The Chimpanzee Politics of Trump's Capricious Tariffs: He's King of the Mountain

On April 2, Trump announced his new tariff policies: there would be 10% tariffs across the board on all imports and much higher rates for the European Union, China, and dozens of other countries.  He called it Liberation Day.  And he said this would "Make America Wealthy Again."

Over the next two days, the U.S. stock market had a drop in value equal to what it had in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid pandemic and lockdowns.

China retaliated by announcing that it would hit U.S. goods with an additional 34% tariff to match Trump's new tariff on China.

On Saturday, April 5, the 10% universal U.S. tariff took effect.

On Tuesday, April 8, Trump told Republicans: "I know what the hell I'm doing."

On Wednesday, April 9, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time, the Liberation Day tariffs officially went into effect.  In the morning, at 9:33 a.m., Trump said in a social media post: "BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well."

Then, amazingly, in the early afternoon, at 1:18 p.m., Trump announced in a social media post that he was pausing his highest tariffs for most countries for 90 days, although the 10% tariff would remain, and China would be hit with a tariff of 145%.

When Trump was asked to explain his change of mind, he told reporters: "Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.  They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid."

This is hard to explain.  From Liberation Day to yesterday morning, Trump was a radical protectionist (perhaps persuaded by Peter Navarro).  But by yesterday afternoon, Trump seemed to have decided that radical protectionism was wrong (perhaps persuaded by Elon Musk and others).  So what's going on?

As I argued a few weeks ago, it's a mistake to think Trump cares about ideas or theories--cares about whether protectionism is correct or not--because as a grandiose narcissist, all he cares about is himself and whatever he has to do to win and maintain his alpha male dominance.  Trump's politics is the chimpanzee politics of dominance, deference, and counter-dominance in which Trump must always be the King of the Mountain.

In exercising his arbitrary, absolute power over tariffs, Trump draws the eyes of the whole world to himself, so that by tapping a few words in a social media post, he shakes the global economic system.

Consider this remark in a New York Times article: "For a while, the tariffs created a dynamic Mr. Trump most enjoys--global leaders coming to him and, as he said on Tuesday night, 'kissing my ass' in search of deals.  Administration officials said that more than 75 countries had reached out to them."

That's what he wants--most of the world "kissing my ass."  But instead of kissing his ass, China retaliated by raising their own tariff barriers to U.S. goods, which is now at 125%.  This forced Trump to raise the tariff on China to 145%.  China's retaliation has showed resistance to his dominance over the world.

At the same time, Trump's reversal of his tariffs for most countries, at least for 90 days, shows his fear of the American resistance to his dominance that would be provoked by creating a financial crisis that would create a recession or even depression.

The resistance to Trump's despotic dominance can take many forms.  I have written about the Lockean evolution of nonviolent resistance.  And there is growing evidence of nonviolent resistance to Trump during the first months of his new term.

One form of nonviolent resistance to despotic tariffs that deny the natural right to free trade is smuggling.  Smuggling to evade tariffs and restrictions on trade (such as Prohibition) is an old American tradition, and Trump's tariffs will Make American Smuggling Great Again.  

The U.S. has only 26,000 customs officers to enforce tariffs, and that's not enough to prevent smuggling.  For example, goods from China can be covertly transported to the U.S. and sold on black markets.  Alternatively, importers of goods subject to high tariffs can lie to customs officials about the goods being imported.  When imported goods arrive at a U.S. port of entry, importers must submit paperwork electronically to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection detailing the value of the imported items, where they were made, and what materials they include (for example, how much aluminum and steel is contained in some garden furniture); and based on that information, the importers calculate the tariff they must pay.  Customs agents must review the paperwork and then clear the goods for release.  Importers have either 10 or 30 days to calculate what they owe and make payment to Customs.  Customs officials can do spot checks and random inspections, but since it's impossible for them to check everything, there will be lots of smuggling, especially when the tariffs are exorbitantly high.

Over 10 million shipping containers per year pass through the Port of Los Angeles alone.  Imagine being a customs official charged with inspecting those containers to detect smuggling.  The number of containers entering that one port per day (27,400) exceeds the total number of customs officers across the U.S.!

                                                                     A Container Ship

If there is a natural right to free trade, there is also a natural right to protect free trade from oppressive tariffs through smuggling.

Passive Obedience or Active Resistance to the Red Caesar? Hume's Critique of Lockean Consent and Resistance

Proponents of the Red Caesar Plan (such as Curtis Yarvin and Michael Anton) has said that their ultimate goal is to move America away from John Locke's classical liberalism and towards Robert Filmer's reactionary authoritarianism.  They will achieve that goal when Trump rules America as the Red Caesar with the arbitrary power of an absolute monarch like that defended by Filmer: this Caesaristic Trump cannot be limited by the rule of law because he is the absolute sovereign, and whatever the sovereign wills is the law, and only what the sovereign wills is law.  Trump will rule as a tyrant, and, as Filmer argued, the people will be obligated not to resist his rule but to show passive obedience to him.

Locke challenged Filmer's teaching by arguing in his Two Treatises of Government for what today we would call classical liberalism.  In seventeenth-century England, Filmer was on the side of the Tories, while Locke was on the side of the Whigs.  

Locke's position can be summarized in five principles.  First, every person possesses the natural rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness--rights that first arose in the state of nature where human nature was formed.  Second, these natural rights are rooted in each person's self-ownership--his right over himself and his labor.  Third, the only just function of government is to protect those natural rights.  Fourth, government derives its limited authority from the consent of the governed.  Fifth, political rulers who become tyrants who infringe upon or fail to protect those natural rights may rightly be resisted and replaced.

If we agree with Filmer, then our proper response to Trump as the Red Caesar will be passive obedience.  If we agree with Locke, then our proper response will be active resistance.  Or is there perhaps some moderate middle ground between these two extremes?  

One way of thinking through this debate is to consider one of the best critiques of Locke's teaching--by David Hume in his Essays (Liberty Fund, 1985).

Hume saw the conflict between the Tories as the party of authority and obedience to rulers and the 
Whigs as the party of liberty and resistance to tyranny as a political battle in which the partisans of each faction refused to see the partial truth in each side: good government requires a tense balance between authority and liberty, so that each side moderates the other.  Extreme authoritarianism creates tyranny.  Extreme libertarianism creates anarchy.  The task of a philosopher is not to become a partisan but to mediate between the two extremes and promote compromise and accommodation.  Hume saw himself as a true philosopher, while identifying Locke as a partisan rather than a true philosopher (27-31, 40-41, 69-72, 465-66, 469-70, 486-87).

But if one reads Locke carefully in the light of Hume's critique, one can see that Locke is indeed a philosopher rather than a narrow partisan, and he agrees with Hume that good government requires a balance between authority and liberty.  And while Hume attacks Locke's doctrine of consent, Hume ends up closer to Locke's position that he realizes.

