How the creation of the administrative state led to today's political crisis

By Tim Jones February 19, 2023

Unmasking the Administrate State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand today's political crisis at the federal level.  In a way, it is an ongoing constitutional crisis brought on by the progressive revolution in American governance that originated with President Woodrow Wilson.  The book describes how governance has been distorted beyond all recognition from the founding principles in the Constitution.  It was Wilson, the first progressive president, who believed that the Constitution should be more flexible in creating a better society without adhering to a strict interpretation of the Constitution's original text.  Rather, it should be a "living Constitution" that adapts to current circumstances.  What this essentially did was to nullify many of the timeless principles in the Constitution.

Woodrow Wilson is probably one of the most transformative presidents in American history by initiating this process of revolutionizing the way the federal government works.  He basically changed the mission of government from creating and maintaining the conditions for people to create better lives for themselves to directly intervening in the lives of citizens in theoretically making their lives better. 

Decades later, FDR implemented the beginnings of the administrative state based on Wilson's progressivism with his New Deal programs.  And decades following FDR, Lyndon Johnson solidified the triumph of the administrative state through his Great Society program, which essentially made the federal bureaucracy a government unto itself, removed from direct accountability to American citizens.

The following is a passage from Unmasking the Administrative State that precisely identifies this problem:.........To Read More.........