The Logic of Liberalism

‘‘He who saves his country does not violate any law.’’ 

This was the message President Trump sent to the American people after many of his executive orders were either delayed or overturned by judicial courts. The saying can be traced back to the French revolutionary era when a succession of ‘patriotic’ leaders claimed the right to suspend and break laws to advance the public interest. Behind this authoritarian statement is a stunning, but alas unsurprising, expression of contempt for the rule of law and the system of checks and balances. The MAGA regime’s relentless quest to strengthen and lengthen the power of the executive does not just violate the constitutional theory of the Founding Fathers, it also ignores the stern and repeated warnings of the next generation of revolutionary-era philosophers against the temptation to invest all power in one man. 

Of all the great thinkers of this age of revolution, one figure in particular stands out for the profundity and incisiveness of his reasoning on the question of executive power. In his Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments, the Swiss political philosopher Benjamin Constant sets out to establish the principles of good governance. His most essential recommendation is the imposition of constitutional limits on the power of the executive. The supreme magistrate must be made weak to safeguard society from the menace of strongmen. Until very recently, the U.S. did not commonly feature politicians who habitually muscled their way through politics. That changed when Trump gained access to the levels of state power. ‘‘As had authoritarians before him,’’ explains historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, ‘‘Trump saw himself as a maverick who could dispense with laws that less powerful individuals had to follow,’’ (Strongmen p. 58). The boldness of the Trump administration, particularly its willingness to use force, signals the arrival of a disproportionally powerful and imperial presidency; one that stands in sharp contrast to the relative weakness of previous executives.

During the Republican National Convention of August 18, 1988, then presidential candidate George H.W. Bush promised not to propose any new federal taxes. He publicly chided Michael Dukakis, the Democratic Party presidential nominee, for being too floppy on the question of whether Congress should resort to taxes to cut the alarming national spending deficit: ‘‘My opponent now says that he will raise them as a last resort, or a third resort, but when a politician talks like that you know that’s one resort he will be checking into.’’ Unlike his allegedly weak-willed rival, Bush asserted before millions of Americans that when the day came that Congress pressured him to sign a new tax-spending bill, ‘‘I’ll say no, and they will push, I’ll say no, and they will push again’’ until finally, staring at the live camera, Bush boldly asserted ‘‘I’ll say to them, read my lips: no new taxes!’’ 

By 1990, Bush Sr. had changed his mind and was now proposing to raise taxes to reduce the out-of-control national deficits. President Bush tried his very best to defend this embarrassing change of policy, but there was no coming back from the public perception of hypocrisy. Despite the public outcry, the tax hike was approved by Congress, and Bush Sr. would spend the rest of his presidential term apologizing for breaking his promise. At around the same time this political drama was playing out on Capitol Hill, governor Bill Clinton had just begun his fourth term as governor of the state of Arkansas. 

In the late 1970s Clinton raised the weight limit on big trucks to eighty thousand pounds. The idea was to allow state businesses to operate at a much greater capacity so as to improve overall efficiency and company profits. To make up for the likely road damage, Clinton introduced a proportional ‘car tax’ that would require heavier cars to pay a heavier toll. Clinton initially thought the car tax was a fair and smart policy: it had the potential to raise enough revenue to invest in an infrastructure bill that would benefit the people of Arkansas for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for Mr. Clinton, the rural ‘truck boys’ of old Arkansas had other ideas. 

As Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein explain in A Fabulous Failure, an account of the Clinton years, some working-class people ‘‘hated the cumbersome procedure that required them to get their vehicle inspected, prove they had paid last year’s car tax, and then pay the higher car registration fees,’’ (A Fabulous Failure p. 25). As a result, Clinton lost his 1980 state reelection bid, and was forced to defend his public record on this issue. Clinton recaptured the governorship two years later, but only after apologizing to the Arkansas electorate for ‘‘past errors.’’ Constant once remarked that, ‘‘Nature has given man two guides: interest and experience. He learns from his own losses,’’ (Commentary on Filangieri's Work p. 42). Having learned from his mistakes, whenever the issue of taxation would come up during the presidential campaign, Clinton made it a point to speak candidly to American voters about his well-considered opinion that an increase in taxation would help balance the federal budget.