Remarkably, Hume accepts Locke's claim that in the original state of nature among hunter-gatherers, every adult was equally free from being ruled by anyone else; and therefore, nothing but their own consent could bring them together into a society and subject them to any authority.  "If this, then, be meant by the original contract, it cannot be denied," Hume observed, "that all government is, at first, founded on a contract, and that the most ancient rude combinations of mankind were formed chiefly by that principle" (468).

But even if government in its earliest and most primitive forms arose from "consent or rather the voluntary acquiescence of the people," it is not true, as Locke claims, that later fully developed governments as we see them today rest on no other foundation than the consent of the people.

Hume insists that "history and experience" should teach us that governments are not founded on popular consent:

I maintain, that human affairs will never admit of this consent; seldom of the appearance of it.  But that conquest or usurpation, that is, in plain terms, force, by dissolving the ancient governments, is the origin of almost all the new ones, which were ever established in the world.  And that in the few cases, where consent may seem to have taken place, it was commonly so irregular, so confined, or so much intermixed either with fraud or violence, that it cannot have any great authority (473-74).

When a new government is established by force through conquest by a foreign power or by usurpation when someone takes power in a society unlawfully, the people are commonly dissatisfied with it, but they obey from fear rather than feeling any moral obligation to obey.  If the new rulers are careful to guard against insurrection, then over time, the people become accustomed to regard the new rulers as the lawful government, even though originally they were usurpers or foreign conquerors.

The original establishment was formed by violence, and submitted to from necessity.  The subsequent administration is also supported by power, and acquiesced in by the people, not as a matter of choice, but of obligation.  They imagine not, that their consent gives their prince a title: But they willingly consent, because they think, that, from long possession, he has acquired a title, independent of their choice or inclination.

Should it be said, that, by living under the dominion of a prince, which one might leave, every individual has given a tacit consent to his authority, and promised him obedience; it may be answered, that such an implied consent can only have place, whee a man imagines, tht the matter depends on his choice.  But where he thinks (as all mankind do who are born under established governments) that by his birth he owes allegiance to a certain prince or certain form of government; it would be absurd to infer a consent or choice, which he expressly, in this case, renounces and disclaims.

Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artizan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires?  We may as well assert, that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish, the moment he leaves her (475).

Anyone who has read Locke's Second Treatise will know that Locke actually agrees with almost everything Hume says here.  The one clear point of disagreement is that while Hume cannot take seriously "that a poor peasant or artizan has a free choice to leave his country," Locke argued for an open borders immigration policy for England to attract peasant and artisan migration from other European countries that were less free than England.  For example, Locke had seen in 1685, when King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had granted some toleration of Calvinist Protestants in Catholic France in 1598, that this created an exodus of French Protestants, also called Huguenots, who were forced to migrate to England and elsewhere.  As I have argued, this continues today as people want to leave the less free countries and migrate to the freest countries (as measured by the Human Freedom Index).  People vote with their feet for freedom, and that's Lockean consent, or the principle of "love it or leave it."

Locke agrees with Hume's claim that most governments today originally arose from conquest or usurpation.  In his chapter "Of Conquest" (chapter 16), Locke recognizes that "in the noise of War, which makes so great a part of the History of Mankind, this Consent is little taken notice of: And therefore many have mistaken the force of Arms, for the consent of the People; and reckon Conquest as one of the Originals of Government" (ST, 175).  But a conquering power can never erect a new government without the consent of the people, because without their consent, the people will look for an opportunity to overthrow the conqueror, which they can do by an "appeal to Heaven"--that is, war (ST, 176).  Similarly, in his chapter on usurpation, Locke argues that the power of the usurper will not be secure until the people have consented to the lawfulness of his rule.

Now, it is true, as Hume says, that over time the people can become so accustomed or habituated to the rule of conquerors or usurpers that eventually, even though the people have not chosen the conquering or usurping ruler, "they willingly consent, because they think, that, from long possession, he has acquired a title."  Locke agrees with this because he recognizes that many times, maybe most of the time, the people consent to a ruler not by originally choosing him but by their customary acquiescence to his rule: "People are not so easily got out of their old Forms, as some are apt to suggest.  They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged Faults, in the Frame they have been accustomed to" (ST, 223).  The Declaration of Independence expresses the same Lockean thought about the power of customary acceptance of government:  "all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Hume's fundamental agreement with Locke is most clearly manifested in two ways.  What he says about government being founded on opinion coincides with what Locke says about government being founded on consent.  And Hume agrees with Locke in saying that the only remedy for tyranny is resistance.

At the beginning of his essay "Of the First Principles of Government," Hume observes:

Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.  When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.  It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.  The soldan of EGYPT, or the emperor of ROME, might drive his harmless subjects, like brute beasts, against their sentiments and inclination: But he must, at least, have led his mamalukes, or praetorian bands, like men, by their opinion (32-33).

He then distinguishes two kinds of opinion.  The "opinion of INTEREST" is the sense of the government's general advantage.  "When this opinion prevails among the generality of a state, or among those who have the force in their hands, it gives great security to any government."

The "opinion of RIGHT" is either the "right to POWER" or the "right to PROPERTY."  The opinion that the government has a right to power is most commonly rooted in the attachment that a nation has to its ancient government because antiquity begets the opinion of right.  The opinion of the right to property is the sense that the governmental power of those with property is justified by their right to property.

What I see here is what some social scientists today call the theory of the minimum winning coalition.  No ruler can rule alone.  Even an absolute dictator needs a small coalition of powerful people who are loyal to him, and to win and maintain that loyalty, the dictator must buy them off with money and status.  Once a dictator is abandoned by his loyalists, he loses his power.  Strictly speaking, therefore, "one-man rule" is impossible.  But as long as he has the support of that small winning coalition, he can rule successfully even when he oppresses the great majority of the people under his rule.  The private interest of his small coalition of supporters is advanced at the expense of the public interest of the people at large.

A democratic leader differs from a dictatorial leader in that the democratic leader depends on a larger coalition of supporters.  Because of the large size of a winning democratic coalition, democratic leaders must persuade a large number of supporters that he will advance public policies that serve the general welfare of this big coalition.  But still this large democratic coalition is less than the whole community, and it does not have to be a majority of the citizens.  So, for example, the minimum winning coalition for a president of the United States is a majority in the Electoral College and at least one third of the Senate voting against impeachment.

To say that every government depends on the opinion of a minimum winning coalition supporting the rulers is to say that every government depends on consent, but that consenting coalition can be small in a dictatorship or large in a democracy.  However, as Machiavelli saw, even when the prince depends on a small coalition among the "great"--the ambitious few--he must avoid becoming hated by the many, because when the prince is hated by the multitude of the people this creates opportunities for conspiratorial plots to overthrow or kill him.  This is what Hume and Locke call "resistance" to the government.

