William McGurn: Why Hillary represents the real threat of despotism

It's been an ongoing theme of ours to push back against the following notion: Donald Trump is so unfit for the presidency, and represents such a strong threat of despotism and tyranny, that it may be necessary for the good of the country for Republicans to support Hillary Clinton. The problem with that notion - leaving aside whether the Trump characterization is correct - is that it assumes Hillary is some sort of safe, acceptable choice who is only a problem for conservatives in an ideological sense. Herman Cain, Rob Laurie and I have been offering every reminder we can that this is very much not the case. Hillary Clinton is a corrupt, dishonest, self-interested fraud who will use any power at her disposal to do whatever she thinks will benefit Hillary Clinton. Her promise yesterday to put coal mines out of business was a perfect example. Even if you assume she's smart enough to understand the perils of such an action - an assumption I would certainly not make - it doesn't matter because she doesn't care. She only cares about whether it benefits her politically both to say it and, if it comes to that, to do it.

You may get very upset by the tone of Trump's rhetoric, but a loudmouth who is willing to insult opponents is not the same thing as a woman who is willing to abuse the constitutional power of the presidency to attack political opponents and manipulate every aspect of America's economic life, regardless of whether such actions are legal or constitutional. So it's good to see Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn point this out today. While Trump bothers you with his mouth, Hillary threatens you far more seriously with her willingness to abuse the administrative state:

This kind of authoritarianism doesn’t come with goose steps or brown shirts or large populist movements. It prefers bureaucracy to bombast. It presents itself as a solution to the complexities of modern government, and it’s called the administrative state. Philip Hamburger—a Columbia law professor and author of the 2015 book “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?”—defines the administrative state as the substitution of regulatory edicts for laws passed by the people’s elected representatives. In the American iteration, at least, this often means the same federal agency that writes the rules also enforces and adjudicates them—a confluence of powers Madison once called the “very definition of tyranny.” Mr. Hamburger maintains that the threat of the administrative state is nothing new, notwithstanding the assumption of some conservatives who would date it to the progressive theories of Woodrow Wilson or the rise of the New Deal. By contrast, Mr. Hamburger says the Founders well understood this threat, familiar as they were with English constitutional history and the centuries-long struggle to limit the extralegal prerogatives of kings (Star Chambers anyone?). Now, it’s certainly possible that a President Trump would seed the federal agencies with men and women who would abuse their powers for Trumpian outcomes. In real life, however, the compulsion to decree to one’s neighbor what’s best for him (and use the federal government to enforce it) is an affliction of modern American liberalism. In other words, the kind of people Hillary Clinton, if elected, would rely on to fill the federal bureaucracies, every last one of them eager and willing to impose rules on the American people that would never fly in Congress.

---

McGurn goes on to point out how Obama has laid the groundwork for Hillary's misuse of power with his own abuse of executive orders and regulatory rulemaking. I've been saying for some time that the most dangerous thing about electing a corrupt individual like Hillary is that it gives her authority over the executive branch, where she can exercise all kinds of malevolent authority to achieve ends for which she cannot get legislative support. And while a lot of people are nervous about Trump because it's hard to say where his ideological center is, we know this about Hillary: She has no ideological center. I believe she is basically a liberal, but Hillary has no unmovable core principles whatsoever. Whatever she needs to believe, say or do to maintain her own political viability is what she will do. She'll change with the wind. She'll say something one day and the next day deny she ever said it. This is especially dangerous considering her penchant for claiming victim status. Every investigation of her is persecution. Every accusation is a vast right wing conspiracy. Every criticism of her is because she's a woman or whatever. You know perfectly well that when Congress doesn't play ball on a proposal she offers, she'll trot out one of these persecution-complex excuses for why she has to act administratively, and in all likelihood the media will cover for her. This is one of the greatest rejoinders to the #NeverTrump nonsense, which suggests that Trump is a monster whereas Hillary is someone you can be comfortable with if it's necessary. You may feel comfortable with her because she's so familiar to you, but you shouldn't. If you really examine how this woman operates, you'll understand that electing her simply to keep Donald Trump out of power would be one of the biggest mistakes this country ever made. Oh, and by the way, if you don't want Trump to be president, the time to do something about that is now while there are still acceptable alternatives to him in the race. Once we get to the point where it's Trump vs. Hillary (if we do), don't make the mistake of identifying the wrong candidate as the real monster.