Cross Word

The Administrative State: A Threat to American Liberty and How to Restore Constitutional Intent

• Michele McAloon • Season 3 • Episode 89

Share episode

Send us a text

Could America's administrative state be the greatest threat to liberty today? Ned Ryan, author of "American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism," joins us to tackle this monumental question. We trace the origins and growth of the administrative state from Woodrow Wilson's era to today's sprawling bureaucracy, which has evolved into a behemoth with over 440 departments. Ryan offers a thought-provoking critique of this centralized power, challenging its compatibility with the foundational principles of the United States and highlighting the risks it poses to American freedom and national security.

Engage with a detailed examination of the historical clash between progressivism and conservatism, as we explore how early progressives, influenced by thinkers like Georg Hegel, envisioned the state as a tool for societal perfection. This vision starkly contrasts with the founders' intent to diffuse power and safeguard individual rights. Our discussion extends to contemporary politics, pondering the potential consequences of a second Trump presidency on the administrative state and the complexities involved in dismantling entrenched bureaucratic structures.

Explore the necessity of executive reform and state and local governance's pivotal role in American life. We contemplate the modern political landscape, where the concentration of power and the influence of money sustain the status quo. With Trump's unique position challenging the status quo, questions arise about how to restore the original intent of the Constitution. We conclude with strategic reflections on personnel and political operations from Trump's first term, offering key lessons for future governance and emphasizing the critical importance of informed leadership in navigating political warfare.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Crossword, where cultural clues lead to the truth of the word. And, if you notice, over the last couple of podcast episodes we've been kind of looking at some of the bigger issues in American society today, as we do the run up for the November elections. Today we are going to tackle the administrative state. I think it's very worthwhile looking at this because it really is an issue as we go into the election. A progressive worldview, a constitutional worldview, and these are some of the things that we must consider before we vote. Today we're going to have a man named Ned Ryan.

Speaker 1:

He's the founder and CEO of American Majority and Voter Gravity. He's a son of a former congressman. He's written several books and he's a frequent commentator on Fox News, currently residing in Western Loudoun County, Virginia, with his wife and four children, and he makes some great points in this book that he has written, American Leviathan by Encounter Books. It's a quick read, it's a fast read, it's worth considering, even though you may not agree with what he has written. But these are the issues that are now in front of us as we head to the polls. I hope you enjoy listening and please like and subscribe and remember I have a webpage. It's Michelle McAloon. That's one L, no L in my name, squarespacecom, and thank you for listening. We are so fortunate today to have Ned Ryan, author of a wonderful book American Leviathan the Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism. I cannot think of a topic more hot and more central to this election cycle right now. Welcome, Ned.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, good to be with you, Michelle. I totally agree, One of the reasons I wanted this book to come out now. The publishing house said we'll be publishing in January of 2025 with a hardback. I said I'd prefer you do a paperback in September, because I think this is one of the key issues for the 2024 elections. I'd like people to be aware of it. I'd like them to have a greater understanding of what is at stake in this election, and it is very much about two very different governing philosophies Constitutional Republic versus an administrative state. So here we are, and hopefully more of the American people are going to be made aware of what's actually going on in DC and how DC has operated for decades. Quite frankly, it is.

Speaker 1:

Let's start at some very basic things. What is the administrative state? When you say the administrative state or progressive authoritarianism? But let's start with the administrative state. What is that?

Speaker 2:

So the administrative state is this massive bureaucracy put in place and started in the early 1900s, really with the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912 to the White House, which was really one of the central premises for those elections in which most of the candidates running in 1912 agreed with the basic premise there should be a massive bureaucracy filled with an educated elite that would lead us to greater progress and essentially lead us to a higher plane of perfection, which we can talk about more in detail later. So the administrative state was begun as this massive bureaucracy that the progressives wanted to have separated out, the only separation that progressives have ever believed in in regards to any political power separate out the administrative state from political accountability. They consider politics a corrupting force inside of what they wanted to have as a deeply enlightened, rational state, and it was a bureaucracy in which they felt the state would be salvation, literally salvation to society, to mankind. Salvation should invade every aspect of your life. I mean, they wouldn't phrase it that way, but that's what they wanted Healthcare, education, every aspect of life. So for that to happen, you have to have a massive bureaucracy that deals with every aspect of life. And now we find ourselves obviously in 2024, in which government seems extremely invasive and wants to be in every aspect of our lives. But that was the point from the very beginning. And if the state is salvation, why would you ever want to limit salvation? That's why in the DNA of the administrative state is perpetual growth.