Once Hume has attacked Locke's Whig doctrine of government by consent of the governed in his essay "Of the Original Contract," it is surprising that in the next essay "Of Passive Obedience," Hume endorses the Whig doctrine of resistance and criticizes the Tory doctrine of passive obedience.  While Hume agrees that "obedience is our duty in the common course of things," resistance is the only remedy "in extraordinary emergencies . . . when the public is in the highest danger, from violence and tyranny" (490).

Hume does not recognize that if resistance to a tyrannical government is withdrawal of consent because the people have never consented to government becoming tyrannical, that implies that government depends on the consent of the governed, just as Locke claimed (ST, 199-210).

As I have argued, the evolution of Lockean natural punishment of despots from foraging societies to the present show two kinds of resistance to despotic rule--violent and nonviolent.  And if Hume had studied carefully the history of the American colonies during his lifetime, he would have seen both kinds of resistance.  From 1761 to 1774, there was a "revolution in the minds of the people," as John Adams described it when the Americans engaged in nonviolent resistance to British rule over them, long before the violent resistance began at Lexington and Concord in 1774, which was formally declared in the Declaration of Independence a few months before Hume's death in 1776.  This was the American "Appeal to Heaven"--the appeal to the God of Battles.

We have to hope that Americans today will not have to resort to violent resistance to overthrow Trump's tyranny as the Red Caesar.

But in any case, we should be clear that in the first few months of his new term, Trump is showing all the traits of a tyrannical Red Caesar as described by Michael Anton.  Trump has chosen one of the two routes to Caesarism--being elected to office legally and then refusing to leave the office.  He has already said that he will suspend the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution that limits a president to two terms.  And Trump is clearly following the plan for the Red Caesar laid out by Anton, who explained:  "Caesarism is a particular form of one-man rule: halfway, as it were, between monarchy and tyranny.  It is monarchical in that a single person rules.  It is tyrannical in that there is no appeal; Caesar's word replaces constitutionalism and even, in the final analysis, law."  Caesarism, therefore, can be defined as "authoritarian one-man rule partially legitimized by necessity," where that necessity is the breakdown of the republican, constitutional order caused by the people becoming so corrupt that they lack the republican virtues required for liberty.

Trump's Caesarism clearly satisfies Locke's classic definition of tyranny.  "Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right."  Because the tyrant "makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion" (ST, 199).

A nonviolent resistance movement against Trump's tyranny will have to break up his minimum winning coalition.  The crucial issue for Trump voters last November was high inflation attributed to "Bidenomics."  Now Trump's economic policies--particularly, higher tariffs--are going to drive prices up and create an economic recession.  So, while the "opinion of interest"--the belief of many Trump voters that Trump's election was in their economic self-interest--favored Trump in November, it is now becoming clear that the grandiose narcissism of Trump's tyrannical drive to economic ruin for America and even the whole world is not serving the self-interest of those voters.  

According to Michael Anton, one of the benefits of Caesarism is that it can preserve and even enhance the economic achievements of a great civilization.  But Trump's Caesarism is driving America to economic disaster.

Similarly, those Trump voters are discovering that Elon Musk's chaotic disruption of the "administrative state" is not in the self-interest of Americans who depend upon the services provided by federal administrative employees.

But ultimately the key to the success of a nonviolent resistance movement against Trump will probably be the "opinion of right":  Will most Americans decide that Trump does not have the moral or legal right to tyrannically violate their natural and constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property?  So, for example, will Americans agree that it is right that Trump suspend the individual right of due process of law in violation of court orders?

Anton has admitted that the great cost of Caesarism is the loss of liberty.  But he insists that when Caesarism comes to America, it's because liberty has already been lost, and the American people will show passive obedience to the Red Caesar because of the many benefits of his tyranny that outweigh the loss of liberty.  

Is that true?  Or will the American people show active resistance to Trump's Caesarism because it neither serves their interests nor secures their rights?

Moreover, we should remember that when Anton explains Caesarism as a tyrant's defense of the people against the ruling class, he admits that in Trump's America, the people are divided between Blue America and Red America.  So while Red America loves Trump.  Blue America hates him.

Another problem with Anton's analysis is that it's not clear that Trump is defending Red America against the ruling class.  At Trump's inauguration, in the prominent front row audience immediately behind Trump, the seats were filled by a half dozen tech CEO billionaires who are the richest human beings on the Earth.  And of course, one of them--Elon Musk--has been given tyrannical rule over the whole federal government.  If these are to become the new oligarchic rulers of America, then it seems that Trump's Caesarism is on the side of the ruling class.  And surely this is not what Red America voted for.

It's possible that we will soon see not only Blue America but also much of Red America united in active resistance to Trump's Red Caesar tyranny.

A U.S. Appeals Court Rules Against Trump's Suspension of the Right to Due Process

In my previous post, I wrote about Federal District Court Judge James Boasberg's temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking Trump's effort to deport hundreds of Venezuelans without allowing them their right to due process of law.  This TRO was for only 14 days.  But Trump's government lawyers appealed the case, arguing that a delay in the deportations of even a few days would do irreparable damage to the U.S., and therefore they asked the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit to stay this TRO.

By a 2-1 vote, in J.G.G, et al. v. Donald J. Trump (U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, No. 25-5067, March 26, 2025), the Court denied the emergency motions for stay.  The majority consisted of Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson (appointed by President George H. W. Bush) and Circuit Judge Patricia Millett (appointed by President Barack Obama).  The one dissenter was Circuit Judge Justin Walker (appointed by Trump).

To grant a stay pending appeal, the Court does not render a final decision on the merits of the case, but it must consider the applicants' likelihood of success on the merits.  It must also consider whether the applicant faces irreparable injury without a stay, whether granting a stay will irreparably injure the other parties in the case, and whether the public interest would be served by denying a stay.

The two judges in the majority decided that the Government was unlikely to win the case on the merits because the President's proclamation for deporting these Venezuelans was probably illegal and unconstitutional in denying them due process of law.  They also decided that if they granted a stay of Boasberg's TRO, the injury for the Venezuelans would be far greater than any injury to the Government from denying the stay.  And, finally, they decided that the public interest did not demand a stay.

In his dissent, Judge Walker made two arguments for why the Court should have granted the stay.  His primary argument was that the Government was likely to win the case on technical grounds: the Plaintiffs' claims for relief require a habeas corpus petition, and a habeas petition should have been brought in Texas where they were detained rather than in Washington, DC.  

His second argument was that "the Government likely faces irreparable harm to ongoing, highly sensitive international diplomacy and national-security operations," because any delays in the deportations of the Venezuelans will disrupt the Government's negotiations with El Salvador and Venezuela over whether they will accept the deportees (Walker, 22).

