Douglas Wilson's Theocratic Libertarianism Is Not Theocratic: Esoteric Writing in the Service of Religious Liberty

Pete Hegseth and Douglas Wilson Praying Before a Worship Service at the Pentagon.

Douglas Wilson is a Calvinist pastor in Moscow, Idaho, who has become the most influential proponent of American Christian Nationalism.  His influence extends into the Trump Administration, as indicated recently by his being invited by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deliver a sermon at the Pentagon.  Tucher Carlson has said: "Pastor Doug Wilson is the Christian Nationalist they warned you about."

Wilson identifies himself as a "theocratic libertarian."  But if you study what he says carefully, you will see that he's not theocratic at all because he's really a Lockean classical liberal who embraces religious liberty and toleration, and therefore he's closer to the liberal America of Roger Williams than he is to the illiberal America of John Winthrop.  

As evidence for this, I'll be relying mostly on two texts:  his most recent book--Frequently Asked (Shouted) Questions About Christian Nationalism (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2025) and Ross Douthat's interview with Wilson at the New York Times ("He Believes America Should Be a Theocracy," Oct. 9, 2025).  I'll refer to the book as FAQ and the interview as NYT.

Let's start with a definition of the word "theocracy."  As I noted in my previous post, the English word "theocracy" is a translation of the Greek word theocratia that was coined by Josephus as a term for ancient Israel as ruled by the Mosaic laws.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines "theocracy" as 

"A form of government in which God (or a deity) is recognized as the king or immediate ruler, and his laws are taken as the statute-book of the kingdom, these laws being usually administered by a priestly order as his ministers and agents; hence (loosely) a system of government by a sacerdotal order, claiming a divine commission; also, a state so governed: esp. applied to the commonwealth of Israel from the exodus to the election of Saul as king."

This is not libertarianism.  On the contrary, it looks more like the theocratic regime sought by conservative Catholic integralists who argue that politics must order the lives of citizens to direct them to the eternal salvation of their souls, and for this the temporal power of government must be subordinated to the spiritual power of the Church.  Some integralists point to the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX in medieval France as their model.  This is a Christian version of Israel under the Mosaic law or of Plato's theocratic city in the Laws. 

This suggests to me that deciding whether a God-centered metaphysics requires a theocratic political regime will depend upon whether one is looking to the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament.  As I have indicated in a previous post, Roger Williams was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for denouncing the Puritan rule there as a theocracy enforcing Mosaic law that was contrary to the New Testament, where the Christian churches were voluntary associations that did not persecute heretics or unbelievers.  In Rhode Island, he established a political order that tolerated all religions and even atheists.  This showed how God-centered Christians could reject the theocratic God of the Old Testament and embrace the Lockean liberal principles of toleration and religious liberty suggested in the New Testament.  One can see this, for example, in the Christian Lockean liberalism of C. S. Lewis.

Therefore, to identify Wilson's Christian Nationalism as theocratic, we would have to see him clearly argue for returning America to Winthrop's Puritan theocracy based on the Mosaic laws of the Hebrew Commonwealth as incorporated into the "Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts" (1647).  

I emphasize that we would need to see him clearly argue for this because while I admit that what he says conveys a superficial impression of an argument for Puritan theocracy, I never see him clearly and explicitly saying this.  I see him engaging in what Leo Strauss used to call esoteric writing: Wilson wants to convey a secret teaching to his careful readers that will not be seen by the less careful readers who would be shocked by the secret teaching.  

There are two reasons for believing that Wilson is a secret writer.  First, the weaknesses in his arguments for theocracy are so clear that any attentive and well-informed reader can see them.  That's one of the main techniques of the secret writer: he makes his arguments for his surface teaching so easily refutable that the careful reader suspects that the writer is not taking these arguments seriously, and he is inviting his reader to look for the secret teaching. 

The second reason for thinking Wilson is a secret writer is that he contradicts himself in a way that is easily noticed by the meticulous reader, which is another technique of the secret writer.  Wilson seems on the surface of his writing to be arguing for a theocracy like that of Winthrop's Puritans in Massachusetts.  But if you look carefully at what he proposes, you will see that it does not follow the model of the Puritan theocracy, and it actually looks like the sort of liberal social order that Williams established in Rhode Island.  

Wilson then distracts his theocratic readers from seeing this contradiction by promising them that his final goal is the "ideal theocratic republic," but he puts this off to the distant future--"like 500 years from now," as he says to Douthat.  So those who want theocracy will have to wait at least 500 years!  And even that promise depends on Wilson's debatable interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelations as teaching a postmillennialist eschatology. Until we reach the "end-times," Wilson advises his theocratic readers that they should be happy to live in a liberal regime that secures their religious liberty in a pluralist society.

WEAK ARGUMENTS

The first question in FAQ is "What is Christian Nationalism?"  Here's Wilson's answer:

Fundamentally, Christian nationalism is the belief that human societies require a transcendent anchor to hold all our cultural, political, and social assumptions in place, and that this transcendent anchor should be the true and living God, not an idol.

All ethical judgments, in order to be ethical judgments, rely on some form of "Thus saith the Lord."  Otherwise, they are not ethical judgments at all, but rather the opinions of some guy.  For an atheist, they are the burbling of certain protoplasmic chemicals, reacting as they always would under these conditions and at this temperature.  Whatever the case, they have no authority at all.  This is a foundational principle, one that every Christian accepts, at least implicitly.  Justice is not arbitrary--it's rooted in the character of God himself.  But the thing many Christians miss is that this principle applies to communities as well as individuals. A law is either righteous or unrighteous in the same way that an action is either righteous or unrighteous.  The basic reality doesn't change just because the scale is larger.  If we want a standard for right and wrong--regardless of whether that standard is going to be applied to a next-door neighbor or to Congress--we need God's word for it.

