Unmaking the Leviathan Part I: The Storefront of Democracy, the Reality of Rule

We think we live in a constitutional republic. But what if that’s just the sign on the window and the reality of what’s inside is much different?

Step into Washington, D.C., and you’ll find the rituals and trappings of representative democracy still somewhat intact: elected officials, congressional hearings, televised debates, regular elections, three branches of government. But when you pull back the curtain, you’ll see something else entirely—behind that veneer of representative democracy is a vast bureaucracy of unelected officials doing the real governing, making the real decisions. For over a century, we’ve clung to the illusion that the people govern through their representatives. In reality, we are governed by administrators, by civil servants and clerks with the power of kings. There’s no representation for the American people with those bureaucrats because the people didn’t elect them. 

Even more troubling is that representing the interests of the American people isn’t really the point with the Administrative State and its managerial class that rules the country. That would assume those bureaucrats think they work for the American people. But instead they view everyday Americans really an unelightened dirty little peasants who “lack the expertise to make informed decisions about their laws and communities. . . [these educated elites] must guide and shape public opinion and policy to make sure the people are making healthy choices for themselves.” It becomes a system not so much of representation but forced conformity to the dictates and regulations of the managerial class, who quite frankly, operate off a different set of values and ideals than the Founding Fathers did and with every passing year become more authoritarian in their actions.

However, too many people still don’t understand what is happening. They express outrage that DC is dysfunctional. But that misses the point: the real problem isn’t dysfunction; it’s substitution. The administrative state has replaced representative government. We were promised a Republic—what we got instead is an entrenched apparatus that operates with little transparency, no accountability, and a limitless appetite for our money and control.

This isn’t just a critique. It’s a wake-up call. The question is will the American people, who are asleep in the light, actually rise up and demand a restoration of a government of, by, and for the people that they were essentially promised and that is their right as free born Americans. That is the critical question of the day and one that remains unanswered.