Mark Levin has written a brand-new book on a huge subject: "On Power." How do you boil that subject down to 208 pages?
In America, the founders and their current admirers have been all about limiting power, having the humility about human nature to understand that people lust for power.
Early on, Levin quotes C.S. Lewis observing, "It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep," but "those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
Lewis was a great promoter of "mere Christianity," which some might associate with "moral busybodies." But having a humble eye on our capacity to sin is what helps contain power. Levin sides with the founders, that "if men were angels, no government would be necessary," but a government of men must be obliged to "control itself."
In America today, Levin argues, most public debate around politics revolves around "who exercises power, almost to the exclusion of the meaning, purpose, and nature of power." Anyone who watches the news networks knows they believe the audience wants to know who's up and who's down, who's excelling and who is failing. Most broadcast and cable "news" today asserts the Republicans are perennially failing, and when they succeed, there is evil afoot.
Now, at a time when Republicans control the executive and the legislative branches, Levin reminds us of Raoul Berger's 1977 book "Government by Judiciary," and how the founders didn't want judges to act like policymakers. Levin quotes Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer openly boasting that Trump's power would be curtailed by "progressive" judges they confirmed.
The Left right now has put all its hopes in the power of activist judges constantly ruling against Trump's policies, what Levin calls an "unprecedented onslaught of judicial interventions and obstructions." See the recent ridiculous decision from Obama-appointed Indira Talwani, a district judge in Massachusetts, putting a restraining order on the Republicans defunding Planned Parenthood.
"Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable," the judge ruled -- completely skipping over the "adverse health consequences" to the unborn. The judge is not a referee, but a player. A president elected nationwide is being molested by "judicial oligarchs who have seized power for themselves."
Levin concludes that the Constitution's separation of powers protects us "from the logical progression of an increasingly centralized government with an authoritarian ruling class -- that is, authoritarian democracy." The Left constantly links Trump to authoritarianism, but they are suffused in all that "moral busybody" arrogance to deny the majority of voters what they voted for.
When the Democrats win narrowly, it is painted as a broad mandate. When Republicans win narrowly, they must have cheated and should be impeached. If Republicans interpret their mandate too broadly, that's what elections are for, for the people to decide, not a permanent bureaucracy and judiciary.
As a media critic, I suspect this will become the ninth Mark Levin book to go to No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, even though the Times is allergic to actually reviewing any of his books, and not just "Unfreedom of the Press" and "The Democrat Party Hates America."
No supposedly "mainstream" media outlet will interview Levin. Six years ago, an NPR reviewer attacked his book on the press as "full of bombast and bile." But then, NPR demonstrated their power lust by approving of vile books like "In Defense of Looting" and "How to Blow Up a Pipeline."
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