I have written about the plan to make Trump the Red Caesar.  And one can see here that the Government lawyers are making the legal arguments for allowing Trump to become the Red Caesar.  The primary question is whether Trump has the power to interpret the laws--statutory laws and the Constitution--for himself and to refuse to accept the courts' interpretation of the law.  If Trump can interpret the law for himself, that means that his will cannot be restrained by law because his will is the law, which allows him to become a tyrant with absolute power.  As Trump says, "I can do anything I want as president."

The majority in this case have found that the "original public meaning" of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) does not allow Trump to deport Venezuelan immigrants accused of being Tren de Aragua gang members without allowing them a hearing in which they can present evidence that they are not members of that gang.  First of all, the AEA is restricted to circumstances in which the U.S. is in a "declared war" with a foreign nation, or in which there has been some "invasion or predatory incursion" by a foreign nation.  Congress has not declared war with Venezuela, and Venezuela has not launched an "invasion or predatory incursion" against the U.S.

Trump's Government lawyers argued that the word "invasion" in the AEA encompassed "the arrival somewhere of people or things who are not wanted here."  The judges pointed out, however, that the text of the law, its context, and its history all supported the conclusion that the original public meaning of the term "invasion" was used in a military sense.

Moreover, the judges indicated, other statutory laws of Congress--such as the Administrative Procedures Act--clearly require due process of law in a case like this.  Trump's proclamation denies due process, and therefore it is illegal.  It is also unconstitutional insofar as it denies the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that "no person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Trump's Government lawyers responded to this by claiming that the President has the authority to interpret the laws in any way he wishes, and therefore the courts have no authority to impose on the President their own interpretations of law.

The two judges in the majority answered this claim by pointing out that the Constitution vests the "judicial Power of the United States" in federal courts, and it is surely the case that it is the duty of the judiciary to say what the law is (Millett, 26-32).  Trump's lawyers said that interpreting the laws in this case was a "political question," and under the "political questions" doctrine, the courts cannot decide purely political questions.  But clearly, the Court argued, interpreting laws is a legal question, not a political question, and thus it clearly falls within the judicial power.

We see here the crucial questions that will probably have to be resolved by the Supreme Court.  Does President Trump have the authority to interpret the laws as he wishes, and thus refuse to accept the interpretation of the laws coming from the courts?  Or must the President be constrained by law as interpreted by the courts?

If the Supreme Court says yes to the first question, then the courts cannot limit Trump's power.

If the Supreme Court says yes to the second question, then Trump is likely to refuse to obey their decision.

In either case, Trump's power will not be checked by the courts.  And if the Congress continues to allow Trump to make laws by issuing executive orders, then he will have combined the executive and legislative powers of the federal government in his own hands.

We will then be under the one-man absolute rule of the Red Caesar, as advocated by Michael Anton, Curtis Yarvin and others who look forward to a "postconstitutional order" ruled by Trump.

Americans will then have to take one side or the other in the debate between Robert Filmer and John Locke in seventeenth-century England--passive obedience to the king, even when he claims absolute power, or active resistance to tyranny. 

That will be the subject for my next post.

Donald Trump--The Red Caesar--Abolishes the Individual Right to Due Process of Law

Jerce Reyes Barrios was born in Venezuela in 1989.  In February and March of 2024, he marched in two demonstrations in Venezuela to protest the authoritarian rule of Nicolas Maduro.  At the second demonstration, he was detained and taken to a secret building where he was tortured.

Shortly after he was released, he fled the country, hoping to receive asylum in the United States.  In Mexico, he registered online with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to request asylum in the U.S.  He presented himself to CBP officials on the day of his appointment.  He was taken into custody and detained at Otay Mesa Detention Facility in San Diego, California, in September of 2024.  His immigration attorney--Linette Tobin--filed a request for asylum.  His final individual hearing was set for April 17, 2025 before an immigration judge--Judge Robinson--at the Otay Mesa Immigration Court.

Barrios was initially placed in maximum security at Otay Mesa because he was accused of being a Tren de Aragua gang member.  This accusation was based on two claims.  The first was that he has a tattoo on his arm of a crown sitting on top a soccer ball with a rosary and the word "Dios."  Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials say this tattoo is proof of gang membership.

The second claim is that when DHS reviewed Barrios' social media posts, they found a photo of him making a hand gesture that is proof of gang membership.

His lawyer responded to these charges by explaining that Barrios was a professional soccer player in Venezuela, and that he chose this tattoo because it resembles the logo for his favorite soccer team Real Madrid--a crown on top of a soccer ball.

She also explained that the hand gesture in his social media posts means "I Love You" in sign language.

His lawyer also submitted a police clearance from Venezuela showing that Barrios has no criminal record, letters about his steady employment as a soccer player and soccer coach, a declaration from the tattoo artist who rendered the tattoo, various online images of the Real Madrid logo, and an explanation of the "I Love You" hand gesture.  Barrios was then transferred out of maximum security.  

Barrios was waiting for his final hearing on April 17.  But on March 10 or 11, he was transferred from Otay Mesa to Texas without any notice to him or his family.  Then, on March 15, 2025, he was deported by plane to El Salvador.  His lawyer and his family have had no contact with him, and they know nothing about where he might be.

                                               Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador

All of this information comes from a sworn declaration of Barrios' lawyer that was filed in federal court on March 18.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says: "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."  Mr. Barrios was going to have his due process at his hearing before Judge Robinson on April 17.  

At that hearing, his lawyer would have presented her evidence that he was not a member of the Tren de Aragua gang and that he was not a criminal terrorist.  She would also have presented evidence that he had fled Venezuela to escape from torture and persecution by Maduro's authoritarian government, and therefore that he deserved asylum in the U.S. under the conditions set down in the U.S. Asylum Law (8 U.S. Code, Section 1158).  DHS officials could have presented their evidence and arguments as to why he should be deported.  Judge Robinson would then have decided the case after weighing the evidence and arguments presented to him.  That's due process of law.  

And that's one of the fundamental natural rights that is expressly declared in the Constitution as necessary for securing individual liberty.  If you can be deprived of your life, liberty, or property without due process of law, you are not a free human being.

Under the authoritarian dictatorship of Maduro in Venezuela, Mr. Barrios did not have that right.  He fled to the United States because he thought that America was dedicated to securing such rights, and that in America, he could be a free man.  He was wrong.  

He did not foresee that Donald Trump would become the Red Caesar, ruling as one man over an autocratic government, and that he would issue an executive decree on March 15, 2025, suspending the constitutional right to due process of law.