. . . At the end of the day, if our standard of judgment originates from somewhere other than God, then the only authority it possesses is that of power. . . .

Christian nationalism thus holds that we cannot order our corporate lives without reference to the divine. . . . (1-2).

This conception of Christian nationalism assumes a Divine Command Theory of ethics--that the only standard of right and wrong is the command of God: whatever God commands to be done is right, and whatever God commands not to be done is wrong.  And since the only standard of right and wrong is supernatural, there can be no purely natural standard.  The truth of this claim depends on at least two factual assertions about human history. 

First, there's the Fact of Supernatural Law--that the true God has clearly revealed his supernatural moral law to all human beings who sincerely want to know it.  

Second, there's the Fact of No Natural Law--that human beings cannot know a natural moral law by natural human experience without any supernatural revelation.

Wilson does not provide any strong arguments or evidence to support these two factual claims about human history.  On the contrary, much of what he says indicates that both of these factual assertions are false.

Supernatural Law?

In chapter 13 of FAQ, Wilson asks: "Is Christian nationalism fine with other forms of religious nationalism?  Hindu nationalism in India?  Jewish nationalism in Israel?"  His answer is no.  "Generic religious nationalism is no good."  The only good religious nationalism is Christian nationalism because "Christianity is the true religion."  Therefore, the Hindus in India should become Christians and establish India as a Christian nation with Christian laws and government.  And the Jews in Israel should become Christians and establish Israel as a Christian nation with Christian laws and government.

There are two claims here.  God has clearly revealed to all human beings that Christianity is the only true religion.  And God has also clearly revealed to all human beings that every nation should establish a Christian theocratic government with Christian laws.  Can Wilson give us proof--or at least plausible arguments and evidence--to support these claims?  If not, then they are just "the opinions of some guy."

Wilson seems to assume that most of his readers will be Christians, and therefore he does not have to argue for Christianity being the true religion since his Christian readers will take that for granted.  But if so, doesn't that mean that the foundation of his whole argument is not some clear revelation from God but just "the opinions of some Christian guys"?

Now, of course, the Christians will say that it's not just a matter of their "opinions" because they look to the clear revelation of God's commands in the Bible.  But then the Jews will say that the Hebrew Bible is a clear revelation of Judaism as the true religion and the God of Israel as the one true God.  After all, God revealed Himself to Moses, speaking to him out of the burning bush, telling him that he was to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt.  God then revealed his name--Yahweh, which is usually translated as "the Lord" in English Bibles (Exo. 3:1-15).  Later, Yahweh met Moses on Mount Sinai and gave him his law summarized as Ten Commandments (Exo. 19-20, Deu. 5).  

The first commandment was "You shall have no other gods before (or besides) me" (Exo. 20:3).  Although this is often said to be the first declaration of monotheism, it's unclear what exactly is being said here.  Notice that Yahweh speaks of "other gods."  So it's not clear whether Yahweh is really saying that He is the only god who exists (monotheism), or that He is the one god among many that the people of Israel should choose as their god (henotheism), or that He is the only god among many who is worthy of worship (monolatry).

There is some evidence in the Hebrew Bible that the people of Israel had to choose from among the many gods that were believed to exist.  Genesis 33:20 says that Jacob "set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel," which means "El is the God of Israel."  In the ancient Levant, El was the white-bearded king of the gods who ruled over an assembly of the gods.  So it's possible that El was the first patron deity of the people of Israel.  Notice that "El" is even part of the name Israel (yisra-El).  But it seems that eventually the people of Israel chose Yahweh as their god, who was a subordinate god of weather and war.  They might have chosen him because they needed a more militarized theology.  That Yahweh was not the only god is suggested elsewhere in the Bible--such as Psalm 82, where Yahweh "presides in the great assembly" and "renders judgment among the gods."  The Bible thus creates some doubt as to whether Yahweh is the only god that exists.

But even if we set that aside and say that Yahweh the god of Israel is the only true god, that creates a problem for Wilson. How can he say that Judaism is not a true religion?  Because the New Testament has revealed Jesus as the son of God who established Christianity as the true religion that supplanted Judaism?  But apparently that revelation was not clear enough to persuade most of the Jews to convert to this new religion.  Presumably, Wilson will say that the revelation of Christ was perfectly clear, but most of the Jews were stubbornly resistant to that revelation.  But couldn't the Jews respond to this by saying, "this is just the opinion of some Christian guy"?

If the revelation of Christ was perfectly clear, we should be able to define the content of that Christian revelation in a way that all Christians will accept.  Wilson suggests:

The definition of Christian in this context is straightforward.  It refers to the system of belief expressed by the Apostles' Creed, with those beliefs being accepted and received as the truth of God, by means of faith alone.  In the American context, the expression of this faith is by and large Protestant and evangelical (FAQ, 5).

Here's an English translation of the Latin Apostles' Creed:

I believe in God the Father almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

The origin of this text is unclear, but it was probably developed in southern Gaul sometime around the middle of the 5th century.  It is shorter than the Nicene Creed adopted in 381, and unlike the Nicene Creed, it does not explicitly define the divinity of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, although it does affirm the Trinity of God, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It's called the Apostles' Creed because it originally was believed to have been written by the twelve Apostles, and some copies of the text even divide it into twelve parts, with each of the Apostles contributing a part.  But there's no clear historical evidence that the Apostles had anything to do with this.

