WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Ned Ryun: American Leviathan

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Ned Ryun is the Founder and CEO of American Majority and Voter Gravity. He joins WRFH to discuss his new book, American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism. American Leviathan is the story of the rise of Progressive Statism and their massive, bureaucratic Administrative State at the turn of the 20th century and how we got to where we are today in the 21st century with governmental abuse by a class of so-called experts. 

Welcome back to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. My name is Maddingley Watson, and today we have Ned Ryan here to discuss his new book, American Leviathan, the birth of the administrative state and progressive authoritarianism. Ned Ryan is the founder and CEO of American majority and voter gravity, the son of the former Congressman Olympian and Presidential Medal of Honor recipient Jim Ryan. Ned is also the author of Restoring Our Republic, and The Adversaries, a story of Boston and Bunker Hill. A frequent commentator on Fox News, Ryan currently resides in Western Loudoun County, Virginia, with his wife and four children. So just starting off, you talk about the roots of this administrative state. You discuss the progressive statist movement. And for those listening that maybe aren't familiar with the movement, what is progressive statism? So, Mattingly, it's a movement that really started to percolate in the late 1800s, really by the turn of the 20th century, early 1900s had gained a foothold here.

And I discussed the rise of it in this country and its roots, really founded upon the beliefs of Georg Hegel, who I refuse to call a Prussian philosopher because he was more of a Prussian propagandist for Frederick Wilhelm. the third, in which Hegel communicated that he truly believed that the state was the march of God on earth, the state was to decide objective truth, that literally the state, the enlightened state is what he wanted in Prussia, but also he thought that was the ideal form of government, that the state was to subsume everything. It was a living organism, therefore it could subsume corporations and individuals and individual rights, all power to be consoled inside of the state, to lead to enlightenment, to lead to the end of history in which the state would be salvation for mankind and literally madingly lead to the perfection of the human race in the here and now.

And so a lot of progressives went and got their advanced degrees in Europe in the 1800s, late 1800s, early 1900s. And we're really indoctrinated by these beliefs of Hegel and brought them back and they thought that that was the answer to the 20th century for the United States. Well, there's a problem because it has nothing to do. Those beliefs have nothing to do with a rights-based government. And I would just, for those listening, a rights-based government is the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by. their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, not to give rights,

not to take rights away, but to secure those God-given rights. That's the antithesis of the progressive movement. The progressives wanted basically the state to be the end-all, be-all, to give rights back to corporations and individuals if they deemed it necessary and beneficial to the state. And so, what took place at the turn of the 20th century is progressives completely and wholesale rejected a rights-based government. In fact, I would argue that the progressive status movement, the whole point of it was to destroy the moral and political authority of the U.S. Constitution. And then also to replace that Constitutional Republic with this consolidated power inside the administrative state and to destroy the machinery of the republic. And by that I mean

the separation of powers, the diffusion of powers, which is the greatest protector of our natural inherent rights. So the progressive movement has nothing to do with our Constitutional Republic. It has nothing, quite frankly, to do with our American tradition of how we view a rights-based government that they are to secure our God-given right. So it's the complete antithesis to our constitutional republic. So kind of going off of that, you know, talking about Constitutional Republic, Why do you think so many people nowadays still refer to us as a constitutional republic when, you know, we've had all these influences that have so quickly torn us away from that? Because I think they're living under, well, first of all, I think a lot of the American people have been asleep in the light. They've not been paying attention to what's actually going on D.C. for the last hundred years.