On that date--only six days ago--Trump signed his "Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren De Aragua".   In this executive order, Trump authorized the immediate deportation of any Venezuelan immigrants who were not naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States if any DHS officials identified them as members of Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Venezuelan gang that Trump had earlier identified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.  As legal authority to do this, Trump appealed to his constitutional authority as president with authority to conduct the nation's foreign policy in time of war and to his legal authority under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The Alien Enemies Act was originally one of the four laws enacted in 1798 by the Federalist Party in Congress that were known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.  These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from 5 to 14 years, and authorized the president to arrest, imprison, and deport "aliens" during time of war.  The Sedition Act made it a crime for American citizens to "print, utter, or publish . . . any false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the government.  These laws were enacted by the Federalists against the opposition party--the Democratic-Republicans.  It was assumed that new citizens would typically support the Democratic-Republican Party, and so the Federalists wanted to reduce the number of new citizens.  In particular, the Federalists were afraid of Frenchmen in the United States because the Democratic-Republicans were thought to be supporters of the French Revolution at a time when the U.S. was in a quasi-war with France, and it was widely thought that the U.S. and France would soon be openly at war.  The Federalists also wanted to use the Sedition Act to punish editors of Democratic-Republican newspapers.

The intense controversy over these laws was one reason why the election of 1800 became one of the most dangerous elections in American history, which came close to provoking a civil war.  Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans won the election, which marked the beginning of the decline of the Federalist Party.  (As I have said previously, it's good to be reminded of this election as showing that partisan polarization going to the edge of civil war is nothing new in American history.)

As a consequence of Jefferson's victory, three of the four Alien and Sedition Acts were repealed.  But the Alien Enemies Act was preserved, and it remains a statutory law today.  Here is section 21 of that law:

Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.  The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.

Originally, in the law of 1798, the law applied to "males of the age of fourteen years and upward."  In 1918, the word "males" was dropped.  Otherwise, the language of this law is the same today as it was in 1798.

Notice that this law is restricted to circumstances in which the U.S. is in a "declared war" with a foreign nation or government, or in which there has been some "invasion or predatory incursion" by a foreign nation or government.  A "declared war" requires a declaration of war from Congress, which is an enumerated power of Congress.  But an attack by a foreign nation or government might create an emergency even without a congressional declaration of war.

Notice what the law does not say.  It does not say that the President in the specified circumstances may suspend the right to due process of law.  Therefore, before the immigrants subject to this law can be detained or deported, they must have the right to a hearing before a judge where they can present evidence that they are not "alien enemies" of the United States.  That's what would have happened if Mr. Barrios had been permitted his hearing on April 17.

But if you interpret this law as implying the suspension of due process--because it is assumed that "all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government" who have not become naturalized citizens of the U.S. are "alien enemies" of the United States--then this law is unconstitutional because it violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process held by "all persons."

In all of American history, the Alien Enemies Act has been invoked only three times--in the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II.  In World War I and II, it was the law that authorized detentions and expulsions of German, Austro-Hungarian, Japanese, and Italian immigrants.

In his executive order of March 15, Trump declares that the TdA gang is "conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States," and that they are acting under the control of Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela.  Trump claims that this has created "a hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States."

Trump then proclaims "that all Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older who are members of TdA, are within the United States, and are not actually naturalized or lawful permanent residents of the United States are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies."  He orders that "pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, consistent with applicable law, apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove every Alien Enemy described in section 1 of this proclamation."

This presidential proclamation is clearly illegal and unconstitutional.  It is illegal because it does not satisfy the conditions prescribed by the Alien Enemies Act: Venezuela is not at war with the U.S., and the TdA gang is not an agent of the Venezuelan government carrying out an invasion of the U.S.

It is unconstitutional because it denies the constitutional right of Venezuelan immigrants to due process of law by denying their right to have a hearing before a judge to determine whether they really are "alien enemies" of the U.S.

In his proclamation, Trump claims that TdA is an agent of the Venezuelan government.  But there is little evidence for this.  Trump does not even mention the fact that Venezuelan security forces have exchanged gunfire with TdA gang members.

Trump says that the gang had expanded in the Venezuelan region of Aragua when Tareck El Aissami was governor of that region, and then in 2017 Maduro appointed him as vice president.  But Trump says nothing about the fact that Aissami is no longer in the Maduro administration, which is prosecuting him on charges of corruption.

Within a few hours of Trump's proclamation on March 15, about 238 Venezuelan immigrants (including Mr. Barrios) were flown out of Texas to El Salvador, where the U.S. had made a deal to pay El Salvador $6 million dollars to imprison up to 300 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. for one year.  El Salvador's prisons are notorious for their brutality.

On the night of March 15th, Judge James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court in Washington issued an order blocking the deportation of these Venezuelans.  When he was told that the planes were already in the air, he ordered that they must be told to turn around and return to the U.S.  DHS officials refused to obey his order.  Trump has said that this judge needs to be impeached, and that no judge has the right to obstruct a president's orders in cases like this.

Trump and his DHS officials have asserted that all of these Venezuelan deportees are clearly foreign terrorist members of the TdA gang.  But when the DHS officials are asked to present evidence of this to Judge Boasberg, what they say is laughable.  For example, Robert Cerna, an Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE submitted a sworn affidavit, which includes this passage:

While it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time.  The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat.  In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose.  It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile (sec. 9).

Notice what he is saying here: the lack of any specific evidence that someone is a terrorist demonstrates that he is a terrorist!

In the meantime, Mr. Barrios is languishing in a secret prison in El Salvador where he will be tortured and perhaps killed.

This one case of the deportation of Venezuelans by order of Trump clearly illustrates how the Red Caesar Plan works.  Trump will appeal to both statutory law and constitutional law to justify his autocratic power as the Red Caesar.  In this case, he interprets the Alien Enemies Act as giving him absolute power to deport immigrants that he identifies as "alien enemies."  And he interprets the Constitution--particularly, Article II as interpreted by the Unified Executive Theory--as giving him absolute power: "I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president."

When a federal judge rules that Trump's orders are illegal and unconstitutional because his interpretations of statutory law and constitutional law are mistaken, Trump will ignore the judge's ruling and claim that a President has the power to interpret the laws and the Constitution in any way he wants.  And if the Supreme Court rules against him, he will say what Andrew Jackson reputedly said in response to a Supreme Court ruling he didn't like: you have made your ruling, now enforce it.  

The joke, of course, is that federal courts cannot enforce their orders without help from the officers in the executive branch--such as U.S. Marshalls enforcing contempt of court rulings.  But a Red Caesar like Trump will order the executive officers not to enforce these court orders.

Notice how Trump as the Red Caesar has the absolute sovereignty that comes from combining the executive, legislative, and judicial powers in his hands.  Trump makes laws by signing executive decrees.  Trump executes those laws that he has made by ordering executive officials to carry them out according to his directions.  Trump judges the laws by interpreting them for himself and deciding how they apply to particular cases, and refusing to obey judicial orders that go against his will.

Here we see the foundational principle for the Red Caesar Plan: autocratic nihilism.  There is no law constraining the will of Caesar because the law is nothing more than the product of Caesar's will.  This overturns one of the fundamental principles of countervailance (the separation of powers with checks and balances)--that no man is permitted to be the judge in his own case.