The most obvious question here is why do Christians need these "creeds" at all?  If the text of the New Testament is clear in its teaching to all Christians, there should be no need for an interpretive summary of its doctrines in the form of a creedal text composed by some church council.  If the Protestant Reformers were right about their principle of sola scriptura, the meaning of revelation as conveyed in the Biblical text should be clear enough that all Christians can agree on what it means without the need for priests or church traditions to interpret the Biblical text for them.  But then the Catholic Church argues that the Protestants are simply wrong in assuming the perspicuity of the Bible--that the meaning of the Bible is clear to all believers--because the Bible is actually so obscure that it needs to be interpreted by the tradition of the Church as expressed in the councils of the church that agree on the various creedal statements.  This is suggested in the Apostles' Creed by the affirmation of "the holy catholic Church."  And, of course, the Roman Catholic Church can claim to be the one true Church by virtue of the Apostolic Succession of the Popes from Saint Peter.  A Protestant like Wilson must reject this.  But this illustrates the problem, Christians can't agree on what exactly is revealed in the Bible because that Biblical revelation is obscure.  And that's why there have been hundreds of heresies and schisms in the Christian church over the past two thousand years.

This Illumination from a 13th-Century Manuscript Shows the Twelve Apostles Writing the "Apostles' Creed," While Receiving the Inspiration from the Holy Spirit (the Dove at the Top).

This illustrates what I have called the problem of the Holy Spirit or the problem of religious pluralism.  Notice that in the Illumination, the Holy Spirit (symbolized as a dove) hovers over the Apostles to inspire them with the correct interpretation of the Biblical revelation.  But if that shamanic spirit really speaks to Christians, he does not speak clearly enough for them to agree on what he is saying.  Consequently, as John Locke observed, "everyone is orthodox to himself," and "every church is orthodox to itself." And if that is true, that means that any coercive theocratic interpretation of orthodoxy imposed on a nation is just "the opinions of some guy"--or the opinions of some priestly tyrants.

Moreover, you should notice that while Wilson points the Apostles' Creed as the defining statement of Christianity, the Creed says nothing about Christian nationalism or theocracy, and thus it provides no support for his argument.  God's supernatural revelation in the New Testament does not include a clear revelation of God's command that his moral law be enforced by a Christian theocratic government just as it was previously enforced by a Hebrew theocratic government.

Actually, Wilson admits that there is a "conspicuous absence" in the New Testament of anything like the Mosaic theocracy that was present in the Old Testament (NYT).  That was Williams' point in his debate with Winthrop--that the Puritan theocracy in Massachusetts was a turn away from New Testament Christianity, because the Christian churches in the New Testament were voluntary associations that did not have and did not seek theocratic political power.

Wilson says that while for the early Christian churches, enacting civil penalties in the name of Christ "was still centuries out," they were "nevertheless preparing for that day" (FAQ, 52).  But Wilson cannot cite any passage in the New Testament where the early Christians say they are preparing for the day when they will have theocratic political power.  Wilson is simply reading into the New Testament his own personal preference.  Similarly, Wilson says: "What Paul did was preach the gospel, plant churches, and wait for three centuries" until the "conversion of the Roman empire," when he could have "his audience before Caesar"--that is, Constantine.  But, again, Wilson cannot cite any passage in the New Testament where Paul says or even implies that he's waiting for a Roman Christian theocracy (FAQ, 138).  This is not a supernatural revelation of God's command in the New Testament.  This is "the opinions of some guy."

Natural Law?

If God's revelation of his supernatural moral law is so obscure that human beings cannot agree on what it means, then we have to wonder if there is a natural moral law that human beings can know by their natural human experience.  Wilson says no, because as a Divine Command Theorist, the only standard of right and wrong for him is the supernatural law of God's command: "Thus saith the Lord."  And if that is true, then there can be no stable moral order in any society without some theocratic enforcement of God's commands.

This was the fundamental issue in the dispute between Roger Williams and John Winthrop.  Williams argued that not only did the Christian religion not depend on the support of human laws, but the civil government did not depend on an established religion, because as Williams indicated, the "civil peace" of a political community did not depend on the "spiritual peace" of a true church.  After all, Williams noted, native American Indians and pagans have kept the peace of their communities without belonging to the true church of God.  Here Williams agreed with Pierre Bayle that a society of atheists could live together in a peaceful social order based on their natural moral sense without any religious beliefs in a supernatural moral law.

This natural moral sense is what C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man called the Tao--the universal sense of right and wrong rooted in human nature.  Remarkably, although Wilson recommends the reading of The Abolition of Man, he says nothing about Lewis's account of natural moral law and how that supported Lewis's rejection of theocracy (FAQ, 9, 151). 

Lewis saw the Tao as manifested in three levels of social order--human nature, human traditions, and human judgments. At the first level, the Tao is "Natural Law" (56, 95). Natural law is natural in the sense that it belongs to "the very nature of man," because it provides "a common human law of action" (31, 84). The Tao is "the Tao of Man," it is the "only known reality of conscience" that distinguishes human nature from the rest of nature (62, 90).

The nature of Lewis's natural law is not cosmic nature as a whole, but human nature in particular. Cosmic nature cannot provide values for human life, Lewis suggests, because "nature as a whole, I understand, is working steadily and irreversibly towards the final extinction of all life in every part of the universe" (50).

Although natural law is often assumed to come from a supernatural lawgiver, Lewis insists that understanding the Tao as natural law does not require any belief in the supernatural. He writes:

Though I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian, I am not here attempting any indirect argument for Theism. I am simply arguing that if we are to have values at all we must accept the ultimate platitudes of Practical Reasoning as having absolute validity: that any attempt, having become skeptical about these, to reintroduce value lower down on some supposedly more 'realistic' basis, is doomed. Whether this position implies a supernatural origin for the Tao is a question I am not here concerned with (61).

