The Apostles of Strongman Politics Will Usher In a New Tyranny
Ordered, constitutional governance is the only guarantee of individual life, liberty, and property
Earlier this year, at the LibertyCon International event organized by Students for Liberty in Washington D.C., Cato Institute senior fellow Tom G. Palmer gave a powerful address reminding us of the historical contingency of liberalism. Principles like individual rights, limited government, constitutional constraints, and the rule of law are not self-perpetuating—they depend upon a continual collective decision to uphold them. Since there is nothing intrinsic to liberal regimes that inoculates them from being eroded by those who come into power, it’s up to us to stay vigilant so that the social order that has delivered to us liberty, prosperity, and peace isn’t extinguished by strongmen. Palmer reminds those who say “it can’t happen here” that those same words were once said in places where “it” ultimately did happen. His edited address, presented below, is a plea to fight for our endangered constitutional republic.
We are witnesses to an explosion of populism, a movement that does not bode well for liberty. It represents the highest degree of polarization, in which people are not merely on different ends of some spectrum of opinion, but in which they view each other as enemies. As one of populism’s most influential promoters, the Peronist “Post-Marxist” authoritarian theorist Ernesto Laclau described it,
in the case of populism a frontier of exclusion divides society into two camps. The “people,” in that case, is something less than the totality of the members of the community: it is a partial component which nevertheless aspires to be conceived as the only legitimate totality.
Laclau was updating the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the influential National Socialist jurist and political theorist, who posited that “the specific political distinction … can be reduced to that between friend and enemy.” Schmitt insisted that the leader’s action “is not subject to the law but is in itself the highest justice. ... In the greatest emergency the highest justice justifies itself and there appears the highest degree of avenging judicial realization of its law.”
Populism—the deliberate creation of a “frontier of exclusion” between friends and enemies—and unaccountable power capture the style of politics today. Those who disagree with the president are designated “the enemy of the people” and human beings are described as “vermin within the confines of our country.” That mentality can certainly be found on both the left and the right, but it is the right that is ascendant at the moment.
This new right is not a conservatism focused on preserving the liberal gains of the past—the elimination of slavery, the securing of equality before the law, of limited constitutional government, and of the rights to worship, to speak, to acquire and own property, to trade on mutually agreed terms, and to live as one likes with one’s own resources. Instead, it advances a radically opposed agenda that seeks to centralize absolute, arbitrary, and unaccountable power in the hands of the executive alone.
Populism: An End of Civility
Populism is at its core a rejection of civility and of civil society. The decline of civility is so advanced that it will take great efforts to restore it. Anger, fury, rage, and resentment are no substitutes for virtue, honor, integrity, honesty, and responsibility. Will is no substitute for principle. Impulse is no substitute for reasoned deliberation, nor insults for civil decorum. With the loss of civility comes the loss of the idea of living together as equal citizens in a constitutional republic, where there is freedom for all, regardless of religion, ethnicity, gender, national origin, or other characteristics of a great and varied people. The substitution of will for principle leaves us all at the mercy of the powerful. We are at great risk of losing our freedom in an orgy of polarization and in the celebration of concentrated power in the hands of those who boast of their lack of virtue.
Are we at risk of losing our constitutional republic? Those who say that it cannot happen here are in error. It can. I fear that, if we do not act to defend the separation of powers and the rule of law, it will.
Some say that unpredictability and sheer willfulness are an advantage in policy matters, foreign and domestic. They are not. Rather, they are a recipe for tyranny. As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 62, “a mutable policy … poisons the blessing of liberty itself”:
Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uninformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.
The idea that the rule of law is necessary for the enjoyment of liberty is at the core of classical liberal thinking.
The Dangerous Case for Authoritarian Disruption
In foreign policy, the lack of predictability—of accurate expectations about the policies of other governments—was one of the primary reasons for the First World War, that act of collective suicide that destroyed millions of lives and derailed the previous progress toward liberty, toleration, peace, and prosperity. In its wake came Bolshevism, Fascism, National Socialism, and an even more cataclysmic war and the mass extermination of peoples. Only a fool holds up unpredictability as a proper aspect of policy.