And I would argue 1912, that presidential election was a massive pivot point in this country away from a republic to administrative state. So I think a lot of the American people have been asleep in the light not paying attention to how D.C. operates. There's still kind of that illusion. People still talk about a republic and separation of powers and the three separate branches. And when in fact inside of D.C., I mean, these are some of the things that have been taking place for decades, Mattingly, that again, progressives wanted to consolidate power to advance progress and save mankind. So they wanted to put the executive, legislative, and judicial. into one entity, the administrative state, which, by the way, resides primarily in the Article 2 branch, the executive. And so how in reality it works is that you have all this consolidated power inside the administrative state. That's how D.C. works. And I make the point in American Leviathan, the new book, that, you know, basically the bureaucrats inside that administrative state with their regulations and their statutes are the ones doing the actual governing. because Congress, if you haven't noticed, they keep on passing these four and five thousand page bill that frame out kind of in general what they want to see happen and then allow those bureaucrats to put the fine points on it to, again, do the governing. And then if you were paying

attention this past summer, there were two very important cases that the Supreme Court decided. One was Chevron deference in which the Supreme Court said we're no longer going to have judicial deference to the statutes and regulations of the unelected bureaucrats inside the Article 2 branch. And the reason they said that is, one, you know, that's deeply unconstitutional. Sub-delegated legislative authority is not what our founders intended. And two, it calls on the question the idea of an independent judiciary. If the Article 3 branch is deferring to the executive branch, calls in the question, how independent is that judicial branch, which, by the way, Maddingly was a huge deal to our founders. They were experiencing the British court system that was

rubber-stamping King George III and his ministers in Parliament their actions and not actually acting as an independent judiciary. So the idea of an independent judiciary is key for the founders. The other decision that was made this summer that I think puts an even finer point on this administrative state and the complete destruction of our Constitutional Republic was dealing with the SEC tribunals, the securities and and Exchange Commission tribunals in which the Supreme Court said those are not constitutional. We will no longer allow those to have the standing that they've had in the past. And people go, what are you talking about, Ned?

What are these tribunals? Well, the tribunals are the administrative law tribunals that a lot of the departments and agencies inside the administrative state have that 90% of the time rule in favor of that various department and agency. And the Supreme Court said, well, first of all, again, calls on the question the independent the judiciary, and two, annihilates the idea of the Seventh Amendment, which we have a right to trial by jury. And so a lot of these things are taking place in D.C. are not being communicated to the American people. I talk about the free and honest press that the founders envisioned to

provide transparency that, in fact, that things become more corporate propagandists or even stenographers of the state. They're not being honest with the American people. They're not really discussing what's taking place in D.C., and that's one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. So one thing that you mentioned in the book, and you've talked about a little bit already, is how Hegel believed in all of these things to get us towards an enlightened state. That was the March of God on Earth. How does that compare to what we're seeing in modern modern-day America? Would Hegel say that this is something going towards an enlightened state, or is that still something maybe far off in the distance of what their goal is? So that was the supposed, well, that was the stated goal

of Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Crowley and Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Lafellette, which, by the way, three of those men I just mentioned were Republicans. I would argue the progressive movement was the beginning of the Uniparty. Well, that was the stated goal, right? We're going to give these unelected bureaucrats all of this immense power that they will then take applied science and invade every aspect of life, Mattingly. This is one thing where people, I think, are starting the question, why does government continue to grow? Why does there seemingly no end to it? And why does our government debt, it's hard to keep track. What do we have? 36 trillion. Seems a never-ending voracious appetite for spending. Well, let me explain. In the administrative state, if the state is

salvation, why would you ever limit salvation? Right? You would say, well, you wouldn't because if you view the state of salvation, salvation should come into every aspect of life. That's what the progressives believe. So that's why we see them meddling with gas stoves and cars and all of these other things. And the idea that we should have 87,000 new IRS agents to hoover up $600 PayPal transactions. So the idea was that the enlightened state would be salvation to all. You should not limit salvation. It's been kind of turned out to be a complete farce. I mean, it's in defiance of human nature. But we've now reached the point in 2024. And I discussed this in the second to last chapter. that the supposedly highly educated people that would be filling the Leviathan that would lead to progress,

it really has just become this massive, slovenly beast that really is crushing the American people. It's not filled with a highly educated elite. In fact, those that do claim that I call them a credentialed idiocracy. And now we're confronting this massive Leviathan that has a voracious appetite for more power and more spending. And again, looks at the American people not necessarily as benefiting them, but more of a governing, a ruling of them, in which they essentially have said, you dirty little peasants don't know what's best for you. We're going to tell you what's best. And if you don't like it and you don't submit, there'll be consequences. Again, a republic I would remind people is a government in which all power flows from the people to their duly elected representatives, that those duly elected representatives take the money in power.