At the time, Clinton was not the ideal presidential candidate, but his earnestness and transparency on the issue of taxation stood in sharp contrast to the fleeting charm of the now humbled George H.W. Bush. While Clinton managed to get himself back in the good graces of the Arkansas public, President Bush’s failure to live up to his pledge probably cost him the 1992 election. The point here is not to debate the merits of taxation, but rather to highlight the relative weakness of the liberal politician vis-à-vis the electorate. In a liberal democracy, politicians risk losing their political office if they make and break a public pledge. This mistake cannot be remedied by coercing the public to accept this change. The only available option is to either work to regain the public’s trust or to exit politics altogether. 

Force finds resources in itself

Long before Lord Acton popularized the idea that ‘‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’’ Benjamin Constant warned his fellow Europeans that unlimited power had the tendency to distort human judgment. Because those in power have more to lose than those who lack it, the powerful are more susceptible to all kinds of cognitive biases. Here Constant highlights the widespread tendency among politicians to search for reasons to support a failed policy—what we call ‘motivated reasoning’ today—as a glaring example of the corrupting psychological effects of power. 

It is a fact of political life for example that politicians must often take a public stand on an issue. Once their name, moral reputation, political careers, as well as their historical legacies, are tied to the success of a particular government program, the high stakes make it all the more likely that the politicians involved will stubbornly stick to their narrow viewpoint despite the evident impracticality of their proposal. Unlike the private citizen, who has not compromised himself by making a public pledge upon which his reputation stands, the state leader finds himself in a ‘‘more exposed position,’’ (Commentary on Filangieri's Work p. 42).  

Being professionally and publicly invested in the success of a particular policy, politicians are more likely to stick to their position and ignore contrary evidence. Aware that their political careers and egos are on the line, politicians will not hesitate to use their powers to defend the wrong idea. Depending on the level of criticism they face, they may even direct resources to the task of ensuring that their viewpoint prevails in the face of public outcry. However they decide to evade the truth, it seems clear that politicians who choose to pursue a failed policy in order to maintain their reputation are under a powerful psychological impulse. Matters grow much worse when a politician is not only committed to a false idea, but also has the power to impose it on others. 

In liberal democracies, leading politicians are generally vulnerable to replacement if their policies fail to meet the needs of the public. Being too weak to impose their ideas on an unwilling population, politicians need thoughtful preparation and execution if they are to survive politically. The revolving door of incoming and outgoing Labour and Tory politicians over the past decade is a testament to the vulnerability of the liberal democratic politician. Sir Keir Starmer, who once accused Boris Johnson of being a ‘‘master of untruth and half-truths’’ whose ‘‘instinct will be to lie,’’ is now widely perceived by the British media and the general public as a ‘strategic’ liar whose ‘‘industrial-scale Pinocchioism’’ is ‘‘breathtaking even by Westminster standards.’’ 

In a pithy column for the Telegraph newspaper, associate editor Camilla Tominey set out ‘‘Twelve Lies of Starmer, a grim Christmas carol for a country being taken for fools.’’ As in the Bush disgrace of ‘88, the most notable break between the stated aims of the Starmer administration and its settled policies relate to the issue of taxation. Starmer and his cabinet had initially pledged not to raise taxes on ‘working people’ (people on modest incomes who receive a payslip), but Chancellor Rachel Reeves now acknowledges that the proposed Budget will have a ‘‘cost for working people.’’ Like Clinton in ‘80, the new Labor party also managed to annoy blue-collar workers by falsely claiming that the government’s economic policies will only result in a modest 4% business-rate rise for pubs and other sites of hospitality. The real number is closer to 15% and is likely to rise from a realistic 15% rate to a high of 75% over the next three years. ‘‘Publicans know the truth,’’ Tominey notes, ‘‘that’s why so many have taken the unprecedented step of banning Labour MPs from their establishments.’’ 

In posh Cambridge, a Labour Party stronghold where the bus fare is now an eyebrow-raising £3, football fans have now resorted to ritually thrashing Starmer as consolation prize for lost games. Despised by every tax bracket, and currently suffering under a 21% approval rating, it is hard to see how the most unpopular Prime Minister since 1977 will be able to hold on to his government. Liberals may lament the chaos of British politics, but it is important to remember that the fragility of the job is partly a reflection of the relative weakness of politicians in historic democracies. 

Unlike politicians in democratic societies, autocrats do not always need to ensure that they have a well-thought out plan in place that can actually persuade civilians to go along with their proposals; they can simply rely on their coercive powers to jam their agendas through. While authoritarian leaders often seek to give their regime a veneer of legitimacy by offering official ‘reasons’ for their policy choices, they ultimately do not need to convince the public of the soundness of their ideas to successfully pass a piece of legislation. Being ‘strongmen’ their ability to unleash overwhelming force on dissenters is more than enough to pass a new law. 