At the second level of social order, the Tao corresponds to human cultural traditions--"the human tradition of value," "traditional values," "traditional morality," or "traditional humanity" (54-55, 76, 78, 85). In the Appendix to his book, Lewis provides "Illustrations of the Tao" that consist of short quotations from some ancient texts of moral teaching from Egypt, Babylonia, Israel, Greece, Rome, India, China, Scandinavia, and Anglo-Saxon England, and a few texts from early modern England. Lewis's Appendix shows great cultural variability in the moral traditions of human history. But it also shows recurrent themes that reflect how universal human nature constrains these moral traditions--as manifested in Lewis's eight categories of classification: the law of general beneficence, the law of special beneficence, duties to parents, elders, and ancestors, duties to children and posterity, the law of justice, the law of good faith and veracity, the law of mercy, and the law of magnanimity.

At the third level of social order, the Tao allows for individual judgments of value, but only within the broad constraints of human nature and human tradition. Lewis admits that traditional moralities show many contradictions and some absurdities, which invite criticism and improvement. Although the Tao does not permit criticisms and changes coming from outside the Tao--because there are no standards of value outside it--the Tao does permit development from within. So, for example, we can recognize that the Christian version of the Golden Rule--"Do as you would be done by"--is a real improvement over the Confucian version--"Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you"--because we can see that the new positive statement of the rule is an extension of the old negative statement (57-58). Individuals have authority to modify the Tao only insofar as their modifications are within the "spirit of the Tao" (59).

Lewis saw that this natural law of the Tao did not require coercive enforcement by a theocratic government because for Lewis the primary aim of government was securing individual liberty in private life:

The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.  A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging his own garden--that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time (Mere Christianity, 169).

Notice that the State's concern here is with human happiness "in this life"--not in the next life.  A government that would be directed to eternal salvation would be a theocracy, and Lewis said that "theocracy is the worst of al governments," because any government that would pretend to have the power of salvation would be tyrannical.

Lewis thought that government did not need to promote Christianity in order to provide a common morality for society because Lewis believed that God had imprinted His moral law on every human heart, whether or not that person had come to faith in Jesus Christ.  Consequently, Lewis accepted the Lockean argument for the toleration of all religions.

One good illustration of how the Lockean moral law arises naturally in the human mind is in Lewis's essay "Delinquents in the Snow."  He tells the story of how some young hooligans had been caught stealing and vandalizing Lewis's home, and how they had not been properly punished by the legal system.  He complained that "according to the classical political theory of this country," we "surrendered our right of self-protection to the State on the condition that the State would protect us" (98-99).  But if the State does not protect our natural rights, including the right to property, the natural right to protect ourselves and our property reverts to the individual.  This is what Locke called the natural "executive power of the state of nature."  This natural right to protect oneself, one's property, and one's family from attack arises naturally in the human mind without any need for a Christian faith that such a natural law is divinely ordained.

Although Locke denied that government needed to inculcate virtue, Dyer and Watson observe, his Thoughts on Education is all about inculcating virtue.  So that even without the legal enforcement of virtue, which would threaten individual liberty, Locke assumed that the education of children in their families, their churches, and the wider society would shape the moral and intellectual virtues. Lewis agreed.  In fact, his fantasy writing for children--such as the Chronicles of Narnia--was intended to contribute to the moral education of children supervised by parents rather than the State.

So, as a Lockean liberal, Lewis denied that Christian citizens have any right to use their political power to coercively impose their Christian morality on their political community.  This is particularly clear in the way Lewis speaks about homosexuality, religious education in schools, and divorce law.

Although Lewis was clear about homosexuality being a sin, he saw no justification for the State punishing that sin as a crime.  In a letter, he observed: "Of course, many acts which are sins against God are also injuries to our fellow-citizens, and must on that account, but only on that account, be made crimes.  But of all the sins in the world, I should have thought homosexuality was the one that least concerns the State.  We hear too much of the State. Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place."  Lewis's view of homosexuality was probably influenced by his life-long friendship with Arthur Greeves, who was a homosexual.

In the passage just quoted, Lewis seems to assume John Stuart Mill's harm principle--that the only justification for limiting anyone's individual liberty is to prevent harm to others. While this seems to be a uniquely modern principle, it can be found in the premodern natural law tradition.  It's stated by Thomas Aquinas: "Human law is framed for the mass of men, the majority of whom are not virtuous. Therefore, human law does not prohibit every vice from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more serious ones from which the majority can abstain, and especially those that harm others and which must be prohibited for human society to survive, such as homicide, theft, and the like" (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 96, a. 2).

Lewis also showed his Lockean liberalism in which he said about the place of religion in public education.  He saw England as becoming increasingly secularized, and if most of the public school teachers are not Christian, we cannot expect them to teach Christianity.  Christians should raise their children as Christians and send them to Christian schools, without expecting the public schools to inculcate Christianity in the children.

A third illustration of Lewis's Lockean liberalism is in what he said about marriage and divorce.  Since Christianity teaches that marriage is for life, Lewis observed in Mere Christianity, divorce is not normally allowed. But he saw no justification for legally enforcing this Christian condemnation of divorce.

. . . I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused.  The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question--how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself, you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognize that the majority of the  British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. This distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not (101-102).

If we bring together what Lewis says here about marriage and what he says about homosexuality, we might infer that Lewis could have supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, with the understanding that the rules of marriage enforced by the State will differ from the rules enforced by the Church.  In fact, I have argued that a Lockean natural law argument can be made for legalizing same-sex marriage.

 

CLEAR CONTRADICTIONS

Although presumably Wilson would disagree with Lewis's claim that "theocracy is the worst form of government," he often contradicts his arguments for theocracy in ways that invite his careful readers to wonder whether his secret teaching agrees with Lewis's condemnation of theocracy.

No Rerun of "Christendom 1.0"?

Wilson told Ross Douthat: 

I've been arguing for a mere Christendom, or a Christendom 2.0, OK?  Christendom 1.0 had some bugs in it.  I don't want a rerun of Christendom 1.0--don't want that.  The Christians screwed it up in different areas.  "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," as Monty Python taught us--and I don't want the Spanish Inquisition again, OK?  I want a Christendom that learns from history.