to them by the American people to construct a government that benefits, advances, and protects the interests of the American people. It's a government of by and for the people. We are nowhere near that right now, Mattingly. We're treated as an afterthought by many in D.C. whose priorities have nothing to do with the American peoples. In fact, I would argue they treat us as their ATMs to promote and fund their interests. So talking about all of this, there just seems to be a mass misunderstanding of, you know, our political state. And in chapter 10, you talk about revisionist history and how progressives began spreading these lives, lies about the motives behind a lot of things, but about the Revolutionary War, other American things. Do you think that our education systems

are playing a role in this? And do you think the rhetoric has infiltrated those systems? No, Maddenly, the thing that needs to understand, understood, I think a lot of the 20th century, especially American history, political history, needs to be completely reexamined. You know, I discussed Charles Beard and his revisionist history of why the founders constructed the Constitution the way they did. And he makes this argument in his book that has nothing to do with real history that the founders who came together in Philadelphia in the summer of 18, 1787, which by the way, tomorrow is Constitution Day, right?

we're celebrating the finding of the Constitution, September 17th tomorrow, Charles Beard makes the argument that those men who came together 1787 in Philadelphia actually constructed a government based off their economic interests, formed a government that actually would promote their narrow economic interests, again, to destroy the idea that we are a rights-based government. When, in fact, the real history is that those gathered in Philadelphia, they knew they were going to be the presidents, the vice presidents, the members of the House. of representative, senators, judges, they did the exact opposite. They did not create a government that would actually benefit them specifically and consolidate power in their hand. They did the exact

opposite. They created a government that would diffuse power. Why did they do that? They did it because they didn't even trust themselves. They didn't trust human nature. And that's the thing that I discussed too in another part of the book. Our founders were optimistic realists. They were very realistic about human nature. We're imperfect human beings in an imperfect world. We are capable of great good. We are incapable of sustained good. Therefore, we should never be trusted with consolidated power because many times we do what we can, not what we should. But at the same time, this imperfect human nature had been granted incredible rights by our creator, wife, liberty, pursuit of happiness. So how do you actually form a rights-based government

that protects those rights, takes none of them away, and at the same time does not trust human nature and consolidate power. You create a constitution republic. You create this diffusion of power between the various branches plus federalism to say we're going to create this rights-based government. Progressives hated that idea. They were vehemently opposed to a rights-based government because, A, the separation of powers, they viewed that as a bug, not a feature. And the other problem they had was if all of us have individual rights and we are making claims to those rights against government, it was going to slow down progress. It'd be the sand in the gears, monkey wrench in the gears. They couldn't have that. So I call progressive status utopian status. They believed

the state was salvation. They were deeply naive, intentionally so, I would add, that you could entrust human nature with consolidated power. And that's why I put in the subtitle, progressive authoritarianism. At the end of the day, if you give powerful, unelected bureaucrats this immense power, and there's no accountability. The progress is all they wanted. The only separation they believed in was separating out accountability, political accountability and accountability to the American people, separating out the administrative state from that. You end up with this progressive authoritarianism in which they tell you this is what's best for you. And if you don't like it, there's going to be consequences. And I would even argue it kind of is this feudal system in which

these educated elite, again a credential to idiocracy, tells the American people, you're the serfs, do what we say, because we know it's best for you, nothing to do at all with a constitutionally public. So without, you know, the founder's understanding of moral, morality and rights pointing towards this transcendental truth, you know, without transcendental truth, what, if anything, is the foundation for, like, progressivism and what progressives would call their truth? So for progressives, They did, I mean, since when you reject a rights-based government in which a creator has given rights, the state becomes all. What is is right. And that's how you end up in this, I would say, theater of the absurd.