Some justify arbitrary power by pointing to the imperfections and flaws of the world, of which there are many. Is the answer to take a sledgehammer to the existing world, to smash it all to pieces, in the hope that the smashing will fix those flaws? No, that is more likely to cause harm than to correct flaws, more likely to dash to pieces the institutions of property, law, and civility that are the basis of our freedom.
Elon Musk has opined that, “Perhaps we just need a modern day Sulla.” No, Mr. Musk, we do not. Sulla waged war on his fellow citizens and murdered thousands of them. As the historian Anthony Everitt describes the process, “[Sulla] posted proscription lists on white tablets in the Forum, which gave the names of those he wanted dead. Anybody was legally entitled to kill a proscribed person and on the presentation of convincing evidence (usually a head) could claim a substantial reward of 1,200 denarii. As a rule, the heads of those killed were displayed in the Forum.” He also confiscated the properties of those killed and rewarded his friends handsomely.
Sulla was, like those who invoke him today, petty, vindictive, and vengeful. He was reported to have left as his epitaph the statement: “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” He practiced the model of revenge and retribution that has been promised to us by Trump and his followers. We do not “need” a modern day Sulla. We do not “need” severed heads posted around the White House. We do not “need” the confiscation of the wealth of “enemies” of the regime and its distribution to its “friends.”
To reject Sulla as a model is not to acquiesce to our overgrown government. Over the past centuries state power has waxed and sometimes waned, but in some areas there has been too much waxing and far too little waning. The size of government has grown, but it is important to remember that sometimes its powers have shrunk. There was no golden age of liberty, and nostalgia about a lost era is a mistake. My late friend David Boaz, whose last public speech was last year, addressed “The Rise of Illiberalism in the Shadow of Liberal Triumph.” He reminded us that it is a fantasy to think that in the past all was rosy and just. As he noted elsewhere:
We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn’t face. But in 1776 black Americans were held in chattel slavery, and married women had no legal existence except as agents of their husbands. In 1910 and even 1950, blacks still suffered under the legal bonds of Jim Crow—and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period. Think back again to 1977; not only did we have 70% tax rates, we had strict price regulations on trucking and airlines … it was often illegal for a trucking company to take tomatoes to the city and furniture back to rural areas … we had a monopoly phone company and strict regulations on interest and investing … sodomy laws in most states … and at least briefly, generalized wage and price controls.
In 1776, 1950, or now, there’s never been a golden age of liberty, and there never will be. People who value freedom will always have to defend it from those who claim the right to wield power over others.
Constitutional Governance Is Superior to Disorganized Tyranny
There is just cause to dismantle corruptly entrenched institutions and coercive practices. But these must be distinguished from the legitimate institutions of property, law, and constitutional procedure, including the separation of powers, that serve as the pillars of free and civil societies. Do not follow the path of Sulla, rather—if Roman models are to be invoked—the paths of Cato the Younger and of Cicero who fought, not to suspend the laws and purge their opponents, but to preserve it through speech, through the constitution, and through moral example.
The federal government of the United States is overgrown, overbearing, and over-powerful. I want to reduce its size, to cut back the accretion of bureaucratic offices, but above all to reduce its powers. A state should be evaluated and measured not by the number of its employees but by the powers they wield. Firing some, while not abolishing the coercive powers that they wield, is simply to replace one set of masters with another. A government may have more employees or a bigger budget, but if its powers are properly restrained, it is a more limited government than one which has fewer officers but no rule of law.
Congress, the executive, the judiciary, the states, and the citizenry have solemn obligations to restrain government’s powers and to keep them within the bounds set by the Constitution. The point is to limit power, not to seize it and wield it for different ends, as the “national conservatives” or the alt-right seek to do. Boasting of unpredictability—of arbitrariness—is more likely to first create a disorganized tyranny and then to create something worse: an organized tyranny. A disdain for constitutional government is a recipe for tyranny, especially when the more coherent among their leaders are open advocates of an end to constitutional republicanism and a revival of monarchy. (Not, to be clear, the innocuous constitutional monarchies of contemporary Europe, but absolute and unchallenged executive authority.) This new absolutism is no improvement over its earlier versions. When empowered by modern technology, it is likely to be far worse.