Elsewhere in the interview, Wilson explained: "I really do want Christendom 2.0 to have learned the lessons of criminalizing things that were sins, not crimes."  

If the whole point of Christian theocracy is to punish sins as crimes, then Wilson has just declared that Christendom 2.0 will not be theocratic.  For example, the Mosaic law in the Old Testament and the "Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts" (1647) both treat the sin of adultery as a capital crime.  But Wilson agrees with Douthat that adulterers should not be put to death.

And yet, there are at least two sins that Wilson clearly wants to criminalize--abortion and homosexuality.  But even so, it's notable that he does not say that these should be capital crimes.  Homosexuality was a capital crime in Puritan Massachusetts.  Nothing was said about abortion.  Perhaps this was because the Bible says nothing about abortion.

The Ten Commandments begin with commandments about the proper worship of God, and therefore theocratic regimes have punished people for not worshiping God in the right way.  But Wilson told Douthat that he was "a libertarian on how people worship," and so he would allow Catholics and Jews to worship as they please.

This is very different from the laws of Massachusetts Bay, which required that anyone teaching "damnable heresies" should be banished from the Colony.  The laws also excluded Jesuits and all priests or bishops of the Catholic Church.  They were to be banished.  And if they returned after being banished, they were to be put to death.  Clearly, that's what Wilson does not want for Christendom 2.0.  But that means that his Christendom 2.0 will not be theocratic.

When Douthat warns Wilson about "pushing toward Puritan New England," Wilson responds: "the warning is well taken."  Indeed.

A "Godless" Constitution?

The United States Constitution as ratified in 1789 and as amended in 1791 supports religious liberty and the separation of church and state in three ways.  First, unlike most of the state constitutions, the national Constitution is literally "godless" in that it says nothing about any divine being, which suggests that the national government does not need the support of a national religion.  Second, there is the provision in Article V of the Constitution that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."  The third way is the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Wilson insists that "our Constitution was written by Christians--and the goal . . . was to create and preserve a Christian community" (FAQ, 108).  But Wilson does not explain why these Christians who wrote the Constitution refused to introduce into that document any reference to God, Jesus, or Christianity.  Nor does Wilson say anything about the long history of Christians complaining that the Constitution was "godless," and that it needed a "God Amendment."  The most prominent example of this movement to put God into the Constitution was the National Reform Association that emerged during and after the American Civil War.  This was a movement of evangelical Protestant ministers, theologians, academics, lawyers, and judges, who claimed that the Civil War was God's punishment of America for having a godless Constitution, and that this showed the need for amending the Constitution.  They formally petitioned President Lincoln and the Congress to support an amendment.

They proposed an amended version of the Preamble to the Constitution--with the new language in italics:

We the People of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, his revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America (National Reform Association 1874, p. 7).

They could persuade neither Lincoln nor the Congress to take their proposal seriously.

Wilson says nothing about this history, although he does admit that there needs to be "an acknowledgement of Christian orthodoxy at the federal level, in the Constitution" (FAQ, 122).  He thus invites his reader to wonder, why hasn't this been done?

Wilson accepts the "no religious test" clause because he thinks the Founders "didn't want to introduce denominational strife" at the federal level (FAQ, 87).  But he is silent about those many Christians who have complained that without a religious test that requires public officers to be Christians, America cannot be a Christian nation.  For example, one speaker at the Massachusetts constitutional ratifying convention warned that having no religious tests "would admit deists, atheists, etc., into the general government; and, people being apt to imitate the examples of the court, these principles would be disseminated, and, of course, a corruption of morals ensue."  

Wilson points out that the "no religious tests" clause applies only to federal offices, which allows religious tests at the state and local level, and he notes that at the time of the Founding, "they were commonplace at the local level."  He does not tell his readers, however, that by 1800 all of these religious tests at the state and local level were eliminated.

Wilson accepts the no establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment because he agrees that having a national church like England had would have been a mistake.  He points out, however, that the no establishment clause applies only to the national Congress, and thus it leaves the states free to establish state churches.  In fact, he observes, at the time that the First Amendment was ratified, nine of the thirteen states had established a Christian denomination.  But he does not tell his readers that by 1833 all state establishments of religion had been abolished.

Remarkably, Wilson says he thinks having established churches at the state level is "a bad idea" (FAQ, 21).  So, here again, we see a remarkable contradiction in his arguments.  On the one hand, Wilson argues for a theocratic Christian nationalism.  On the other hand, he argues that an establishment of religion at either the national or the state level is a bad idea.  His careful readers have to suspect that his apparent argument for Christian theocracy is not his true teaching.

The "Boniface Option"?

In Wilson's FAQ, the final question is: How do we get a Christian nation?  He says there are three common answers to this question: the Benedict Option, the Bonaparte Option, and the Boniface Option.  Wilson defends the Boniface Option as a deft combination of the other two options.

In my next post, I will try to unravel Wilson's ambiguous account of this Boniface Option.

The Supreme Court Rules Against Trump's Administrative State in Overturning His Tariffs: A Victory for Lockean Liberalism

Beginning on February 1, 2025, Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders that invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) as statutory authority for his imposition of massive tariffs on imports from countries around the world.  I responded to this by arguing that this was both illegal and unconstitutional.  

It was illegal because IEEPA does not clearly give the President any power to levy tariffs.  In fact, the IEEPA says nothing about tariffs.  And in the almost 50 years since it was passed, no president has claimed that it gives him any power over tariffs--until Trump.  It was unconstitutional because the Constitution gives to Congress, but not the President, the power to tax, and tariffs are taxes.  This is a crucial part of the constitutional system of separation of powers that prevents the concentration of power in the president.  Consequently, the Congress cannot constitutionally give up its taxing power to the president.  