Speaker 2:

And so the administrative state in my mind today is the surveillance state. Obviously, people call it the deep state, I call it the surveillance state. Very powerful entities inside of our government, whether it's the NSA, cia, all of those things you have. The regulatory state. And the regulatory state, I believe, is a threat to our economic freedom and it's also, I think, a threat to our national security. Because of a heavy regulatory state, it is offshored. I think manufacturing. That is very key to our national security. That's a whole other topic, but that's part of the administrative state. And then there's the retired in place state, the DMV state. I live in Northern Virginia. There are a lot 800,000 federal government employees that are considered non-essential. They are in many ways retired in place, and so you look at this massive behemoth of the administrative state. There's the different aspects, obviously, of the surveillance state, the regulatory state, the retired in place state, and I don't think any of it's actually serving the people, the American people, at all. Quite frankly, I think in many ways the American people are an afterthought in this form of governing. And the point I make, michelle, but I'll just put a finer point on it.

Speaker 2:

When you set up something that is going to be consolidated power because they hated separation of powers progressives did. They did not like separation of powers, they thought it would hinder progress. When you consolidate power and make it unaccountable, you eventually get to a point where it feels very authoritarian. You will do this. You will submit you dirty little peasants because we're bringing salvation to your lives. And if you don't like that, well, tough luck. You're going to do this because we say so. And that's where I think we're kind of at with some of these government entities trying to dictate to the American people, in which that's not how a republic is supposed to work. All power flows from the people to their duly elected representatives, who make the stewards of the power and money given to them to create a government of by and for the people, in which, in all things, the American people are first and last. Trade, immigration, you name it. That's not how DC operates. It hasn't operated that way in a long time.

Speaker 1:

Immigration you name it. That's not how DC operates. It hasn't operated that way in a long time. Okay, so this is antithetical to the founding fathers. A hundred percent Federalist papers. James Madison, number 47. Articulate to me what was the goal of our American Republic, because this is so important to this conversation, to understand how far the administrative state has gone.

Speaker 2:

Well, our founders. I call them optimistic realists. In the book they were very realistic about human nature. They knew that we are all imperfect human beings in an imperfect world, not to you know again, capable of great good, incapable of sustained good, who often do what we can, not what we should right. That kind of human nature should not be trusted with consolidated power because, again, we'll do what we can, not what we should, and we'll abuse it.

Speaker 2:

So, as they're sitting in Philadelphia 1787, and again, the framework for the Constitution is obviously the Declaration of Independence and the theme of a rights-based government right that we have inalienable rights given to us by our creator, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. That's the preamble of the declaration. So how do you create a rights-based government that protects those natural inherent rights and takes none of them away? Well, you create a republic in which power flows from the people to their elected representatives. Create a republic in which power flows from the people to their elected representatives, you diffuse power. Michelle, this is the one thing that is the greatest protector of our natural inherent rights. It's not an enumerated bill of rights, it's a lovely bill of rights. There are a lot of authoritarian governments that also have a lovely bill of rights. It is the consolidation of power that is the greatest threat to natural rights and our founders knew that. And they knew that you had to diffuse power. So again they had the Article I, article II, article III branches, the legislative, executive, judicial and the concept of federalism in which power would be diffused to the state. So you have diffused power. That's looking to protect natural inherent rights at the same time promote the greatest amount of freedom and liberty possible with imperfect human beings.