Trump's sovereign will is the law.  As the source of the law, he himself cannot act unlawfully.  Whatever he does, he wills to do; and if he wills to do it, it is for that reason lawful.

This conforms to Curtis Yarvin's argument for a Filmerian monarchy exercising political sovereignty that is unlimited and undivided.  Yarvin and Michael Anton devised the Red Caesar Plan as the best way for Trump to claim absolute sovereignty.

That's the dark future we face as we enter into the postconstitutional order of Red Caesarism.

As I have said in my recent posts, we need to understand the grandiose narcissism of Trump's chimpanzee politics and how his despotic dominance can be challenged by the resistance to dominance coming from those few people with an ambition to rule and those many people who don't want to rule but who don't want to be exploited by the dominant rulers.

The particular case here--Trump's deportation of Mr. Barrios to an El Salvadorean prison where he will be tortured and killed by prison guards paid by the U.S. government--raises a stark question for the American people: Do they want to be ruled by a Red Caesar who has the power to take life, liberty, and property without due process of law?

This question points to deeper questions about Trump's nihilism.  Are the intellectual promoters of Trump's Red Caesarism--at the Claremont Institute and elsewhere--right in their nihilistic claim that there is no moral law constraining the will of Caesar, because all law is the arbitrary creation of his will?  Or is it possible that rights such as the right to due process are not just legal or constitutional rights but natural rights rooted in the moral law of nature in the state of nature?

Originally, the Claremont Institute was grounded in Harry Jaffa's teaching that America was dedicated to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and particularly to the Lockean understanding that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are natural rights, that governments are established to secure those natural rights, and that any government that is destructive of those rights can be altered or abolished, and the people can institute new government that is more likely to secure those natural rights.

To Trump's claim that "I have the right to do whatever I want as president," Jaffa would have answered: No, you don't, because you have no right to violate the natural rights invoked by the Declaration of Independence and secured by the Constitution--natural rights such as every person's right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.  But now the Claremont Institute has rejected Jaffa's teaching so that they can promote the nihilism of Red Caesarism.

In my next post, I will argue that Darwinian Lockean Liberalism would support Jaffa's moral naturalism against Trump's immoral nihilism.

Donald Trump Is the Red Caesar--The Claremont Institute's Straussian Plan for America

                                                                           Michael Anton

We can explain what Trump has been doing in the first two months of his second term if we recognize that he is executing a plan devised by some Straussian intellectuals associated with the Claremont Institute:  he is becoming the Red Caesar.

In this post, I will explain how this plan developed out of the thinking of Michael Anton.  And then, in my next post, I will show how Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act for the quick deportation of some Venezuelan immigrants illustrates how he can become America's Red Caesar. 

THE RED CAESAR PLAN

As far as I know, the plan began in 2020 with the publication of Michael Anton's book The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return.  Actually, a podcast conversation between Anton and Curtis Yarvin in 2021 suggests that the idea of a Red Caesar might have originated with Yarvin.  I have written about Yarvin as an advocate for the neoreactionary authoritarianism of a Filmerian monarchy as superior to America's Lockean liberalism.

I have written previously about Anton as one of the leading Trump intellectuals associated with the Claremont Institute.  In the first Trump administration, Anton was the Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council (2017-2018).  In Trump's second administration, Anton is now Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department.

The Stakes was about the high stakes in the election of 2020--making it the most important election in over a hundred years.  Anton concluded the book by warning that while his "fondest political dream is for a restoration of the American constitutional order," the conflict between Blue America and Red America could lead to the total collapse of the constitutional order.  Then what?

He considers various possibilities.  One of them is Caesarism.  "Caesarism is a particular form of one-man rule: halfway, as it were, between monarchy and tyranny.  It is monarchical in that a single person rules.  It is tyrannical in that there is no appeal; Caesar's word replaces constitutionalism and even, in the final analysis, law" (341).  Caesarism, therefore, can be defined as "authoritarian one-man rule partially legitimized by necessity," where that necessity is the breakdown of the republican, constitutional order caused by the people becoming so corrupt that they lack the republican virtues required for liberty (342).

Anton explained that Caesarism has five kinds of benefits, which he saw in the history of ancient Rome's Caesars.  First, the benefits of Caesarism to Caesar are obvious--it satisfies his ambition for absolute power.

But there are also at least four benefits for a nation.  Caesarism can hold together a large nation and prevent it from breaking up.  In the case of the Roman Empire, it might have been broken up by factional conflict if Julius Caesar and is successors had not taken command.

Caesarism can also provide stability by preserving most of the formal institutions of the nation.

Caesarism can also calm factional conflict by subordinating all the factions to the rule of Caesar.

And it can preserve and even enhance the cultural and economic achievements of a great civilization, as was the case for Roman civilization under the Caesars.

Of course, Anton admitted, the great cost of Caesarism is the loss of liberty.  And yet when Caesarism comes, it's because liberty has already been lost (342-43).

But then we wonder how Caesarism is established.  As is characteristic of the Claremont Straussians, Anton's answer drew ideas from the ancient and modern political philosophers--principally, Machiavelli.  According to Machiavelli, a "principality" (one-man rule) is caused either by "the people" (the common people or the multitude) or by "the great" (the upper class).  The great ones are those few people who want to rule.  The people are the multitude of people who don't want to rule, but who don't want to be exploited by the rule of the great ones.  If the great ones can't resist the people, they will choose one of themselves to become the prince, who will suppress the people.  If the people can't resist the great ones, the people will choose one of the great to become the prince, who will defend the people against the great ones.

Anton concedes that this Machiavellian analysis fails to apply to the American situation today in one respect.  "In the present, divided America there is not one multitude but two: one blue, the other red.  Yet there's only one ruling class, to which the blue multitude is allied" (344).  

As I have indicated in my posts on Anton, this points to a problem for the "populist" rhetoric of Trump and the Claremont Straussians.  They depict a simple clash between The People and The Ruling Class.  But in fact, they can't claim to be on the side of The People if The People is divided into two groups--blue America and red America.  They have to argue that blue America is not the real America.  But in order to win the popular vote at the national level, they must appeal to both Americas.  Consequently, as I have indicated, Trump won the popular vote (by a slim margin) in 2024 only because he appealed to a multiethnic, multiracial, and multireligious coalition through a liberal rhetoric of pluralism.

In 2020, Anton foresaw, if only dimly, how Trump could come back to power in 2025 as the Red Caesar.  Anton considered the possibility of a Blue Caesar, but he thought that since the blue coalition had the upper hand in 2020, it was unlikely to see the need for Caesarism.  On the other hand, since red Americans were constantly under attack, they were more likely to turn to a Caesar to defend them.

