I received my December 5 Economist in the mail today. On its cover: “Donald Trump: a danger to elephants.” Really? Donald Trump epitomizes the Republican Party. Trump is the GOP’s most illustrious creation.
To be sure, were Dwight Eisenhower or even Richard Nixon to encounter Donald Trump — or any of his Republican rivals — they would no doubt believe that they had stumbled upon a Nazi meeting. But we are not talking about the Republican Party of the 1950s or 1960s, which, say what you will about their hawkishness or their racism, knew enough to stay clear of the anti-Federalism of the Dixicrats and so for the most part still embraced something approaching republican institutions.
No more. When Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush filled their cabinets with certified Straussians and when George W. followed suit, they clearly declared their break with and fundamental opposition to democratic procedures and republican institutions. Leo Strauss many will recall was the most celebrated student of Carl Schmitt, also known as the architect of National Socialist jurisprudence. Strauss, however, was unfortunate to have been born a Jew and was therefore compelled to flee from Hitler’s Germany and hence from Carl Schmitt. Neverthelss, Strauss continued to defend many of Schmitt’s best known principles, such as the “Noble Lie,” the Friend-Enemy distinction, and the Führerprinzip (in English, the Executive Principle).
The Executive Principle holds that all appointees within the Executive Branch are bound to answer not to the US Constitution, or to the charter of their department, but to the Executive, the President. So, for example, when George W. took office, he prohibited funding any research at the National Institutes of Health looking at teen sex because the Executive held that sex among teens is morally wrong. No more research into how teens contract HIV and AIDS, or into how to prevent them from contracting the same. Similarly, when John Yoo authored his famous torture memos in support of the Executive Branch’s decision to torture prisoners, his obligation to do so was based upon the Führerprinzip or unitary executive principle. However, it also illustrated Schmitt’s Friend-Enemy distinction, which holds that politics consists of identifying and disarming or eliminating the enemy. Could Congress or the Judiciary have prevented the President from engaging in torture, they would therein have exhibited their capacity to identify and disarm or eliminate the political enemy. But since neither Congress nor the Judiciary were inclined to contest the Executive’s decision to commit torture, it was the Executive that, in effect, created new law by fiat. Yet, it is Leo Strauss’ defense of the Noble Lie that has become the most prominent feature of Republican politics.
Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss justify the Noble Lie with an argument originally found in Plato’s Republic, where, in Bk 3, 414e-415c, Plato constructs a lie for the purpose of distinguishing the wise from the foolish. Those who do not know that they are being lied to are clearly among the foolish. But foolish too are those who recognize the lie, but who then complain about being lied to. The wise, by contrast, understand that it is the people who are foolish and because the people are foolish they are incapable of understanding the truth. Therefore the wise understand why it is necessary to lie to the people. Wise politicians, according to Strauss, must lie to the people, even to their political supporters, because the wise politician knows that the people, including their supporters, are foolish.
When in 1980 Ronald Reagan packed his cabinet with self-identified Straussians, he deliberately shifted the center of gravity of the Republican Party away from democratic process and republican institutions toward post-democratic and explicitly anti-republican strategies and procedures. George H.W. and George W. followed his lead. Donald Trump may epitomize these post-democratic and anti-republican qualities better than any of his opponents, but there is not a Republican presidential candidate, and surely no Republican member of the House or Senate, who is not fully on board with these strategies and procedures. “A Danger to Elephants”? Hardly. Donald Trump is the essence of the Republican Party today.