Speaker 2:

Progressives hated separation of powers. They thought it was a bug, not a feature. Woodrow Wilson wrote about this that one of the great mistakes in 1787 was somehow these founders put together the separation of powers. It hinders progress. Why would you do that? Because they didn't trust themselves. I mean, they're sitting there in Philadelphia 1787. They know they're going to be the presidents, vice presidents, representatives, senators, judges and this newly formed constitutional republic. It was in their best interest to actually create a form of government with consolidated power, to put it in their hands so they could get the government that they wanted. That served their best interest. They did the exact opposite. They actually did not trust themselves. So they put in place separation of powers, diffusion of power. That would make it harder for a oligarchy to grab that power and actually dictate to the rest of people how it should work. Founders of the progressive movement rejected that wholesale. They did not want separation of powers because, again, it hinders progress. Nor did they believe in natural, inherent rights.

Speaker 2:

In fact, john Burgess I mentioned him. I wish I'd written about him more, but John Burgess was a law professor at Columbia in the late 1800s. His students included Theodore Roosevelt and other leading progressives. Burgess is considered the father of political science in America.

Speaker 2:

He was vehemently opposed to a rights-based government, ie our constitutional republic, and was a deep believer in the Prussian propagandists I refuse to call him a philosopher in any way Georg Hegel, who believed that the state was the march of God on earth. Therefore the state decides what objective truth is, what science is. All things are subsumed by the state individuals, corporations, rights and given back to the individuals or corporations as the state deems beneficial to the state. So progressives said no, we're not going to do this republic anymore. It'll hinder progress. And oh, by the way, we believe it is salvation that will lead to literally, michelle, the perfection of mankind in the here and now. They thought they could elevate human nature to a higher plane. They were utopian status. That is deeply naive and really in defiance of empirical evidence, for I would argue millennia that you never trust human nature with consolidated power. You tend to end up with authoritarianism.

Speaker 1:

This is actually a rejection of original sin of understanding that we are fallen in nature and that we will not find it here on this earth, perfection on this earth.

Speaker 2:

So this is this is again another point that people and I was going to make earlier, and thank you for bringing this up the Declaration of Independence, our declaration, our US Constitution. A lot of people don't think about this, but it codified what people believed at the time, their worldview, their values, their shared principles. All it did was codify those. So if you have what would be traditionally called a more Judeo-Christian worldview codified into documents, out of those documents flow a certain form of government. If you have people that reject that worldview, they're going to be opposed to that government. That flows out of those documents and out of those documents into a form of government.

Speaker 2:

Progressives did not believe in any of that. They did not believe in original sin. They thought they were perfectible. They thought the apotheosis of mankind was a philosophy of Georg Hegel that the progressives bought into, and that's why they believe in the power of the state. The state is salvation. The state is the march of God on earth, because through it they would bring salvation to mankind in the here and now. It's insane Sometimes when you're reading the progressives, you think you're reading the rantings of deluded madmen, because they are in defiance of human nature. They're in defiance of history.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. It's called joy right.

Speaker 2:

Joy what's free? No, it's insane Again. Everything that you were seeing play out over the last decade for the most part deals with this conflict between Trump and DC is who decides and governing philosophies. A lot of it has nothing to do with anything about anything else except for that, and so I think things are going to heat up dramatically between now and November 5th.

Speaker 2:

And if and when Trump wins and he declares, most of this administrative state that we've been discussing resides inside of the Article II executive branch. The head of that branch is the duly elected president of the United States. And if and when Donald Trump wins and comes back into the White House and declares I am not going to allow this administrative state to continue, wow, I think everything else has been a warm-up act. I think you will see a cold political war in DC like you've never seen before, because people are going to be fighting for something that they have believed in and committed to for decades, and for him to come in and say we're going to actually restore the republic, I think will lead to things we can't quite imagine right now, but it will be intense in those first six months or a year of Trump saying I'm going to do this.

Speaker 1:

And, ned, you bring it in at the end of your book, but I think it's a good time to bring into the discussion now. Is the size of this administrative state. To me it was the first time I've seen it. I've lived in my whole Army life so I've probably been a part of this, but I didn't realize how big it was. And can you run some of those numbers for us please?