Any congressional delegation of the taxing power, including the power over tariffs, to the executive branch must be constrained by specified limits and procedures, which one can see in the congressional statues giving the president some powers for setting tariffs.  In his first term, Trump worked within these statutes to raise tariff rates on various nations.  But he discovered that the requirements of these laws severely constrained his power.  So at the beginning of his second term, he decided that he would use the IEEPA to give himself unlimited power to impose tariffs at will, even though the IEEPA says nothing about tariffs.

Those federal judges who claim to be "originalists" or "textualists" in adhering strictly to the original meaning of constitutional or statutory texts will have to rule that Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional.  If they don't, they will show the dishonesty of their profession of originalist jurisprudence because they will show that they are willing to ignore the original meaning of the legal texts if it contradicts their partisan political commitment to Trump.

THE DECISION: ONE COALITION AND TWO SPLITS

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued its 6 to 3 decision in Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Trump declaring that IEEPA does not give Trump any power to impose tariffs.  As you might expect from what I have argued previously about this debate, I am persuaded by the reasoning of the majority.  If you read the decision (all 170 pages of it!), you can decide for yourself whether the six justices in the majority and I are right.  I won't add much here about the substantive issues beyond what I have already said.

Here I am interested in the lineup of judges on the two sides, which is remarkable in three ways.  First, those on the side of the majority constitute a coalition of three Republican appointees (John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett) and three Democratic appointees (Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson).  Second, there's an even split among the six Republican appointees because three are on the majority side and three (Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito) are on the dissenting side.  Third, there is a split within the Trump appointees: two voting with the majority (Gorsuch and Barrett), and one going with the dissenters (Kavanaugh).  Trump lost this case because he lost the votes of Gorsuch and Barrett.  If they had taken his side, it would have been a 5 to 4 decision in Trump's favor.

So what's going on here?  In Gorsuch's opinion, I see the best explanation for both the coalition and the two splits, although Gorsuch only implies what I will make explicit here.

The ultimate issue here is the question of how to properly allocate the powers of the national government between the Congress, the Executive Branch (the President and the federal administrative officers), and the Federal Judiciary so as to secure the separation of powers with checks and balances.  The first and longest article of the Constitution is the Legislative Article I, with the longest list of enumerated powers, which suggests that even with the separation of powers between the three branches, Congress should be supreme.  

But over time the presidency has become ever more powerful, particularly in matters of war and foreign affairs.  And since the end of the nineteenth century, the Congress has delegated some of its lawmaking powers to the president and to administrative agencies.  This has grown into what has been called (mostly by its critics) the Administrative State--administrative agencies seem to exercise concentrated legislative, executive, and judicial powers, with few checks on their power, creating an administrative tyranny that threatens individual liberty.

In 1946, the Congress attempted to limit this administrative power through the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which in effect created a separation of powers within the federal administrative agencies.  The APA required agencies to keep the public informed of their procedures and rules, to allow the public to participate in the rulemaking process through public commenting, and to establish formal procedures for rulemaking and adjudication that would allow the public to file lawsuits challenging unfair rulemaking.

Conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals have argued that this does not go far enough in limiting administrative power.  They have proposed new limits that are either vertical or horizontal.  Some conservative Republican lawyers have proposed the Unitary Executive Theory as the best way to put a vertical limit on the Administrative State: if Article II of the Constitution gives the President absolute power over all the federal administrative officers in the Executive Branch, then a popularly elected president can enforce the will of the people upon the Administrative State. 

The problem with this, however, as I have argued, is that the lesson this teaches someone like Trump is "Article II gives me the power as president to do whatever I want to do."  Far from limiting the Administrative State, this creates a Presidential Administrative State in the service of Trump's dictatorship.

Consequently, some conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals have said that what we need is for Congress to exercise its constitutional powers in ways that will horizontally limit the powers of both the President and federal administrators.  Over the past one hundred years, the Congress has delegated too much of its constitutional power--either directly or by acquiescence--to the President and federal administrative officers.  

There are two ways to reverse this.  The radical way is to insist on a strict non-delegation principle--that Congress may not delegate its constitutional powers to the President or administrators.  But that would require a revolutionary overthrow of the Presidential Administrative State that few people would be willing to accept.

The moderate way to reverse the flow of lawmaking power out of Congress would be for the federal courts to enforce what has been called the "major questions doctrine."  That's the principle that Gorsuch defends in his opinion in Learning Resources v. Trump.  Gorsuch defines this principle as the rule "that, when executive branch officials claim Congress has granted them an extraordinary power, they must identify clear statutory authority for it" (Gorsuch, 6).  Notice that "executive branch officials" includes both the President and federal administrators.  Notice also that "extraordinary power" surely includes the power claimed by Trump "to impose a tariff of any amount, for any time, on only his own say-so" (Kagan, 6).  This is called the "major questions" doctrine because it applies only to cases that involve major economic or political consequences.  This is more moderate than an absolute non-delegation doctrine because it allows the Congress to delegate its powers to executive branch officials but only when the delegation is stated in clear statutory language.  That's a high standard because most of the growth in the Presidential Administrative State has come from executive branch officials appealing to vague or ambiguous language in congressional statues as delegations of congressional power to the Executive Branch.

The shrewd decision to employ the major questions doctrine in the legal strategy that won the Learning Resources case came from Ilya Somin in a blog post that he published the day after Trump announced his first tariffs on February 1 of last year.  Ilya suggested that since the major questions doctrine was "more moderate" that a strict non-delegation doctrine, it would appeal to "some of the conservative judges" and "one or more liberal judges."  Later, Somin advised the Liberty Justice Center, a right-leaning legal organization that brought the Learning Resources case to the Supreme Court.  Somin's strategy was even more successful than he anticipated because he persuaded all three of the liberal judges and three of the six conservative judges.