Tyrants, foreign and domestic, are already thrilling to the destruction of our Constitution which, though torn and tattered, still offers shelter from those who would strip us of our liberties. Russell Vought claims that we live in a post-constitutional moment and proposes to centralize all power in the hands of the executive—if and only if that executive is the one he so slavishly serves. That opens the door to tyrannical abuse, to a usurpation of power that is audacious, unconstitutional, illegal, and profoundly dangerous.
The Myth of America’s Strong Institutions
Why should we fear for our republic? Is the situation really that dire? I have often heard that America will always be free because of our strong institutions. That is a mirage. Institutions are only as strong as the moral virtue of those who hold offices. True conservatives—not the poseurs of the new right who have routed them—used to offer a valuable complement to libertarian insistence on the rights of the individual. I do not count myself a conservative, but I respect the old conservatives who counseled not to smash things when one is not sure how they work, or to confuse chaos with ordered liberty, but to undertake reforms with thought and with some respect to those institutions that have stood the test of time.
In 2021, we saw those conservative virtues tested and a few—but enough—held fast to their duties. Vice President Mike Pence did the right thing when it mattered the most, despite threats to his life. The secretary of state of Georgia did the right thing, despite clear threats. He refused to lie, to “find” precisely one more vote than was needed to elect the candidate he had supported in the election. Others showed similar courage, in Georgia, in Arizona, in Michigan, and elsewhere. They almost failed. But there were just enough to maintain the constitutional order and to prevent a coup d’etat. What does this teach us about institutions? It shows us that they are only as strong as the virtue of those who hold office under them.
The Athenian orator and democrat Demosthenes was a great enemy of the Macedonian destruction of Athenian democracy by Philip and Alexander. In his prosecution of Meidias, who had publicly assaulted him, Demosthenes concluded his case to the Athenian jury with a reminder of what it meant to be a citizen of a democratic polity:
Just think. The instant this court rises, each of you will walk home, one quicker, another more leisurely, not anxious, not glancing behind him, not fearing whether he is going to run up against a friend or an enemy, a big man or a little one, a strong man or a weak one, or anything of that sort. And why? Because in his heart he knows, and is confident, and has learned to trust the Polity, that no one shall seize or insult or strike him.
That confidence in the security of one’s life was not due to the physical power of any one person, or his ability to defend himself in combat, but due to the confidence all had in the laws, and to the widespread willingness to defend the rights of others. Demosthenes reminded the Athenian jurors that,
If one of you is wronged and cries aloud, will the laws run up and be at his side to assist him? No; they are only written texts and incapable of such action. Wherein then resides their power? In yourselves, if only you support them and make them all-powerful to help him who needs them. So the laws are strong through you and you through the laws.
The Virtuous Uphold the Rule of Law, the Vicious Seek Power
The rule of law is strong through us and we are free through the rule of law. Now is the time to insist on the rule of law. It is the stronghold of our liberty. Party or faction, the old terms for polarization, are threats today as they have been in the past. George Washington, in his farewell address, warned us in clear terms:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
I have been involved for over a half a century in the cause of limited government and individual liberty. Over those many decades I have also studied the history of liberty, and I have learned that virtue and lawfulness are its essential foundations. Those who seek unbridled power reject virtue, law, and liberty. George Washington understood well what would happen when some seek to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities. Those who have been lifted to unjust dominion are already hard at work destroying the engines that lifted them there. Congress, the judiciary, the states, and the citizenry must call a halt to lawless and arbitrary power.
This piece is adapted from Tom G. Palmer’s address at the 2025 LibertyCon International event held on Feb. 7-8 in Washington, D.C.
Editors’ Note: We have changed the headline from “The Apostles of Strongman Politics Will Usher a Tyranny of Small Government” to “The Apostles of Strongman Politics Will Usher In a New Tyranny” to reflect our position that the issue isn’t small government, which is entirely desirable when its role and power is limited and enumerated, but unconstrained government.
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I still prefer the phrase "tyranny of a small government." Precisely because being counter-intuitive it challenges the reader. And because of the quote, "A government may have more employees or a bigger budget, but if its powers are properly restrained, it is a more limited government than one which has fewer officers but no rule of law."
Magnificent article and much needed soaring rhetoric. The examples of Mike Pence and the Georgia SoS--individuals who make the dangerous but brave choice to uphold the Constitution--should be brought up continually.