In 2003 the Chinese government attempted to gain more control over Hong Kong, but dropped the plan when half a million people took to the streets to protest Beijing’s interference in the island’s affairs. With the arrival of a more forceful Xi Jinping ten years later, the central authorities were able to push through a national security law by cracking down heavily on pro-democracy protests. Once again, Hong Kong activists came out in their thousands to protest the law, but this time around government officials sent out riot police officers to pepper spray and detain more than 300 people for disturbing the peace. Unlike the past tepid attempts to pass a security law, force was the deciding factor in the Chinese government’s campaign to neuter the government of Hong Kong. Observing the tendency of dictators to muscle their way through political and social issues, Constant asserted that when it comes to pushing through unpopular legislation, “force finds resources in itself” whereas “weakness needs thought” to achieve legislative victory (Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments p. 54).  

Most authoritarians would of course prefer to be seen as political savants, whose ideas and arguments hold sway with the public. As such they commonly engage in the same political chatter as liberal politicians and save violence as a last resort. Prudent autocrats will ‘‘avoid causing popular revolt by multiplying vexations beyond all measure,’’ says Constant (Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments p. 388). When persuasion fails, violence comes as a succor. This is the reality Constant always kept in mind. The very real possibility of violence and the all-too-human inclination to use it were empirical facts that shaped Constant’s constitutional thinking. They constituted core reasons for his belief that good governance must involve an intentional but measured incapacitation of the executive that succeeds in protecting vulnerable citizens from the leader’s passing follies. Yet constitutional framers must also make sure that the government has the legislative and coercive tools it needs to act forcefully and decisively in the public interest. The idea that government is a balancing act should be intuitively familiar to Americans. In Federalist No. 51 James Madison famously observed that the greatest difficulty faced by constitutional architects ‘‘lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next oblige it to control itself.’’

Constant reasoned that without recourse to force, politicians would be left with no other choice but to seek to earn their position by compelling intelligence and demonstrable competence. With no military might to rescue them from error, it was Constant’s hope that with the passage of time politicians would come to rely more on merit than coercion to win and sustain power. The rise of a professional class of politicians in the second half of the twentieth-century was in many ways a response to the increasing vulnerability of the politician in a world where educated voters had developed more elaborate private aspirations and grander political expectations. One might even say that the making of a meritocrat like Bill Clinton was the fulfillment of Constant’s hope for a world in which wit rather than wrath is the primary determinant of political success. In the words of journalist Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton was ‘‘the leading meritocrat of America’s first mass generation of college-educated meritocrats,’’ (A Fabulous Failure p. 13).

And yet far from obliterating the social prestige and moral power of the executive office, Constant maintained that with violence out of the question the ambitious politician was now in a better position to assert through public concession rather than force his particular understanding of how the country should be run. This, Constant believed, in no way diminished the executive office, but rather elevated it as an exceptional vehicle of individual brilliance. Taking on the claim that too forceful a limit on executive power would undermine the ability of government to project strength, Constant explained that, ‘‘the circumscription of political authority, within its precise limits, does not tend to weaken that necessary authority.’’ On the contrary, Constant explained, ‘‘it gives it the only real strength it can have. The jurisdiction of authority must be scrupulously limited; but once that jurisdiction is fixed, it must be so organized as always to be capable of attaining swiftly and completely all the purposes within its remit. Freedom gains everything from the government’s being severely confined within the bounds of its legitimacy; but it gains nothing from government’s being feeble within those bounds,’’ (Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments p. 385).

Such a measured approach, consistent with broader principles of freedom, was in his view ‘‘the sole lasting means of real happiness, of assured peace, of ordered activity, of improvement, of tranquility and durability,’’ (Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments p. 386). According to Helena Rosenblatt, an intellectual historian and author of The Lost History of Liberalism, Constant’s ideas about power and liberty made him “the first theorist of liberalism,” (The Lost History of Liberalism p. 66). In our own day and age the dangers of extending immense power to psychologically complex political leaders are not only vivid, but call for an urgent reassessment of the constitutional mechanisms by which we hold the executive accountable.

Featured image is "Demonstration against extradition bill," CC-BY Studio Incendo 2019.