So why weren't those three dissenting conservatives (Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito) persuaded?  These three judges claim to be textualists and originalists who base their decisions not on their political preferences but on the original meaning of the constitutional and statutory texts.  In this case, they argued that Trump's absolute power to impose tariffs was authorized by the language of the IEEPA, which stated that once a president has declared an international economic emergency, he has the power to 

investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. 50 U.S.C sec. 1702 (a) (1).

Notice that this does not mention tariffs, nor any synonyms such as duties and imposts.  So where did these judges find the power to impose tariffs in this passage?  Well, they take two words out of this passage--"regulate" and "importation"--and they create the phrase "regulate . . . importation," which they claim clearly means impose tariffs.  In Kavanaugh's opinion, by my count, he uses the phrase "regulate . . . importation" 74 times!  But he never considers how these two words fit into the context of this long sentence.

In her concurring opinion, Kagan points out that "regulate" is one of 9 verbs in this delegation provision.  The others are "investigate," "block," "direct," "compel," "nullify," "void," "prevent," and "prohibit."  Those verbs are followed by 11 objects, each describing a distinct sort of transaction involving foreign property--not just "importation," but also "acquisition," "holding," "transfer," and so on.  Combining these verbs and objects in all possible ways, the statute authorizes 99 actions a President can take.  When "regulate . . . importation" is compared with the 98 other actions, they all look like various ways to constrain or alter various foreign transactions.  But none of these 99 actions clearly require that the President exercise the congression power to tax by imposing tariffs.

Now Kavanaugh argues that the word "regulate" broadly defined could include "imposing tariffs."  But that is not clearly indicated in the IEEPA.  And the Constitution distinguishes the Congress's "Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises" (in the first clause of Article I, section 8) from the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations" (in the third clause of section 8).  So the Constitution does not use the word "regulate" as including taxing and imposing tariffs.

If we apply the major questions doctrine to this case, then we would have to say that the IEEPA does not delegate the congressional power over tariffs to the President because this statute does not state that in clear unambiguous language.

Gorsuch points out that the three dissenting judges in this case are taking a position that contradicts the position they took a few years ago in ruling against the unconstitutional and illegal powers claimed by Biden's Administrative State.  During Biden's term of office, these three conservative judges joined in some major questions decisions that struck down claims to extraordinary powers made by the Biden Administration.  

For example, in National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA (2022), the Biden Administration argued that the statute charging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with promoting "safe and healthful working conditions" authorized that agency to impose a vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans.  The six conservative judges constituted the majority ruling against the Biden Administration because the statutory language was too vague to clearly delegate to the Executive Branch such an extraordinary power.

Similarly, in Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs. (2021), the Biden Administration argued that the statute permitting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue regulations "necessary to prevent the . . . transmission . . . of communicable diseases" granted to that agency the power to declare a moratorium on landlords evicting tenants.  Once again, the six conservative judges ruled that this language was not clear enough to justify giving such a power to the Executive branch.

In many other similar cases during Biden's term, the outcome was the same.  The Biden Administration would invoke vague statutory language as justifying broad powers for the Biden Administrative State, and the six conservative judges would rule against them on the grounds that the statutory language was not clear enough.

But now in Learning Resources, three of those six conservative judges wanted the Court to rule in support of Trump doing exactly what Biden had done--using vague statutory language to justify expanding the powers of the Presidential Administrative State.  So they are in contradiction with themselves.

Strikingly, the three liberal judges are also in contradiction with themselves but moving in the opposite direction.  They voted in favor of the Biden Administration using vague language to justify broad executive power, but now they are voting against the Trump Administration for doing the same thing.

What's going on here?  Gorsuch suggests--although he says it quietly--that the three liberal judges who voted with the majority in Learning Resources and the three conservative judges who dissented in Learning Resources are voting for their partisan preferences--the liberal Democrats voting in support of a Democrat President, and the conservative Republicans voting in support of a Republican President.  By contrast, the three conservative judges who voted with the majority against Trump in Learning Resources are free from political bias in consistently adhering to their principles of originalist jurisprudence--originalist principles that require them to overrule the unconstitutional and illegal actions of a Presidential Administrative State, regardless of whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican.

LIBERAL AND ILLIBERAL AMERICA IN THE MAGA MOVEMENT

So what happens now after the Learning Resources decision?  There are at least two ways that Trump could counter the Court's decision.  He could refuse to obey the decision.  He could say: "I can do anything I want, and it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court says.  So I will continue to exercise my absolute power to impose tariffs whenever and however I want."  

Or he could order the Congress to overturn the Court's decision by passing a law that entirely gives up the congressional power of taxing and imposing tariffs to the President.  He has taken neither of these courses of action.  Instead, he has said that he will use laws other than the IEEPA that might give him some power over tariffs.

Notice what this means.  Trump accepts the principle of separation of powers through which Congress and the courts can check his powers as President.  This is very far from his boast: "As president, I can do anything I want."

Apparently, he doesn't believe that a Republican-controlled Congress would obey his order to legalize his dictatorial powers.  (House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that it's unlikely that Congress would ever pass legislation to codify Trump's tariffs.)  And he doesn't believe that his MAGA supporters would allow him to rule as a dictator.  

This confirms what I have argued previously--that in Trump's leadership of the MAGA movement we see the tension between an illiberal America and a liberal America, but ultimately liberal America will prevail.  So in this case, we see that the Lockean liberal principle of separation of powers prevails over the propensity to accept the dictatorship of unbridled power.

