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When Alexander Hamilton wrote his classic analysis of the presidency in The Federalist Papers (No. 70), he minced no words: “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” The executive branch has to act and act decisively. The legislative process is not designed for speed, nor is adjudication in the courts. The presidency is—and needs to be. As commander in chief, the president has to be ready to address whatever crisis the nation faces.
The alternative to an energetic executive, Hamilton explained, is a “feeble” executive. A feeble executive will act feebly. And “feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government.”
The designers of the Constitution could not, of course, know who would occupy the office in the future. What they could do was design the Constitution so as to give future presidents the ability to act decisively and energetically.
That is why, Hamilton explained, there is one president, not two and not a council. When multiple people have to agree on any particular action, there’s always the possibility for delay or even gridlock. Checks and balances are, indeed, important in the right context. But checks and balances on military strategy when the battle is underway can be fatal. So “[t]he executive power”—not some, but the entirety—is “vested” in the president by Article II of the Constitution.
As Hamilton explained, decisiveness and promptness “will generally characterise the proceedings of one man, in a much more eminent degree, than the proceedings of any greater number.” So having a single, unitary executive who has the final decision-making power is a key feature of the Constitution’s design for the presidency. President Harry Truman captured the point succinctly with the sign he placed on his desk: “The buck stops here.”
-- Lael Weinberger
A few weeks ago, an image went viral. In Belgium a migrant used the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to cook an omelette. For many, the desecration brought to mind a quote from French author Jean Raspail, written in 1973 in his novel Camp of the Saints, about a sudden invasion of Muslim, Indian and African migrants into France:
“Your universe has no meaning to them. They will not try to understand. They will be tired, they will be cold, they will make a fire with your beautiful oak door.”
“Beware of two errors: despising the world God sustains, or worshipping the culture He restrains.”
— Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace Vol. 1, Ch. 30
"[Successful NY Mayoral candidate] Mamdani built his campaign on the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA and its city allies can dispatch activists across New York and, with a network of progressive partner organizations, can mobilize young people, get out the vote, and do the work of door-to-door politics.
"We saw this dynamic many times in the twentieth century: socialists rise to power, their policies degrade the quality of life, and, as they enter the endgame, they tighten their grip on power and offload resentments onto their ideological, racial, and economic enemies.
"...the twentieth century taught us that left-wing voters have extraordinary defenses against reality."
-- Christopher Rufo
