Would you rather have a constitutionalist or a federalist in the while house?

Question

Donald Trump is a Federalist.  Vivek Ramaswamy is a Constitutionalist.  Which would you rather have be your commander in chief?

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Voted for "Federalist," However, truly the question needs more elaboration of how the terms are being used here.

To start, and I freely admit that I am a Republican who is no fan of Mr. Trump, the former President does not qualify as a Federalist in the classic definition of the term. He is a populist and in that he contradicts perhaps the most famous Federalist in American constitutional history, President James Madison.

As Madison wrote in the Federalist, "When first constructing a government you must FIRST (emphasis added) enable the government to control the governed, and in the next instance oblige it to control itself." This contrasts starkly with Mr. Trump's message which is populism, pure and simple.

It is an appeal to a culture of envy and resentment directed against "elites," however vaguely defined. (Indeed, strictly speaking, Mr. Trump's message is more about how oppressed he feels that he is than those he nominally represents. In this it is not so much populism as "égoïsme sacré.") It is not as the Founders conceived it, which is basically that in a democracy the people do not decide. Rather they decide which elites - note the plural - will decide and to whom those elites will be accountable.

As to "constitutionalist," Mr. Ramaswamy's claim to the term is somewhat problematic. It is more about the fact that - at least to the extent that I have heard his message - he seems to have a familiarity with constitutional law and constitutional history that is rare in contemporary politicians. This is to his credit and why I would vote for him.

An example of this, he has proposed a solution to the so-called "deep state." That term is itself somewhat problematic. It describes the bureaucracy that must inevitably follow from "big government." The public purports to loathe "big government" but in fact they routinely vote for it.

The reasons for this are none too surprising. 1 in 6 who works, works for government. 1 in 7 is a Social Security recipient. 1/3 of all families this year will receive some form of transfer payment and as for lamenting the national debt, less than half of ALL Americans pay ANY Federal income tax.

In a nutshell, the American public has a ferocious appetite for "dig government," they just have a negligible willingness to pay for it. (Any candidate who proposes cutting Social Security please signify by saying "I do not choose to run again.") They like big government, they just do not like some of its' predictable consequences of big government - this being a large bureaucracy that must exist to run the day to day affairs and regulations of that "big government."

This is a fair point insofar as the bureaucracy cannot be held to account. It is a group of professionals of varying backgrounds, education and experience whose main interest is the programs they - at the behest of the popularly elected government - administer.

Thus Mr. Ramaswamy has proposed an idea that has often - and in that case - wrongly been proposed for Congress. Namely, term limits for the upper and mid-levels of the bureaucracy. Their tenure in any positions of authority will be limited and thus limit both their administrative power and thus any interest they may have in perpetuating that power at the expense of the larger government and national interest.

The idea of bureaucratic term limits is not without its' problematic aspects, but it deserves to be explored and perhaps tested more thoroughly. However, what it does demonstrate - and I confess that until recently I did not give him much attention - is that Mr. Ramaswamy has thought seriously about political philosophy, history and the Constitution in a way that most popularly elected politicians, not least former President Trump, have not.

For these reasons, I would rather see Mr. Ramaswamy in the White House. To be sure, that is a conditional endorsement. However, we have experienced Mr. Trump and have heard from him. Quite frankly, and again I say this as a Republican who has worked on Capitol Hill, there is not much there there. So for all of the above reasons, Mr. Ramaswamy deserves at the very least a closer examination and is certainly preferable to former President Trump.

docster · Accepted Answer

Ramaswamy couldn't get elected as president, at least without being vice president first, because of his religion. I'm a bible-believing Christian myself, but many conservative Christians would stay home and not vote if he was the Republican nominee. I haven't studied his political opinions closely since my state eliminated the presidential primary election, but so far I like Vivek as a second choice. My first choice would be Trump. I'm too lazy to look up the definition of a federalist or constitutionalist.

sawno · Answer

On principle a constitutionalist, I am a fan of the American constitution but I hate the concept of federal states because I am a european and we know how terrible federal states are.

In practise between the candidates Trump needs to win because otherwise nobody will believe the election result after all the tampering they did already.

gorydetails · Answer

What's your take on how sincere Vivek is? He's mimicking Obama's speeches. And says all the right things.

jahaims · Answer

The only people that get into office are bought and paid for do it doesn't matter

Roudyrebel8 · Answer

Definitely constitutionalist

Would you rather have a constitutionalist or a federalist in the while house?

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Americans, do you prefer more power to the federal government or to the states?

Would you rather have a constitutionalist or a federalist in the while house?

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Americans, do you prefer more power to the federal government or to the states?

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