I speak of separation of powers as Lockean because Locke insists that governmental administrators exercise only "subordinate powers" and must therefore be "accountable to some other power in the commonwealth" (ST, 152).  Because governmental actions must be guided by law, and because the legislative body cannot delegate its lawmaking power to anyone else, administrators should serve simply as instruments for carrying out the laws enacted by the legislative body. Locke writes: "the Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands.  For it being but a delegated Power from the People, they, who have it, cannot pass it over to others" (ST, 141).

Locke's principle of separation of powers is based on an anthropological principle--that human beings with political ambition naturally strive for tyrannical dominance over others, and therefore the only check on such striving for dominance is a system of countervailing powers, where ambition checks ambition.

Gorsuch points to this Lockean anthropological principle in his opinion in Learning Resources:

. . . highly resourceful members of the executive branch have strong incentives to exploit any doubt in Congress's past work to assume new power for themselves.  The major questions doctrine helps prevent that kind of exploitation.  Our founders understood that men are not angels, and we disregard that insight ate our peril when we allow the few (or the one) to aggrandize their power based on loose or uncertain authority.  We delude ourselves, too, if we think that power will accumulate safely and only in the hands of dispassionate "people . . . found in agencies." . . . Even if unelected agency officials were uniquely immune to the desire for more power (an unserious assumption), they report to elected Presidents who can claim no such modesty (Gorsuch, 16). 

Ten Rules of Nonviolent Resistance for ICE OUT! The Natural Right to Refuse Consent to Unjust Government

 

Five-Year-Old Liam Conejo Ramos Being Detained by ICE Agents in Minneapolis, Later Locked Up in a Detention Facility in Texas.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, an asylum seeker from Ecuador, were taken from Minnesota to Texas and held at a detention facility outside San Antonio.  Lawyers working on their behalf filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, an ancient principle from Magna Carta (Article 39) that forbids the government from holding anyone in custody without providing a legally tenable reason for doing so.

On Saturday, Fred Biery, a federal judge in Texas' Western District, granted their petition, freeing them to be returned to Minneapolis.  Here is an excerpt from his written decision:

The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.  This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported but do so by proper legal procedures.

Apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence.  Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation.  Among others were:

1. "He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People."

2. "He has excited domestic Insurrection among us."

3. "For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us."

4. "He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislatures."

"We the people" are hearing echoes of that history.

And then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment:  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and persons or things to be seized."  U.S. CONST. amend. IV.

Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster.

That is caused the fox guarding the henhouse.  The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.

Accordingly, the Court finds that the Constitution of these United States trumps this administration's detention of petitioner Adrian Conejo Arias and his minor son, L.C.R.  The Great Writ and release from detention are GRANTED pursuant to the attached Judgment.

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency.  And the rule of law be damned.

Below his signature, Judge Biery attached the widely seen photograph of Liam, with an anonymous photo credit--"Credit: Bystander."  He also cited two Biblical verses: Matthew 19:14 ("But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: For of such is the kingdom of heaven") and John 11:35 ("Jesus wept"). 

As A. O. Scott of The New York Times has noted, Judge Biery's opinion is a remarkably eloquent and subtle piece of writing that refutes Trump's "unitary executive theory" of presidential power.  Without ever mentioning Trump by name (except the card-table verb "trump"), the Judge intimates that Trump is acting like the "would-be authoritarian king" George III condemned by the Declaration of Independence.  He also suggests that Trump and his agents are motivated by "the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest."

Notice also that the "lust for unbridled power" is checked by legal principles (the rule of law and separation of powers) that enforce moral and scriptural principles (such as "human decency" and protecting young children).

Judge Biery's decision shows us how the separation of powers allows a judicial officer of government to resist an unjust government.  But when Judge Biery gives credit for the photograph of Liam to "Bystander," he recognizes another kind of resistance to unjust government--the nonviolent resistance of those many ordinary people who have been observing, recording, and publicizing ICE misconduct.

This American nonviolent resistance to ICE is similar to the nonviolent resistance to the Gestapo in World War II Europe.  At the Waging Nonviolence website, Rivera Sun has pointed out the parallels.  In 1940, when the Nazis invaded and occupied Denmark, a 17-year-old Arne Sejr printed a flier called "10 Commandments for Danes" that became a program for the Danish resistance movement.  Here are the "10 Commandments for Danes":

1.  You must not go to work in Germany and Norway.

2.  You shall do a bad job for the Germans.

3.  You shall work slowly for the Germans.

4.  You shall destroy important machines and tools.

5.  You shall destroy everything which may be of benefit to the Germans.

6.  You shall delay all transport.

7.  You shall boycott German and Italian films and papers.

8.  You must not shop at Nazis' stores.

9.  You shall treat traitors for what they are worth.

10.  You shall protect anyone chased by the Germans.

As I have indicated in my previous posts on nonviolent resistance, the fundamental insight here is that tyrannical rulers depend on the cooperation or at least passive acquiescence of the people they rule.  When the people exercise their natural right to refuse to consent to unjust government by actively resisting that government, the ruling elites are denied the resources and cooperation required for ruling.  

There is empirical evidence that this works.  Erica Chenoweth and her colleagues have gathered data from hundreds of resistance movements over the past 100 years, and they have shown that if at least 3.5 percent of the people become active in a mass nonviolent resistance movement, it is highly likely to succeed.  

Following the example of the "Ten Commandments for Danes" and the experience of the American nonviolent resistance movement of the past year, Rivera Sun has proposed "10 Rules of Resistance for #ICEOUT":

1.  No silence.

2.  No selling. 

3.  No service.

4.  No hotel rooms.

5.  No entry.

6.  No informing.

7.  No looking away.

8.  No collaboration.

9.  No transporting.

10.  No detention centers.

In her essay, she provides details and examples for each of these rules.

A few days ago, Trump border czar Tom Homan announced that the "surge" of thousands of ICE agents into Minneapolis will be drawn down.  If that happens, that will show the first big victory for the resistance movement against ICE.