And again, finite point without an infinite point of references, pointless and absurd. And when you cut, that's Jean-Paul Sart, the French philosopher, when you cut that cord between the finite and the infinite, all you have last. is whatever the state or society says is right. And not to go too under the weeds here mattingly, but there's a basic human desire for peace, prosperity, and stability. Well, at some point for that to take place, if you've taken away the right, these transcendent ideals and common ideals, the state actually has to put in place something about will provide quote-unquote order for society.

And again, when we talk about a self-governing republic, we talk about not only the American people governing themselves and to delegating power, but governing ourselves as individuals. When you take away the transcendent ideals and common values and beliefs and say, well, we're not going to believe in those anymore. We're going to believe in the state. Whatever the state says is right is right. Society becomes whatever society says is right is right at the time, even though it might not have anything to do with rights, transcendent rights, or any of that. And so I think that's where we're at right now, where you kind of devolve into this theater of the absurd where men can be women, women, men, you can butcher babies up to the moment of birth, all of these things. And that's how we got to this point, because they firmly, the progressive status, completely and wholesale rejected this idea of transcendent values, a creator giving us on alienable rights. And here's where we're at, in which Mike becomes rights. And you have, well, whatever we say is right is right at that given moment in time. I really love how you end your book with an encouraging yet sobering quote from Reagan about looking forward.

How do you think looking forward that we can break off these bureaucratic shackles that you discuss in your book? So, yeah, you're referring to that quote in the last chapter from Ronald Reagan. And I would remind people again, about 40 years ago, he said this. and that in his study of bureaucratic statism, which is what we have in this country, no one had ever yet returned from it. That was 40 years ago. And he was saying this in the 1980s. It's going to be a fight.

You know, in the last chapter, Mattingly, I lay out reform items that a powerful executive that has the political courage to do so as head of the executive branch, where most of the administrative state reside, can actually say on day one, this is what I'm going to to do to break apart and devolve the administrative state. So let's say Donald J. Trump wins on November 5th, which I sincerely hope that he does. On day one in January of 2025, he goes in, and a whole series of reform items I list out in that last chapter that breaks apart the administrative state devolves it. I mean, there's 800,000 non-essential federal employees in D.C. right now, the patronage system, start to work on devolving that, but then breaking apart the powers that have been

consolidated and returning back legislative powers, completely returning back legislative powers to the Article I branch. Again, as the Supreme Court said, you know, no judicial powers inside of Article 2, get those back into the Article 3. So over the course of four years, those reform items, if implemented, I think could take us a huge step towards breaking apart this bureaucratic statism and getting us back to a Constitution Republic. And I've told Donald Trump this. The foundation of the swamp, he says, I want to drain the swamp. Well, the foundation of the swamp is the administrative state. If you break the state, you can drain the swamp. You can restore the republic. Simple to say, it will be monumental in application because the problem

Mattingly is, first of all, all the Democrats, you have the administrative state, Democrats, and a lot of establishment Republicans that believe this is a legitimate form of government. So there are very powerful forces arrayed against Donald Trump that do not want to see this happen. But if he goes in and he gets presidential personnel correct, if he gets transition personnel correct, and he gets all of the right decision makers into these various departments and agencies who will actually implement his ideas to devolve the state, he could make huge strides in the right direction in four years. Well, Ned, this has been such an incredible conversation. Where can listeners buy American Leviathan?

So they can go and pre-order at Amazon today. They can go to Barnes & Noble. They can go to books a million. The book is being released officially tomorrow on Constitution Day. So I would encourage people, it's, I think, a pretty illuminating read that will provide clarity for what's going on in D.C. today, but also, not only the last thing I'll say is this. In the last chapter, I make the point from Phil Hamburger, another great author, that once the American people wake up and reject the administrative state and understand what's taking place and reject it, that's the beginning of the end. But they cannot reject it until they actually understand what's taking place. So my hope is that people will read this book, understand it, and go, we want nothing to do with this anymore. And we demand of our political leadership that you return us to a republic and a government of buying for the people.

wonderful thank you so much for joining me today absolutely thank you thank you thank you guys so much for joining us today my name is maddingley watson and this has been the ned ryan interview here on radio free hillsdale 101.7 fm