Speaker 2:

One of the things, michelle, is there's no real firm agreement on how big the federal government is. It's somewhere over 440 departments, agencies and sub-agencies. Again, people quibble on what is the exact size of it. It's bigger than the lower figure, but it's not as big as some people say it is. But it's over 440 of these departments, agencies and sub-agencies Millions of federal employees.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the things that the government has done that, I think, is deeply unfair to the American people to somehow make it look like there's not as many federal government employees. There's a lot of contractors who are essentially beholden to and that's where they make their living on the federal government. So it is hard to pin it down and this is one of my frustrations with a lot of our elected representatives who are passing these four or 5,000 page bills. They're not asking the hard questions. Again, power of the purse resides in the article one, especially in the US House. Power of the purse. If you think that this might be the wrong form of government and you have no idea how big this government is and our national national debt continues to grow to $36 trillion, whatever it is, maybe you should have a conversation about size of government, role of government, what is the proper role and size for the American people? And maybe you shouldn't just blindly fund it. But I think a lot of our elected representatives find this form of government very appealing for two reasons. One, they have sub-delegated their legislative authority to a lot of these unelected bureaucrats in the Article II branch Again not constitutional, but it has allowed them to frame out four and 5,000 page bills to let these unelected bureaucrats do the real governing with their statutes and regulations. But even more so, it's allowed them to duck hard decisions. They can say well, you know, it's that person at the EPA or the FDA or whatever department or agency that really did that thing. That's affecting your life when they go back to their districts and have a conversation with their voters. I'm going to, I'm going to really address this when I get back, when in fact they're the ones that empowered those unelected bureaucrats to actually do that. So it allowed them to. It allows them to duck really hard decisions because they're not really governing and kind of do this kabuki theater with their voters. Like you know, send me back again to DC, because for a lot of these people Michelle, my dad was in the house for 10 years. This is the pinnacle of their career and they have learned the art of self preservation and they really like being in DC and they like being a congressman or a senator. They don't want to have to make hard decisions that might endanger them coming back to DC in two years or six years. So the size of government out of control. But that's another reason too, michelle, I write about this.

Speaker 2:

I mentioned some of the progressive amendments. The 16th Amendment, the IRS, the income tax. Before that, the government was funded in many ways by tariffs. You can't fund a massive bureaucracy with tariffs. You have to figure out a greater monetary flow of funding for it. So you have to start an income tax in which you're getting a greater revenue base to actually fund the administrative state and bring about economic and what they call social justice.

Speaker 2:

It's not a new term. It's always been around for progressives to level out the playing field. So that's how Robert LaFollette, one of the four horsemen of the progressive apocalypse, viewed the IRS, viewed the income tax. So that's why you find yourself today with the IRS going. This is just not enough money. We need 87,000 new IRS agents and we're going to hoover up those $600 PayPal transactions to get even more of a tax base to fund the state which, again in their minds, has always been part of the DNA. It's salvation for everyone. Growth is perpetual, michelle. So when people go that this is not limited government, well, of course that's the point. They never thought that that government should be limited in the first place. Salvation should come to every aspect of our lives. Now you find yourselves massive Leviathan, massive size of government we can't even agree on the size of it and out of control spending.

Speaker 1:

That was the point the whole time with progressives, just a form of tyranny, and this is what James Madison and Alexander Hamilton talked about in, I believe, his Federalist Paper no 47 or 48, where you have the executive and the legislative. They're one, they're not distinct, they're not no-transcript.

