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The following observations were compiled by Glenn Ellmers from conversations with Dr. John Marini, the most insightful living scholar of the administrative state. Marini studied with Harry Jaffa—the intellectual godfather of the Claremont Institute—and applied Jaffa's interest in the philosophical study of America to the particular problem of bureaucratic "rationality" and centralized government.
Below is an excerpt from "Convicted by the Rational State."
Donald Trump's criminal conviction in New York last week must be understood in terms of a political war that has been going on since Watergate. This 50-year fight—between the American people and an increasingly powerful ruling class—is the last stage of a project that began over a century ago, when progressive intellectuals imported German political science into America with the explicit aim of transforming the Constitution.
In place of a representative government chosen by the sovereign American people, a new ruling class claimed superior intellectual authority, derived from "rational" empirical science and its methodology. The Constitution may continue to exist in name, but it has mostly been replaced by an administrative state of bureaucratic experts.
Trump is the greatest threat to this ruling class since Richard Nixon. He has therefore aroused more raw political passion than anyone in recent memory. Making him a convicted felon is a calculated gamble to keep him from returning to the White House. There is a risk it could backfire. But the ruling class knows that Trump is entirely alone in the political establishment. He has the support of millions of voters—almost certainly a plurality of the American people. But he is opposed by virtually all of the influential social, economic, political, and cultural interest groups that determine the outcome of elections. | 
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