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Book Review: Project 2025: Remaking American Governance: The Battle for Democracy and the Future [1]

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Date: 2024-11-27  

Today’s book review is of Project 2025: Remaking American Governance: The Battle for Democracy and the Future, by Andy Rhoden

This book is sloppy, poorly reasoned, inaccurate, and unpolished.

There’s been plenty of commentary about how Project 2025 is bad news. Much of it applies well to this book. I won’t add to that here. Instead — in an effort to liven up the debate — I will point out one thing that Project 2025’s critics get wrong: the unitary executive theory. This theory allegedly provides the intellectual underpinnings for Republicans to seize the whole of government.

Here’s a typical example from Chantelle Lee, writing in Time magazine. “Many critics have labeled Project 2025 as ‘authoritarian.’ The project relies on what legal scholars call the unitary executive theory, which dismisses the idea that there are three separate branches of government for checks and balances, The New York Times reported.”

These concerns get it wrong twice: they both understate the US constitution’s grant of power to the president and overstate the breadth of the unitary executive theory.

Let’s start with the former. What proponents of the unitary executive theory, like Andy Rhoden and other Project 2025 advocates, argue for is not some brazen distortion of the constitution. To the contrary, they are simply saying we should follow its clear language. Article 2 Section 1 is not ambiguous. It states: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

It’s fine to think the founders made a mistake with this language. And reasonable minds can differ about the optimal balance of power among the three-branches of government. But arguing that the president should control the executive branch — when that’s precisely what the constitution says — hardly paves the way for “authoritarian fantasies.” The theory is mostly a call for reigning in the administrative state — which consistently operates outside of presidential control — and returning the federal government to its original design.

The second problem with the critics is that they dramatically overstate what unitary executive theorists actually advocate for. The unitary executive means what it sounds like it means: the president should control the executive branch. It does not mean the president should control — or even encroach upon — the other branches.

The opposite is true. Under the theory, in fact, the legislative and judicial powers remain robust. Congress would still control the federal purse strings by authorizing government spending with valid legislation. The courts would still have the sole power to resolve cases and controversies. Indeed, both branches would keep their core constitutional powers to check and restrain the executive branch: Congress would still have oversight, impeachment, and confirmation powers; and judges would still have the power to block executive actions and overrule executive-branch constitutional determinations.

The widespread assertion that the unitary executive theory “dismisses the idea that there are three separate branches of government for checks and balances” is utterly false. No proponent of the unitary executive theory — from Project 2025, in this book, or elsewhere — wants America to do away with checks and balances.

There are a lot of things wrong with Project 2025 and with this book. The unitary executive theory, however, isn’t on the list.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/27/2289042/-Book-Review-Project-2025-Remaking-American-Governance-The-Battle-for-Democracy-and-the-Future?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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