Speaker 2:

I talk about Chevron deference. I know that you wanted to discuss this a little bit. This a little bit. Chevron deference was something that's been in place for 40 years 1984 until this summer in which judges were to defer to the unelected bureaucrats, for the most part statutes and regulations and in many ways it kind of been left behind, but it was still the principle of it. It had to be overturned because it undermines the idea of an independent judiciary right. If an independent judiciary is deferring to these unelected bureaucrats who have been unconstitutionally sub-delegated legislative authority throws into question, right this, three separate branches. Again the point of the progressives, not the point of the constitution. The Supreme Court said this summer we're not doing that anymore. We're overturning Chevron deference. Judges no longer have to defer to these statutes and regulations. But the other one that I wish I'd written about Michelle, I did not, but I'm going to mention it here the other Supreme Court decision was about the SEC tribunals, the Security and Exchange Commission tribunals, in which the administrative law tribunals, in which a lot of departments and agencies more of them than you know actually have these administrative law tribunals. They act as judge, jury and executioner 90% of the time they rule in favor of that department or agency against whoever they're bringing their case against. And the Supreme Court said nope. For two reasons.

Speaker 2:

One our founders truly believed in an independent judiciary for a whole host of reasons. One again the separation of powers. But the British courts at the time of a pre-revolution and during the revolution were really rubber stamping King George III's edicts, parliaments and the king's ministers. The founders said we don't want a court system that just rubber stamps the executive branch or the legislative branch, we want them to act as a check on their power. And the other thing that they said is it annihilates the Seventh Amendment, right to trial by jury, which again goes back to Bill of Rights. It's a lovely list of rights that are enumerated actually means nothing to progressives. It's more a series of nice suggestions that might or might not be followed. It all comes back to if we diffuse power, that's the greatest protector of our national inherent rights.

Speaker 1:

OK, let's go. Things I want to ask you about Undelegated power, delegated power, which is not was, yet which is not constitutional. Explain to us why that's not constitutional, because that's a really good point right there. What the administrative agencies are working under right now is delegated power and that is not constitutional.

Speaker 2:

It's not constitutional we never had a conversation about this in any way with the American people that somehow the Article I legislative branch legislative legislating, governing branch would subdelegate to the unelected bureaucrats inside of the Article II branch again where the administrative state resides, the power to do the actual legislating. And I mean that because, again, going back to what I said four or 5,000 page bills being passed by Congress, sent to these various departments and agencies where they put the fine point to it with their statutes and regulations how this will look in the real world. And it really has been a sub-delegation of legislative power to these unelected bureaucrats where Congress goes. Hey, we kind of framed it out for you. Whatever it looks like in the real world, that's what you're going to be doing. That was never intended by our founders. First of all, article I to Article II Article II is not supposed to be legislating. And again, the whole idea of the unelected bureaucrats there is no accountability. What the progressives viewed as a corrupting force, the idea of political accountability, they completely annihilated that by putting these unelected bureaucrats inside of an unelected bureaucracy. There's no accountability. And so this again is one of the, I think, the huge issues today in American politics of how do you bring some of these things back inside the Article I branch.

Speaker 2:

I mentioned this briefly, michelle, in the book. Again, it's one of those things I wish I'd fleshed out a little bit more. People have said well, we're in a very complex age, the 21st century. There's a lot of things which I totally agree with. You need technical experts. I'll give them that. They should not be inside the Article II branch. They should be inside the Article I branch as part of the permanent congressional committees that are accountable to the duly elected representatives of the American people. So do we need to deal with complex issues? 100%, I'm not going to argue that. Do we need them in the Article 2 or Article 1? They have to be inside the Article 1 because that's where legislation begins and those are the legislators who are doing the real governing and there needs to be political accountability.

Speaker 1:

Here's what concerns me as a taxpayer to the state of Alabama. Right, my reality. If I am living in my hometown, I have a city council, I have a state government, I have a county government and those governments have much more to do with my life than a federal government and a federal government that lives in DMV, as you said they're. How did you say that, the DMV?

Speaker 2:

the retired in place state.

Speaker 1:

Right, the retired in place state have nothing to do with my reality in Mobile Alabama. I need the federal funding when a hurricane comes blasting through. There are some I mean there's definitely some issues where the federal government does come in play, but these agencies override the state powers, Do they?

