By J.B. Shurk
“This town is now as nervous as it’s ever been.” That’s Congressman Chip Roy’s assessment of the mood in Washington, D.C., since President Trump’s return to the White House. It’s one of several dozen refreshingly blunt descriptions of American politics in Ned Ryun’s new documentary based on his book, American Leviathan. The documentary is available to anyone with an Internet connection, and it is nothing short of a declaration of war on the administrative state.
I highlighted Ryun’s book when it came out last September for several reasons. First, it is a remarkably clear description of the ideas, people, and events that led us to this unique moment in history — when the inevitable clash between the authoritarian bureaucracy and the constitutional Republic has come to a head. There was nothing “natural” about this process. The vast and unaccountable administrative state did not arise from the U.S. Constitution; it is a repudiation of the Constitution. The unelected bureaucracy does not reflect the wishes of the American people; it is the polar opposite of representative government. No matter how many propagandists defend Big Government as “our Democracy,” the ever-growing Leviathan is thoroughly authoritarian in disposition. It jealously guards its expanding powers and despises American citizens who insist that legitimate government comes only from the consent of the people. It is such an unnatural beast that it must spy on Americans, censor their speech, and intimidate them into submission merely to maintain control. The administrative state is “government by coercion” and the antithesis of limited government and individual liberty.
Second, Ryun is a rather unique political operative in that he “walks the walk” every bit as much as he “talks the talk.” He is an effective warrior when it comes to getting Republicans elected, but he is also a tireless critic of the Deep State. Those qualities are often mutually exclusive in high-stakes American politics where a person’s clout is usually directly proportional to his willingness to sell out personal principles. Washington’s political machine — the Frankensteinian monstrosity composed of equal parts malevolent bureaucracy, corporate blackmail, academic blacklisting, news media gatekeeping, Intelligence Community skulduggery, and rank influence peddling — tends to scoop up “true believers” and recondition them into compliant cogs of the permanent government’s hive-mind, collectivist “Borg.” Ryun is a rare political player who refuses to be “assimilated” or transformed into another D.C. “drone.”
Lastly, I wanted readers to mentally prepare for what would happen after President Trump won in November. There were fifty days between the publication of Ryun’s American Leviathan and Trump’s victory, and while those crucial days required all of our efforts to make sure that he would, in fact, be re-elected, I knew that we would have no time to waste once he succeeded. That’s where Ryun’s efforts really stand out. His book is meant (1) to wake up those who have been sleeping during the century-long transformation of the American Republic into a tyrannical bureaucracy, (2) to re-energize those who have been fighting the good fight for most of their lives, and (3) to lay out the blueprint for restoring the Republic and destroying the Deep State. I wanted readers to spend time before the election thinking about what would come next because winning was only “Step One” of a much larger operation.
Something that should be clear six months after American Leviathan came out in print is that President Trump and his closest advisors have long been preparing for this war against the administrative state. They weren’t just running a political campaign the last few years; they’ve been planning their return to Washington, D.C., in meticulous detail. From the moment the news media cartel was forced to announce Trump’s victory, those plans became active operations. Critical personnel choices were announced. Executive orders were finalized. Litigation strategies were put into motion. It is no coincidence that many of Ryun’s recommendations for “slaying Leviathan” are now official White House policy. The Trump administration embraces American Leviathan’s proposition that the only way to save the Republic is to disembowel the unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy.
While Ryun’s book is an excellent resource for American minds desperate to break free from a century of bureaucratic hypnosis and Deep State conditioning, his documentary provides a kind of real time snapshot of the Trump administration’s ongoing “Leviathan hunt” today. Among many interesting contributors to the film, Congressman Roy and Senators Jim Banks, Rick Scott, and Marsha Blackburn offer insightful perspectives regarding Trump’s impact on Establishment Washington, and Jeff Clark, Mike Davis, Steve Cortes, Bradley Watson, and Rachel Bovard provide excellent analysis of the many conflicts playing out publicly today. Every speaker is strikingly candid about where all this is heading — a showdown between two incompatible systems of government from which only one may survive.
Senator Banks says plainly that the Deep State’s animus toward President Trump originates with the “three most dangerous words” he uttered during the 2016 campaign: “Drain the Swamp.” As soon as then-candidate Trump identified the administrative state as not only an affront to the U.S. Constitution but also a threat to the American Republic, he became public enemy number one for the bureaucratic “blob.” The Russia collusion hoax, the Mueller Inquisition, the farcical impeachments, the endless lawfare, and the ridiculous investigatory witch-hunts all arose because Donald Trump directly attacked institutions that have governed almost absolutely for over a century while avoiding serious public
In front of huge crowds, Trump called out agencies and bureaucrats by name and promised to rein in their out-of-control harassment of the American people. The administrative state, having long exercised the constitutionally delegated powers of the Executive Branch while thumbing its nose at the elected president, correctly worried that Trump would reclaim legitimate Executive authorities that it had illegitimately usurped decades ago. For a hundred years, America’s permanent ruling class has operated a state within a state in which the president is treated mostly as a figurehead and recognized as “chief executive” in name only. In this absurd “Bizarro World” where low-level bureaucrats are quasi-kings and the three branches of government retain meager residual powers, the Constitution is a document that just gets in the Deep State’s way.
In Ryun’s documentary, Congressman Roy pulls no punches against the administrative state while laying well-deserved blame at the feet of lawmakers. In lauding Elon Musk’s work to expose and eliminate government waste, fraud, and abuse, Roy says the American people have to hold Congress accountable. “Because you’ve been searching for the enemy, and the enemy is right in front of you. It is us. It is Congress. We’re the ones that continue to fund the very things” that enable the Deep State. “We’re begging you to save us because we’re that bad.” That’s a rather direct plea from a sitting congressman for the American people to rise up and demand an end to America’s unconstitutional bureaucracy. In calling for the “slashing and burning” of Leviathan, Roy argues that DOGE shouldn’t stand for the Department of Government Efficiency but rather the Department of Government Elimination. That’s a theme throughout
ther theme is that Americans can win this war against the administrative state. Rachel Bovard acknowledges how difficult it is for any country that has gone so far down the path of bureaucratic tyranny to survive. But then she notes, “Every day this country does something that no-one has ever seen before in the history of the world. If there is anyone who can shake off the shackles of bureaucratic statism, it’s us. It’s America.”
As Ryun says at the end of both his book and documentary, the solution is simple: “Break the State. Drain the Swamp. Restore the Republic.” In a hundred years, there has never been a better time.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 