Home > Videos | 🏛️🇺🇸📖 Heather Cox Richardson

🧠📉⚠️ Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Is Mentally Crumbling—But Still Dangerous | The Bulwark Podcast

🤖 AI Summary

• 📜 The new 🇺🇸 American right is embracing the 🇩🇪 philosophy of Carl Schmitt, a controversial legal theorist [00:14].
• 💡 Schmitt’s core theory holds that the essence of politics is the friend/enemy distinction, and the most profound political question revolves around who is the sovereign [00:46].
• 👑 The sovereign is defined as he who decides on the state of exception, the suspension of the normal legal order [01:06].
• ⚖️ This worldview is a critique of liberalism that sees law and procedure as merely a mask for the true exercise of political power [01:30].
• 💰 In Congress, 🇺🇸 Republicans are deliberately attacking their own fundamental institutional power, the power of the purse, which is the legislative branch’s most crucial check on the executive [02:44].
• 🧑‍💼 The goal is to establish the idea that the executive branch should be unconstrained and to cede all power of the purse to the President [03:00].
• 💥 By creating a crisis through a government shutdown, proponents attempt to induce the state of exception in the domestic sphere [03:36].
• ⚔️ In foreign policy, the executive branch is unilaterally declaring a non-international armed conflict with a Venezuelan drug cartel, the Tren de Aragua [04:12].
• 🚫 This declaration is a legal mechanism used to bypass congressional war powers and international law, allowing the executive to assume unconstrained authority to use lethal force [04:36].
• 🛑 The state of exception is being invoked to justify the claim that the President alone decides what constitutes a state of armed conflict [05:07].
• 🚨 This approach shifts 🇺🇸 American politics toward a Schmittian framework where all political differences become existential and non-negotiable friend/enemy conflicts [05:28].

🤔 Evaluation

• ⚖️ Schmitt’s Core Ideas are Accurately Described, but Context is Key: The video accurately presents Carl Schmitt’s central concepts: the friend/enemy distinction as the nature of the political and the sovereign as “he who decides on the state of exception” [00:46, 01:06].
• 👑 External Sources Confirm Schmitt’s Controversial Legacy: Schmitt was a 🇩🇪 German legal theorist who served as the “Crown Jurist” of the Third Reich, providing the theoretical foundation for the Nazi regime, a historical fact that underscores the authoritarian nature of his ideas (Carl Schmitt - Wikipedia). His work is acknowledged as a “radical challenge to liberalism” and has influenced modern political movements, including Trumpism and neoconservatism (Dividing Up the Planet and Championing Illiberal Democracies: Trump Seeks to Make Carl Schmitt’s Vision of World Order a Reality by Harvard Kennedy School).
• 💰 The Retreat of Congressional Power is Corroborated: The claim that 🇺🇸 Republicans in Congress are ceding the power of the purse to the executive [03:04] is strongly supported by external reporting. The White House has been accused of unilaterally freezing congressionally approved funds and attempting “pocket rescissions,” which legislative branch experts fear could permanently shift power from Congress to the executive branch (Congress is losing its grip on the power to spend Americans’ money by The Washington Post).
• ⚔️ Legal Justifications for War Powers Draw Heavy Scrutiny: The video’s point that the executive is using a unilateral declaration of armed conflict with a Venezuelan cartel [04:12] to bypass law is affirmed by legal scholars. The assertion that the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels was widely viewed by critics as an action that “makes a mockery of international law” and represents an unconstitutional expansion of the President’s war-making powers without congressional authorization (A war on drugs or a war on terror? Trump’s military pressure on Venezuela blurs the lines by Associated Press and The Many Ways in Which the Caribbean Strike was Unlawful by Just Security).
• 🔬 Topics for Deeper Exploration:
  • 🌍 The Nomos of the Earth: Investigate Schmitt’s later work on international law and his concept of Grossräume (Great Spaces), which offers a framework for world order based on competing regional empires rather than universal law.
  • 📖 The Anti-Schmittian Response: Explore the work of legal theorists like Hans Kelsen, who provided a vigorous defense of liberal constitutionalism and the rule of law against Schmitt’s authoritarianism.
  • 🏛️ Constitutional Mechanisms for Reclaiming Power: Analyze specific legal and procedural options Congress has to reassert its power of the purse and war powers against an overreaching executive, such as more aggressive use of the Impoundment Control Act or the War Powers Resolution.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: 💡 What is the “state of exception” in political theory and why is it relevant to current US politics?