Speaker 2:

not? Yes, they do. I would be nice if we brought back the idea of federalism again, again something that progressives hated. They hated the idea of federalism because, again, it's that diffusion of power, and you can't have this diffusion of power if you're going to have progress. And the other thing they hate I want to bring this up because Madison made a very interesting point in regards to natural rights, but also the Tocqueville government needs to be closer to the people, all of these things. But I want to get to a couple of points before I forget them. One, madison the idea of rights. We have a right to private property and there is property in rights. Okay, so we have a right to all the physical things, right, houses, homes, all these land. But the founders truly believed that all of our national inherent rights were in fact, property, private property, right to conscience, right to speech, right to have free flow of information. The progressives didn't believe that at all. In fact, they believed the technical experts. Again, states assuming everything should give back to people if they deemed it beneficial. They did not like this idea of well, what are we 340 million Americans now? The idea of individuals making claims on their rights to government would be the proverbial monkey wrench in the machinery of the efficient, rational state to achieve progress. Hated that.

Speaker 2:

Coming back to local government, the more local the government, obviously. I think this is why I've done American majority that's what I do when I'm not commentating or writing books is American majority huge believer in state and local politics? Because I think state and local politics impact our daily lives far more than the federal government and is supposed to be, in theory, more accountable to the people because it's closer to the people. The closer power is to the people, the more accountable it can be. Progressives did not want that. They wanted power removed from the people and there's a whole host of problems that come with that because, again, it's a very distant power base. It's not accountable. They've insulated themselves from political accountability. But I totally agree with you. I mean that's one of the things I've been doing almost for 20 years now state and local politics, trying to get more conservatives to understand. You bring about national generational change by influencing state and local politics, which, by the way, influences your daily life far more than federal government, and that's how it should be.

Speaker 1:

Everything that moves in the United States in politics has to do with money. Now, yeah, this is probably a naive question, but where's the money that is moving this progressive state? Because it's actually it must be, like you said, the size of the government, but the people that are actually pushing it forward, you see, you know, on the campaign trail, and the people that are buying into it In the bottom line in American life, it's got to be about money and how they're making money from this.

Speaker 2:

Well, there are a lot of people that are deeply invested in the status quo continuing, and by that I mean the administrative state. It's very helpful for big corporations, it's obviously helpful for big tech. So I tell people there's no like grand conspiracy theory, by the way. It's not like they all get into a back room and go, hey, we should all be on the same page, working in the same direction, and what's our strategy for today? No, they just come from the same worldview in which they've come through the same indoctrination centers of higher learning and bought into the same worldview of that's how things should work. And anybody that disagrees with it we should, you know, hive swarm against it, like Donald Trump. So no, so the people that are invested in this status quo remaining big government, big tech, obviously all the Democratic Party, I would argue, a lot of establishment Republicans, a lot of the corporate propagandists so anybody that has a vested interest in the status quo remaining is who's behind this and continues. And that's why I tell people all the time it's incredibly credible to me that Donald Trump, he's a billionaire.

Speaker 2:

He could be having a lovely life playing golf every day somewhere in very warm climates, and not only did he not run away from this, he ran at it and he's not walking towards it, he's running at it. Kind of reminds me of David and Goliath in many ways. I mean, if you go back to the story in the Bible, little shepherd boy up against massive force, the giant he didn't walk at him, he ran at him. But even the other thing too, michelle, I just have to mention this have you ever asked yourself why David picked up five stones? No, I haven't. Do you think he was going to miss? No, he was very good. The reason he did. There's scriptural evidence that there were four brothers of Goliath, five giants, five stones. He was going to kill them all and he ran at Goliath.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting. Well, you know what? So here's what I wonder In our age of, really we really are post-Christian, post-Judeo-Christian values now.

Speaker 2:

Lost a lot of values that are codified in our founding documents.

Speaker 1:

Right. Can we turn back the clock? Can we survive this? Can we go back to the original intent of the Constitution? Why would people do that at this point, if we are post-Christian?