If they were to do this, then Anton saw two formal mechanisms for a Caesar to come to power--"by military coup and by winning office legally and then refusing to give it up when his term ends, or maneuvering things in such a way that he's begged to stay" (345).  He thought that a military coup in America would be unlikely because the circumstances that made military coups frequent in ancient Rome did not hold for America.  Roman generals enjoyed great wealth and prestige from their conquests.  They could hold command for long periods.  They won the personal loyalty of their soldiers by distributing to them the spoils of war.  The people were accustomed to military rule.  Beginning in the early days of the Republic, there was even a procedure for appointing a military dictator for a limited term.  A few years before his death, Julius Caesar had himself appointed dictator perpetuo.  Nothing like this holds true for American generals.

So, the second route to Caesarism--being elected to office legally and then refusing to leave the office--is more likely.  But what about the constitutional amendment that limits a President to two terms?  Anton suggested: 

The instant you hear someone float the idea of repealing, or even "reforming," the Twenty-Second Amendment, you'll know that Caesarism has moved from theoretical possibility to someone's plan.  Lawful repeal through actual constitutional means would be hard--the Constitution is difficult to amend by design--but Caesars don't tend to respect constitutional principle.  The objection, which I half expect to hear offered seriously, that "the courts would never allow that!" is therefore irrelevant.  The mere possibility of Caesarism presupposes a degeneration of politics well below levels at which laws and courts are obeyed.  Caesar's contemptuous reply to the courts would echo Andrew Jackson's: you've made your ruling, now let's see you enforce it (345-46).

Remarkably, Trump has often suggested that he should run for a third term; and Steve Bannon has said that, of course, Trump will run again in 2028. 

So there it is--the Trump as Red Caesar Plan.  And yet anyone who has read Anton's book could object that he did not actually endorse such a plan.  After all, he remarked:  "Given all these and other obstacles, prospects for red Caesarism seem fanciful, the stuff of cheap political thrillers and big-budget summer blockbusters.  At any rate, I see and have seen no evidence whatsoever of anyone mounting any such effort anywhere" (350).

But remember that Anton is a Straussian, and Straussians are known for their claim that philosophers, fearing persecution for their unpopular ideas that shock the common people, must write esoterically, so that they hide their secret teaching from their common readers, while surreptitiously conveying their true teaching to their philosophic readers.  So, of course, Anton should say openly that he's not recommending or planning for a Red Caesar to seize one-man rule over America.  At the same time, however, by elaborating the many benefits of Caesarism, while arguing that the corruption of American politics has made Caesarism necessary, that's enough to insinuate to his Claremont Straussian readers that he really is endorsing Red Caesarism.

Sure enough, the Claremont Straussians got the secret message.  In his review of Anton's book in First Things, Nathan Pinkoski wrote: "What is Anton's ultimate intention?  In good Straussian fashion, what he teaches is not what he says, at least not outright.  With great moderation, he explicitly teaches us how to act prudently within the framework of the republican constitution; with great daring, he implicitly teaches us how to act prudently when the republican constitution is gone.  But the ultimate intention of The Stakes is to teach prudence and fortitude.  It is to prepare us for life in postconstitutional America" (Pinkowski 2020).

Charles Haywood writes frequently for the Claremont Institute.  He is also a self-proclaimed "warlord" who has founded a secretive network of far-right male fraternal lodges.  In his review of Anton's book for his blog, he writes that when Anton concludes that the Red Caesar is unlikely, "this seems like an error (or more likely disingenuous)."  He is excited by the prospect of a Red Caesar: "Me, I like, if not love, the idea of Red Caesar, the creation of an Augustan system. . . . Caesarism, and its time-legitimated successor, monarchy, is a natural, realism-based system, under which a civilization can flourish. (Maybe Elon Musk can be king and lead us to Mars.)"  Remarkably, then, Haywood saw in 2020 that Musk's project for colonizing Mars could become part of the Red Caesar Plan.  I have written about how Trump's Second Inaugural promoted America's "Manifest Destiny" to follow Musk in colonizing Mars.

Some Claremont Straussians--like Casey Wheatland--have claimed that Anton got his idea for the American Red Caesar from Leo Strauss himself, when Strauss pointed to Caesarism as the likely alternative to a failed republic in his "Restatement on Xenophon's Hiero" (Wheatland 2023).

What explains the support for Trump as the Red Caesar among so many of the Claremont Institute scholars of political philosophy?  As I have said previously, I believe Ross Douthat might have the best explanation: it's their "enthusiasm for a politics of crisis."  The Claremont Institute story of the American regime is a story of three regime crises.  First, there was the crisis of the American Revolution and the Constitutional Founding.  Second, there was the "crisis of the house divided" that led to the Civil War and Lincoln's triumphant "new birth of freedom" that was a re-founding of the regime.  Third, there was the crisis of corruption during the Progressive Era in which the Founding was overturned in favor of the Administrative State.  Now, we need a new transformative crisis in which Trump as the Red Caesar overturns the Administrative State and establishes the new American regime of one-man rule.

A crisis is turbulent, chaotic, violent, and risky.  It might turn out to be a disaster.  But we must take the risk to avoid the triumph of the evil ones who want to destroy America.  That was the message of Michael Anton's "Flight 93 Election" essay.

A crisis is alluring to politically ambitious people who see it as creating an opportunity for them to exercise some political influence in the halls of power during a transformative period of history.  Kesler told the Washington Post: "Trump was such an amateur that he didn't have contacts even with the establishment conservative think tanks in Washington, like Heritage and AEI.  That was an opportunity for us to have a little more influence as an outsider."  And, indeed, people like Anton have found positions in Trump's White House.  

Thomas Klingenstein is the chair of the Claremont Institute's board and its main funder.  Appearing on Steven Bannon's "War Room" show, Klingenstein said the Claremont Institute has been widely "recognized as the intellectual basis for Trump," making this "a great time for us. . . . Our budget is going way up.  The Washington Post is going to write a hit piece on us, and we take great pride in that. . . . It tells you that they think we're important, and we're not just a group of political philosophers."

That explains it all.  We're important, and we're not just a group of political philosophers.

The Trump supporters at the Claremont Institute think they can be important if they provide "the intellectual basis for Trump" that allows him to lead the country through a crisis in such a way that he can found a new American regime of Red Caesarism.  

In my next post, I will illustrate how Trump is doing that by looking at his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

REFERENCES

Anton, Michael. 2020. The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

Haywood, Charles. 2020. "The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return."  September 8. The Worthy House, theworthyhouse.com 

Pinkoski, Nathan. 2020. "Postconstitutional America." First Things. November.

Wheatland, Casey. 2023. "Founding Fathers and Red Caesar." The American Mind.  October 20.  

Trump's Grandiose Narcissism Explains His Competitive Authoritarianism

Donald Trump is not a protectionist.  He is not an isolationist.  He is not a nationalist.  He is not a conservative.  Terms like protectionism, isolationism, nationalism, and conservatism suggest some kind of social theory or doctrine.  But Trump doesn't do theory.