A: 👑 The “state of exception” is a central concept from the German legal theorist Carl Schmitt, where the sovereign is defined as he who decides when an emergency or extreme crisis exists that suspends the normal operation of law. 🇺🇸 This concept is relevant to US politics today because it provides a theoretical justification for the executive branch to claim unlimited, unconstrained power, bypassing constitutional checks like congressional spending authority or the need for a declaration of war.

Q: ⚔️ How did the US military justify the strikes against vessels associated with the Venezuelan cartel Tren de Aragua?

A: 🛡️ The US military strikes were justified by the executive branch’s unilateral declaration that the United States was engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with the Tren de Aragua drug cartel [04:12]. 🚫 This declaration was a legal maneuver intended to invoke war powers that grant the President the authority to use lethal force and bypass the need for congressional authorization [04:36].

Q: 💰 Why is the “power of the purse” considered Congress’s most important tool against the President?

A: 💵 The “power of the purse,” as outlined in the US Constitution, is the authority of the legislative branch (Congress) to levy taxes and control all government spending. 🛑 It is considered Congress’s most fundamental check on the executive branch [02:18], as the President’s actions, including military operations or domestic programs, cannot continue without the funds appropriated by Congress.

📚 Book Recommendations

• Similar Perspectives (The Critique of Liberalism):
  • 📖 Political Theology by Carl Schmitt: Dive into the original source text where Schmitt lays out his argument that “sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception” and his famous critique of liberal rule by law.
  • 📘 The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt: Explore the foundation of Schmitt’s political thought, which asserts that the defining feature of politics is the friend/enemy distinction, and that any true political entity must be willing to fight for its existence.
  • 📜 After Liberalism by Immanuel Wallerstein: Examines the historical trajectory and crisis of the liberal world order, arguing that the system of world-market capitalism is in a state of terminal decline, which is conceptually similar to Schmitt’s critique of the liberal state.
• Contrasting Perspectives (The Defense of Liberalism):
  • 🏛️⚖️ The Rule of Law by Tom Bingham: A robust defense of the principle of the rule of law against arbitrary power, detailing the essential conditions for its existence and its role in a free society, which directly opposes the Schmittian “state of exception.”
  • ⚖️ The Pure Theory of Law by Hans Kelsen: Kelsen was a contemporary and intellectual rival of Schmitt. This book presents a positivist defense of law as a self-contained, objective system of norms, directly rejecting Schmitt’s idea that law is subservient to political decision and sovereignty.
  • 🇺🇸📜 The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay: The primary source document for American constitutionalism, detailing the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances (including the power of the purse), which Schmittian theory seeks to undermine.
• Creatively Related Books (The Practice of Unconstrained Power):
  • 💣 The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas by Anand Giridharadas: A compelling non-fiction narrative that explores the political creation of “the other” (the enemy) in post-9/11 America, demonstrating the real-world impact of the friend/enemy framework on a small scale.
  • 🕵️ War Powers: The Politics of Constitutional Authority by Sarah B. Burns: A deep dive into the historical and legal battles over the US President’s ability to wage war, providing context for the constitutional conflict that the Venezuela strikes illustrate.
  • 🛑 The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek: A classic liberal argument against centralized, unconstrained state power and planning, highlighting the dangers to individual liberty when the government operates outside the constraints of established law and procedure.