Speaker 2:

So there's a couple of things that I would say. I'm more interested in stopping the hemorrhaging, and that's what the next four years are about. If Donald Trump wins One. A powerful executive, head of the executive branch got to break the state. The foundation of the swamp is the state. I'm going to drain the swamp. Well, the foundation of that swamp is a state. If you break the state, a lot of good things flow from that, including draining the swamp and restructuring the proper balance of a republic.

Speaker 2:

And again, in the cold political war I mentioned that if Trump wins, he goes down this path. People go oh, this is about revenge. No, it's not. It's about restoration. And for there to be restoration there's going to be hard decisions that are made, also the Supreme Court stepping up, which they have been this summer. Obviously, those two decisions that we talked about earlier Supreme Court those are real cracks in the foundation of the administrative state and people, especially with Chevron deference, know that the SEC thing is also a massive crack.

Speaker 2:

I guess the other thing too, and I mentioned this at the end of the book. I quote Phil Hamburger the administrative state in the eyes of the American people has never really been as legitimate as the Constitution. But the problem is most of the American people don't really fully understand what's going on right now with the administrative state, with DC. So it's really those three things powerful executive going after the administrative state from his perch at the top of the executive branch, supreme Court stepping up, but the majority of the American people saying we actually would prefer a government that serves us, that benefits us. That's how a republic's supposed to work.

Speaker 2:

So that to me is the next four years. But then a much larger picture is what do we actually believe as a people? What are our common set of ideals and values and principles that we can all say? We can disagree on some things, but there's like basic core principles that we have to agree on Life is sacred, men are men, women are women. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a much longer fight. I'm interested in stopping the hemorrhaging in the next four years and saying, hey, let's stop this, let's start to break this administrative state apart and let's see if we can't get back to a common set of values and principles. That's going to take a generation or two being completely on, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And education. I think education is turning around now as parents take more responsibility for education of their children. One of the things I worry about with, to be honest with you, with Trump does he have the power or the magnetism to put the correct people around him to be able to envision and to be able to do this? And he has four years. In that short four years, is he going to? I mean, he kind of had a rough go that first four years, is this next four years? Is he going to be able to do this?

Speaker 2:

PPO has to be done correctly. This was not something. Donald Trump was such a great outsider he came in again thinking we're still a republic, we're not. And that was his plan right the temerity to think that he decides and that the American people should be benefiting and prioritizing this government. He did not get PPO right and for those listening, one of the most important positions in any administration is the Office of Presidential Personnel. Every administration gets a plum it's called the plum book upwards of 5,000 political appointees into these various departments and agencies, of which I'd say there's about 400 or 500 important decision makers. You got to nail PPO day one. He did not.

Speaker 2:

The first three years were a bit of a disaster with Johnny DiStefano running that. Johnny McEntee, who replaced DiStefano as head of PPO, knew I mean some of my reform items in the end of the book come from Johnny McEntee and James Bacon, one of his deputies. They got it right. They knew exactly what they were doing, just didn't have time to actually implement some of that. So day one Trump has to have the right person running PPO to get these people into various departments and agencies to actually implement his vision, not only for an America First agenda but also devolving the state and be ready for the political warfare that will take place every day inside these departments and agencies. So if he gets PPO right, if he gets most because you're never going to get 100%, most of those four or 500 important decision makers right, he's got a legitimate shot.

Speaker 1:

I hope so and I hope, you know what, and I hope, with the experience this time, that he does have that kind of that insight in wisdom.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm telling you, I've had these conversations with him. He's like this is worse than I thought it was, Ned, far worse than I thought it was. I think he has figured out a lot over the last well, that first four years, and then obviously these four years since he's been out of office. It has been illuminating for him.

Speaker 1:

That's great. That's great, Ned. I can't tell you how much I appreciate taking time out of your very busy schedule to talk with us today on this really important subject, and just keep fighting the fight man, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

You can go to amazoncom Barnes, noble Books, a Million, pretty much wherever books are. You can find a copy of the Miracle Leviathan. I'd encourage you. Quick read should be a pretty illuminating read to provide clarity of how it's actually working in this country today.

Speaker 1:

Okay, thank you very much, Ned.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely you.