The One or the Many? Will We Decide the Common Good?

The President has said he wants to be dictator for a day. He is serious. But not just for a day. Remember the children’s story book. “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie …”

We are where the centuries old debate keeps coming back to. Democracy or authority? How do we want to be ruled? Can we get to the Common Good?

Democracy has always had its detractors among philosophers. For some, it leads to mob rule. For others, it is too weak and ineffective to fix the complex and divisive problems that need to be fixed for the nation to thrive. It can be seen as a hurdle to getting done what one believes has to be done.

Reporting on a study they did in 2023, two Yale University political scientists write, “Our findings show that U.S. voters, regardless of their party affiliation, are willing to forgive undemocratic behavior to achieve their partisan ends and policy goals.”

“Whatever is necessary” is profoundly undemocratic.

The President has allies in his quest for authority. He is backed by conservative academics and writers who make the supporting intellectual arguments, and by a growing religious movement that provides the political muscle. His words are not idle musings.

The rethinking of presidential power has been percolating for some time among thinkers on the new right. For them, democracy as a process is not working. Problems are not solved. People are not happy. The “common good” is not achieved. The country needs a president who has the power to do things.

In an interview, Curtis Yarvin argues, “If democracy is against the common good, it’s bad, and if it’s for the common good, it’s good. … We need a government that is actually good and that actually works, and we don’t have one.

“If you took any of the Fortune 500 C.E.O.s, just pick one at random and put him or her in charge of Washington. I think you’d get something much, much better than what’s there.”

Patrick Deneen, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, in his book “Regime Change” calls for “the raw assertion of political power by a new generation of political actors inspired by an ethos of common-good conservatism.”

Harvard Law professor, Adrian Vermeule, proponent of what he calls Common Good Constitutionalism, argues that conservatives should shift their attention from limiting government to making sure that it has “the power to rule well” in service of the “common good”.

How do we know the “common good”? Vermeule contends that natural law and natural reason provide the unchanging moral principles by which we should govern. Principles “written in the hearts of all people.” The idea draws on ancient Greek and medieval Catholic thinking of what constitutes a just society and how to achieve it. “Strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate.”

He compares the presidential powers he advocates to the powers of the Roman emperors given to them by the people to replace “the corrupt government of the senatorial class,” which served only “the self-interest of a predatory elite.”

Trump’s followers claim the same authority. Their power comes directly from the people. It can’t be limited. “He is just doing what he promised during the campaign that he would do if he were elected.”

A strong, politically organized force supporting Trump and pushing us toward the rule of One are the religious believers who see themselves as soldiers in a holy war to establish God’s kingdom on earth. For them, harking back to Old Testament stories, Trump is the “anointed one” chosen by God to lead the nation back from the evil ways it has fallen into. Back to the days when God’s will was followed and America was Great.

In an extraordinary article in The Atlantic, Stephanie McCrummen in “The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows” writes of the charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation “that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights, or constitutional democracy. It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political.

“The movement has never been about policies or changes to the law; it’s always been about the larger goal of dismantling the institutions of secular government to clear the way for the Kingdom. It is about God’s total victory.”

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and MAGA have bonded. “Heaven and Earth are coming into alignment! … The will of heaven is being done on Earth.” NAR supplies the ground troops. NAR was a major source of the low propensity voters who elected Trump in 2024. The assault on the Capitol was a “great spiritual battle against the forces of darkness.”

“I came to understand how the movement amounts to a sprawling political machine,” McCrummen writes. “The apostles and prophets, speaking for God, decide which candidates and policies advance the Kingdom. The movement’s prayer networks and newsletters amount to voter lists and voter guides.

“As November’s election neared, I watched the whole juggernaut crank into action to return Trump to the White House. I attended one event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It looked like an old-fashioned tent revival, except that it was also an aggressive pro-Trump mobilization effort. (The leader) dabbed frankincense oil onto foreheads, anointing voters into God’s army.”

At a NAR church, on the day after the election, “The mood was jubilant. A pastor spoke of “years of oppression” and said that “we are at a time on the other side of a victory for our nation that God alone—that God alone—orchestrated for us.”

Authority has seldom worked out well. Inevitably it becomes oppressive. When the human spirit is restless and wants to be free. Over the centuries, the question has continually been raised, how to limit the power of the One.

The answer was a precursor of democracy. Spread power out. Divide it up. Restrain power with power. Put a check on the One.

An early step to do just that was taken in England in 1215. Rebel barons with their troops presented King John with a charter for reform that spelled out the rights of barons and serfs and placed limits on the King’s actions. Importantly, a council of 25 barons was created to monitor compliance by the King and provide enforcement if needed.

Some 550 years later the American rebels decided to do away with having a King completely. They replaced the One with the Many. They gave the power to make law to a Congress of citizens from all parts of the country elected by their peers. The power to “execute” the law was given to the newly created office of President.

The important word in the constitutional delegation of power is “executive”. “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The Oxford dictionary defines “executive” as: “having the power to put plans, actions, or laws into effect.” Congress, an assembly of the Many, makes the law. The President executes the law.

The responsibility of the President spelled out in Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution is clear. “He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The President’s power to make law is limited to recommending to Congress “for their Consideration, such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Why the emphasis on the law? Because the law marks the boundary between public and private. Government agencies and officials can do only what the law allows them to do and only in the way the law prescribes. Government power can be used only for those purposes approved by the Many.

At the beginning of his second term, Trump and his administration are actively challenging the constitutional restraints on presidential power. They have not limited themselves to permitted actions. And in taking actions that are permitted, they have not followed the processes required by law.

When One has power, the Good is decided for us. By a king. By a God. By a dictator. By natural law. By a philosophy or belief system. This is what is Good. Good for you. Good for everyone. Good for the community. How do we know it is Good? Authority tells us. Conformity is required, because when you don’t conform, the community suffers.

Diversity is a threat to authority. The existence of diversity is a living demonstration there are many possible goods and we can choose.

Under democracy, when the Many have power, the Good is not preconceived. Rather, the premise of democracy is that we will come closer to a Good we can all live with when together and collectively we decide what that Good is and with our votes incorporate the Good in law.

The Good is not handed down to us from some outside authority. It is what we decide. And we may decide something different tomorrow. The decisions may be good or bad but the process allows us to live together peaceably – an essential part of the Common Good -- while we work things out.

The argument for the One is always some variation of: authority is needed to do what is required to achieve the Common Good. In the theoretical construct, the end (a well-ordered society) justifies the means (authority). In the political world, however, as soon as the One has authority the authority is used to further the agenda of the One. Once the power is given it can’t be taken back except by force.

The Common Good that Vermeule envisions that can be achieved under Common Good Constitutionalism is a “just state that protects the vulnerable from the ravages of pandemics, natural disasters, and climate change, and from the underlying structures of corporate power that contribute to these events.”

The Trump acolytes who have adopted the part of Vermeule’s theory that justifies authority have very different ideas of how that authority should be used.

Authority always requires restraint. The constitutional balancing of powers are just words on paper until someone with the authority to say No – be that a Court or Congress -- exercises that power and actually says No. The most difficult No is a No to your own – to your friends, to your associates, to your party. It is also a No that has to be said.

When left unused, the power to restrain is lost. Authority wins. In the long run, the people have to say No.