Sure, as I have indicated in my previous posts, Trump is attracted to the theory of the unitary executive.  But that's not because he's been persuaded that it's a correct theory.  He is attracted to that theory only because, and only so long as, it serves his real priority: the restless search for directing the public attention of the world to Donald Trump.

That explains why he sometimes rejects positions in the afternoon that he took in the morning.  Reversing himself so quickly surprises and shocks us so that we can't take our eyes off him.  And that's the point of it all.

That's why my wife and I need the Wall Street Journal to provide us with a "Trump Tracker" every morning.  This morning, it lists "45 Major Moves in 46 Days."

That's what you do if you're a grandiose narcissist like Trump.

Trump's grandiose narcissism also explains why Trump has decided to try in his second term to change the American regime from liberal democracy to competitive authoritarianism.  Again, this is not because he believes that competitive authoritarianism is in principle a better form of government, but because in the present circumstances of American political history, this form of government offers him the best prospect for keeping public attention constantly focused on himself.

First, I'll remind you of what I have said about grandiose narcissism as a personality disorder displayed by some authoritarian political leaders like Trump and by some other primates who strive for despotic dominance.  Then I'll explain what I mean by "competitive authoritarianism."

GRANDIOSE NARCISSISM

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes nine diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD):

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early childhood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g. exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Who does this remind you of? 

The narcissism of people like Trump can often give them the swagger and charismatic excitement that make them the center of attention in a way that can be translated into political success.   And, as Lincoln observed, many politically ambitious people like this will be satisfied in a liberal democracy to be elected as a congressman, a governor, or a president.  But this will not satisfy someone like Trump who thinks himself a "Towering Genius" like Napoleon who needed to become the Emperor to satisfy the grandiosity of his ambition.

COMPETITIVE AUTHORITARIANISM

As Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have argued in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Trump's Napoleonic narcissism is driving him to overturn American liberal democracy and replace it with competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way 2025).  "Competitive authoritarianism" is the term they have invented as a label for a distinctively hybrid regime that combines elements of democracy and authoritarianism, which has emerged around the world over the past 35 years since the end of the Cold War (Levitsky and Way 2002, 2010).

I have written about democracy and autocracy as the natural but not inevitable products of human political evolution.  What Levitsky and Way call competitive authoritarianism is a mixture of democratic competition and autocratic governance.

At one end of the political spectrum, a fully authoritarian regime either does not have multiparty elections for the executive and other offices of government, or it has elections, but they are not free and fair; and basic civil liberties (speech, press, association) are denied.

At the other end of the spectrum, a fully democratic regime has multiparty elections that are free and fair, most adults have the right to vote, basic civil liberties are protected, and the authority of elected governments is not restricted by unelected military or clerical powers.

Somewhere between these two extremes of the spectrum, a competitive authoritarian regime has multiparty elections, but they are not completely free and fair, because the incumbent's abuse of power tilts the electoral playing field against the opposition, and basic civil liberties are restricted to make it hard for the opposition to challenge the ruling party.

Under competitive authoritarianism, opposition forces can compete seriously for power.  And, occasionally, the opposition can win an election, and the incumbents lose.  But this regime is still not fully democratic, because the ruling party uses its power over the government to attack opponents and co-opt critics.

These three regime types are distinguished by the kind of countervailance--power checking power--that they allow.  A fully authoritarian regime allows little or no countervailance.  A fully democratic regime allows strong countervailance.  A competitive authoritarian regime allows weak countervailance.

For example, in a competitive authoritarian regime, the ruling party can politicize and weaponize the government bureaucracy by filling it with party loyalists who will use the power of the government to punish opponents and reward allies.  Levitsky and Way point out:  

One of the first moves undertaken by elected autocrats such a Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey has been to purge professional civil servants from public agencies responsible for things such as investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing, regulating the media and the economy, and overseeing elections--and replace them with loyalists.  After Orban became prime minister in 2010, his government stripped public employees of key civil service protections, fired thousands, and replaced them with loyal members of the ruling Fidesz party.  Likewise, Poland's Law and Justice party weakened civil service laws by doing away with the competitive hiring process and filling the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the military with partisan allies (Levitsky and Way 2025: 41).

But notice that of all of these examples of competitive authoritarian ruling parties, one of them--Poland's Law and Justice party--lost its majority power in Poland's parliamentary elections of 2023.  So, this illustrates the real political competition in these regimes because the ruling party can occasionally lose to the opposition, even though the competitive playing field is unfairly tilted to favor the ruling party.  In a fully authoritarian regime, the ruling party would never lose an election.

Notice also that the list of competitive authoritarians includes Viktor Orban, who has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, the longest serving prime minister in the history of that country.  For Trump and the right-wing intellectuals advising him, Orban is the model of what Trump would like to become in the United States.

Trump failed to do this in his first term for various reasons.  He did not have enough experience in government to plan ahead what he needed to do.  He appointed some establishment Republicans who were not slavishly loyal to him.  And he did not fully control the Republican Party.  

But now, he has come into his second term with a plan for establishing presidential authoritarian government provided to him by the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025), the Claremont Institute, The Federalist Society, and others.  He has turned the Republican Party into the Trump Party, so that the Republican-controlled Congress will not restrain his authoritarianism.  And he is filling the Executive Branch with his personal loyalists who will be his compliant servants.

Levitsky and Way are right in predicting that even if Trump is successful in doing this, he will not be able to establish a fully authoritarian regime--a fascist or one-party dictatorship.  There will be mid-term congressional elections in 2026 and a presidential election in 2028.  And Trump's opponents could win one or both of those elections.  Because even if Trump establishes a competitive authoritarianism, it will be truly competitive, although the competition will not be fully free or fair.

And yet, as Levitsky and Way say, Trump's success in establishing an authoritarian regime will be limited in at least three ways.  First, American constitutional institutions are stronger than in other competitive authoritarian regimes.  For example, an independent judiciary, federalism, a bicameral legislature, and midterm elections are all absent in Orban's Hungary.

Second, Trump is not as popular as many of the successful elected autocrats have been.  Some of them have had approval ratings of over 80 percent.  Trump has never come close to that.  Until recently, Orban and his party have been very popular.  But now his popularity has fallen behind the opposition Tisza Party, which could win the parliamentary elections in 2026.

A third constraint on Trump is the countervailing power generated by American civil society.  American capitalism generates a larger and richer private sector than is the case in any other country, and that creates dispersed power centers outside the government that are difficult to fully capture or bully.

But then, of course, the richest American is the leader of the Trump takeover of the government--Elon Musk.  That raises an interesting question.  How can a grandiose narcissist share the spotlight of public attention with another grandiose narcissist?  The answer is obvious--he doesn't.

So, at some point, Trump will have to fire Musk.  And he probably will blame Musk for many of the bad decisions made in Trump's second term.

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