in that territory, is exercised, they will become immune to the remonstrations by state promoters and propagandists to be “grateful” for our government, and to commend its massive investment in itself. We will question the double standard of debt that demands ours must be paid, while unlimited and gargantuan debt of the state is good for all. We will worry together that coming generational wealth transfers will end up funding the state and its cronies, not the people.
Trump 2.0 brings energy and excitement to the table, but he shows signs of a deep misunderstanding of the role of government. His instincts to end small wars, reduce the regulatory burden, and speak freely are excellent, but his desire to treat the state as a growing concern, a business among global businesses, reeks. Trump – if he may be taken at face value – wants an elimination of a debt ceiling, because he doesn’t like it. He will maintain the Federal Reserve – existing solely to serve state expansionism and war through criminal and unending debasement of the currency – because he likes it. He wants to create captive customers for defense and energy in Europe, while expanding rather than shrinking the territory under which the US government can monopolize the use of force, starting with Canada, Greenland, and Panama, because it’s his portfolio rather than our republic. He intends to fight a military war against drug cartels in Mexico, and presumably China, while actively using state monopolies and sanction to preserve a fading and unwarranted global “dominance” because he understands more about advertising than liberty.
Trump is unlikely to take personal bribes or be blackmailed, a welcome change from recent presidents. But he sees the state as a tool for building, rather than a simple and limited toolbox to promote individual freedom, honest money, and peace at home and abroad. He sees the state’s cold, impersonal monopoly on the use of force over a limited territory as an asset to be nurtured and grown, rather than as a sharp tool designed for a single, specific purpose and no more.
There will be many things to regret in 2025 and beyond, but finding new ways to withdraw our consent, trip up the state, question it, and denounce its usurpations will never be one of them. Happy New Year!
