THE PROBLEM WITH DEMOCRACY IS THAT WE ASK TOO MUCH OF IT.

There is no such thing as a "collective will."

A Real Clear Public Affairs essay by Hillsdale political philosopher Ronald J. Pestritto concludes with an observation about limited government, "[R]ights-based theories of government limit the state’s sphere of action, thus limiting the ability of the people to implement their collective will and consequently representing something less than a real democracy."  You know, dear reader, where I'm going to go with this.  The key is in Mr Pestritto's characterization of Wilsonian-style political thought, a few paragraphs earlier.  "While early American conceptions of national government had carefully cir­cumscribed its power due to the perceived threat to individual liberties, progressives argued that history had brought about an improvement in the human condition, such that the will of the people was no longer in danger of becoming factious."  As. If.

Yes, and as if presidential salaries didn't depend on the occupant of the office believing that he could channel that will.

Based on Biden's words and deeds, we have a pretty good idea of what he believes about the proper size and scope of government. He thinks politicians selected by "the People" can do whatever they want, provided they do not impinge on the specific freedoms that he values. When it comes to abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage, the majority does not rule. But when it comes to nearly everything else, the people's will—or, more realistically, Biden's perception of it—prevails.

Trump, by contrast, seems to have few firm beliefs. The "extreme MAGA ideology" that Biden perceives is not based on a coherent set of political principles. It is based on one man's erratic impulses. And more than anything these days, it is based on Trump's conviction that he actually won reelection in 2020.

We have much to look forward to.

If the Republican Party's always inconsistent defense of limited government was not enough to discredit its supposed devotion to constitutional principles, the fact that it has now organized itself around Trump's self-flattering delusions decisively proves that it stands for nothing worth defending. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, has always been willing to ditch the Constitution when it proved inconvenient.

Assuming that Trump runs for president in 2024 and Biden seeks reelection, voters will again be confronted by a choice between an old man who is manifestly unqualified for the job and an old man whose long political career has taught him nothing about the limits of government power and the fallible judgments of the people who wield it. While a willingness to accept the outcome of a free and fair election is a minimum qualification for the presidency, voters should demand more than that.

Unfortunately, implicit in the opportunity to vote for somebody is the reality that somebody, rather than "none of the above" will be elected, and insufficiently many voters show a tendency to defect from the Nash equilibrium binary choice.  Thus, we find ourselves with what looked like the least bad choice still being a bad choice.

Joe Biden isn’t the solution for what ails the American soul. He’s not even really the main disease of what ails the American soul. Joe Biden is a demagogue who floated to the top of a morass that has been building for decades, and who only sees the problem to the extent that it benefits or harms Biden’s interests.

Presidents give "bully pulpit" speeches, no matter how bullying or how incoherent, because We The People have given them cause to do so.

[Thursday] night’s speech was nothing more than soulless demagoguery by a soulless demagogue desperately trying to distract from his failures at command-economy machinations and Afghanistan over the past year-plus.

But even this is just a symptom of the problem plaguing the soul of America. Biden may not even be that far off of it, but he’s pointing his finger at the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The real problem plaguing America is a creeping authoritarianism that Biden is all too happy to indulge — when it suits him. But he didn’t start it, and to the extent he gets away with it, the blame doesn’t entirely fall on him.

That blame falls on Congress. It falls on a compliant media in bed with one political party almost without exception. And, to some extent, it falls on us.

Yes, there's a Cult of the Presidency, and yes, the tendency of long standing for Congress to defer to the administrative state, which presidents generally are happy to go along with, because their Cabinet appointees then get to pick the deputy assistant secretaries who hire the managers. Personnel is policy. And the institutional memory becomes institutional sclerosis.

It is time to say goodbye to all that.

Creeping authoritarianism in the presidency accelerated in the Cold War period but really began in FDR’s administration. FDR used command economics to deal with a catastrophe — the Great Depression — and then immediately went into World War II and the necessities of wartime command. Even after emerging from the hot wars, though, we have Richard Nixon imposing wage and price controls with a compliant Congress doing next to nothing to challenge him, and so on.

Pick your spots: Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton’s wag-the-dog stunts to distract from personal scandal. George W. Bush and domestic surveillance. This problem of authoritarianism runs deeply and diversely through our modern history. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are the products of this trend, not its initiators.

And why do we produce authoritarians? Mainly because Congress has spent the last several decades ceding its political and moral authority to the executive. We could go all the way back to Woodrow Wilson on that score and his insistence on federal-bureaucracy governance of “experts,” but even without that, Congress has become utterly limp. It’s gotten so bad now that Congress can’t even pass budgets under normal order. Leadership under both parties have made this co-equal branch under the Constitution nothing more than a rubber stamp for presidents of the same party or brick walls for presidents of the opposite party.

That produces an electorate with no investment or trust in Congress. So to whom do they turn? Not to constitutionalists that might return some level of constitutional humility to the Oval Office and force Congress to take responsibility for governance. They vote for demagogues and authoritarians who promise to get things done without Congress or the courts. When the crowds don’t get what they want, then they riot instead of getting Congress to act. And all the while, our institutional media plays these same games overwhelmingly on behalf of one party over the other, then cries about being victimized by questions of credibility and bias.

Make no mistake — Joe Biden’s correct that we have a soul-sickness in America. And make no mistake — Joe Biden is a large part of the problem, having spent forty years in Congress making this situation worse, and now becoming the authoritarian he warned about last night.

The antidote is a return to actual constitutional governance. We don’t need an imperial presidency any longer, if we needed it at all. It’s time to dismantle the regulatory state and force Congress to do its job by limiting the presidency’s power in all senses, legitimate or otherwise. When we start having Congresses that govern properly and directly, we will have no need for authoritarians and demagogues, nor to “own” the other side.

Let's start by noting that the current authoritarian isn't very good at it.

Biden can’t pretend he is only attacking a small minority of the Republican Party when he labels a mainstream policy position a threat to "the very soul of this country."

The timing of Biden’s speech was no accident. Labor Day is traditionally seen as the beginning of the fall campaign season. And Biden’s speech previewed how Democrats will run their campaigns this fall. They won’t tout all the popular policies they enacted while they controlled the House, Senate, and presidency because they have none. The average voter has no idea what is in the Inflation Reduction Act, but they do correctly know that it will do nothing to lower inflation. In fact, it will only make it worse.

Unable to campaign on substance, Biden’s Thursday speech was designed to change the subject. Biden is hoping his party can retain complete control of Washington by making the 2022 midterm elections all about one man whose name isn’t on a single ballot: Trump.

It is a deeply cynical strategy that will only further divide the nation. Out of one side of their mouths, Democrats cry about the unique threat to democracy caused by Trump and his followers, but then out of the other side of their mouths, they elevate Trump at every chance they get.

Pay attention, dear reader: Donald Trump is not seeking any of the offices being voted on this fall.

A lot of Democrats are.  "For the Democrats, it’s their way or you’re a threat. You’re a Fascist."

Give them something to get worked up about.  "Dissent is Fascism and resistance is futile. That will be Biden’s message [Thursday]. Choose sides."  The ficus might have botched the message, and he's subsequently restricted the set of "MAGA Republicans" to people who actively questioned the election outcome, or perhaps to people who participated in the futile and stupid gesture at the Federal Capitol.

No matter.  When somebody tells you who he is, believe him.  Judge him by the company he keeps.  Turf that company out.