Tearing Leviathan Apart

Authored by Ned Ryun and Mark Corallo via American Greatness,

The time has come to end the Administrative State once and for all.

This failed experiment launched a century ago by Progressive Statists like Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt is a deeply unconstitutional approach to government that is antithetical to the free, representative government founded by the American Republic. It is the polar opposite of what our founders envisioned with the unelected bureaucrats doing the governing of the country while not responsive to “We the People,” as the people didn’t elect them and, more importantly, don’t have any recourse to redress their grievances against the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the Administrative State via its statutes and regulations that benefit the State and its allies.

The good news is that President Trump has fully empowered Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is a massive step in the right direction. The fundamental reason for this is: Trump rejects the premise that the Administrative State is legitimate or that its unelected bureaucrats should be the final decision makers on anything, whether foreign or domestic policy. But Trump and DOGE should not settle for reducing government spending and the regulatory burden. 

Its goal should be to shatter the Administrative State into a million pieces. 

Everything that is wrong with our government and country today in many ways stems from the Administrative State: out of control bureaucracy, insane spending, and really the Swamp writ large. Understand that the foundation of the Swamp is the State. If you want to drain the Swamp you must break the State. Not only will it fix many of the ills facing America today, it will put the country back on the path of restoring the free American Republic and balancing out the three branches of government once more, which will lead to greater freedom and a Golden Age for this country.

But for this to happen, several fundamental, practical things must take place.

First, on Day 1 of his second term, Trump must fire via his Reduction in Force authority 200,000 federal employees, preferably at the GS-12 and 13 levels. Of course the federal employee unions, which should cease to exist, will sue for a stay. That case will likely wind its way through the courts for 18 months or so (unless the Supreme Court fast tracks it). But once it reaches the SCOTUS, the fundamental question to be asked is: can the head of the Executive Branch, the duly elected President of the US, hire or fire whoever he pleases as per the Constitution? Or do the extra Constitutional statutes and regulations protecting the civil servants supersede the Constitution? With this SCOTUS, the odds are they will side with the originalism of the Constitution and give the President the right to hire and fire whoever he pleases inside the Executive Branch, where most of the Administrative State resides. 

Then Trump becomes the Demolition Man for at least the last two years of his Administration: firing large swaths of the federal government and shutting down departments and agencies. Most importantly in that process, removing those positions from the federal rolls and imploding the buildings he’s emptied and building a Freedom Park (or parks) over the top. Perhaps he even creates the monument he envisioned in July of 2020 and places the statues of our great American heroes over the remains of the Administrative State.

It’s imperative that the DOGE not be just be a cost cutting and regulatory slashing initiative, although that would be reason enough considering the massive bloat, waste, fraud and abuse in the system.  This is about reminding the career bureaucrats they answer to the people through their elected officials.  These bureaucrats have for too long usurped the power of the sovereign people and due to the government employee union contracts are not answerable to the elected officials from whom they derive their power.  They have become a de facto, independent, unaccountable, fourth branch of government that appears nowhere in the United States Constitution.  They are, in fact, the very top-down, authoritarian ruling elite our forefathers rejected in 1776 and replaced in the triumph of the American Revolution. 

Now as the entire process of answering the fundamental question of President Trump’s ability to hire and fire could take well over a year, what is to be done in the short term with the high level federal employees who plan on resisting Trump’s agenda? Trump should create the federal government equivalent of the New York City school system’s “rubber room.” 

On Day 1 of his Administration, the GS-15s and SES types, which by the way will likely include Biden political appointees who have “burrowed” into various departments and agencies as civil servants, will report to an empty government building dubbed the Department of Elimination, 30 minutes from Capitol Hill; far enough away to make it painful.

They will report there promptly every day to sit at empty desks for 8 hours until SCOTUS addresses the fundamental question. Then, as the Administration proceeds, any high level bureaucrat caught resisting will be immediately reassigned to the Department of Elimination “rubber room.” They won’t be fired. They just get to sit there and not have the ability to resist inside the various departments and agencies.

It’s time to use the political power given to Trump by the American people to restore the Republic. In 1911 Woodrow Wilson, shortly before taking the White House and erecting the Administrative State, declared, “We are not bound to adhere to the doctrines of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. We are as free as they were to make or unmake governments.” Trump should have that exact same mentality: we are not bound to adhere to the doctrines of the founders of the Administrative State. We are as free as they were to unmake governments and by God, we must do it: we must break the shackles of the bureaucratic statism holding us down — the future happiness and freedom of generations yet to come depend on it.

Break the State. Drain the Swamp. Restore the Republic.