America will be celebrating its quarter-millennial anniversary of its independence this coming year. The Revolutionary War fought to gain that independence was not fought to overturn the extant system, but prevent what had naturally and organically developed from being imposed upon by Europe. Unlike America’s war of independence, the French Revolution, with all its attendant ideas, was the beginning of the death of the Europe that begat the birth of a propositional way of governance that was prospective, only wearing what heritage remained as a skinsuit. Indeed, America may be the last bastion of Western Civilization. But even then, America embodied a tradition that had already began splitting off from continental Europe stemming back from the rejection of the Norman Yoke as evidenced by the Charter of the Forest and the Magna Carta. Yet today we see far too influential people declare that America is Blut und Boden with a shared “heritage” justifying control and power to tyrannically mutate America into something else. This is why America is denigrated as an idea: They want to gut America of its heritage and essence in order to replace it with a foreign idea from foreign people in a foreign land without substantive and ideologically relevant history.
And what types of ideas are being imported? Why, the ideas of one of 20th Century Europe’s most infamous jurists: Carl Schmitt.
The people embracing Schmitt’s ideas know very well that Schmitt wasn’t so much attacking the enemies of the state (e.g. Commies), but the wickedness of the structure of the state itself. He wanted a new state that was designed to implement his vision; similarly, the people pantomiming his thinking wish to do the same.
“What is one of Schmitt’s primary targets?
“Spoiler alert:
“It’s not Marxists or Communists.
“It’s ‘Constitutional norms’, ‘Democratic Liberalism’, and, ‘checks and balances’.
“For the bulk of the body of the essay is Schmitt attacking the underlying governing system of Germany, rather than the Communists.”
And in so doing, they at least try to be subtle enough for most people not not catch on. They seek not the Rule of Law. In fact, the Rule of Law is anathema to them, for it impedes the law of the “rightful” rulers. Take, for example, the Motte & Bailey use of the term “civil magistrate”. For most this just means “a judge, governor, or government official who keeps law and order”; but their real meaning is “he divinely ordained authority who defines virtue, maintains order for the ethnos, and can override liberal limits when necessary.”
This is the underlying claim for a moral mandate to rule:
Woke Right Civil Magistrate Motte and Bailey
In Post-Liberal discourse, the phrase “civil magistrate” is not neutral, it carries layered meaning depending on whether you’re looking at the surface (motte) or the deeper (bailey/initiate) level.
Layman / surface sense (motte)
A “civil magistrate” is presented as simply a public official — judges, legislators, executives, local rulers.
It sounds like a benign, almost biblical or old-world way of saying “government authority.”
To a casual reader, it comes across as continuity with the Founding-era language (e.g. colonial sermons often spoke of magistrates as God’s servants of justice).
Post-Liberal / initiate sense (bailey)
For Post-Liberals, the “civil magistrate” is not just a neutral officeholder. It is the agent of moral ordering — the person (or class) empowered to enforce virtue, define the good, and discipline society.
Unlike Classic American Liberalism, which sees magistrates as bound by transcendent law and limited by rights, Post-Liberalism sees them as instruments of decision: they have authority to determine what is virtuous for the people and to wield coercive power accordingly.
In Schmittian or decisionist terms, the magistrate is the one who can “decide the exception” — i.e. declare what circumstances require suspending ordinary limits to reassert order.
Why this matters
For Classic American Liberalism: The magistrate is a servant bound by natural law and the Constitution.
For Post-Liberalism: The magistrate is a moral ruler, custodian of ethnos, empowered to impose order even against liberal limitations.
So when a Post-Liberal invokes the “civil magistrate,” they’re not just talking about officials carrying out laws, they’re gesturing toward a theologically and historically-justified authority figure who governs not just by law, but by claimed moral mandate.
Now, a coincidence of policy does not establish a consanguinity of doctrine. However, open praise, citation, or ideological incorporation does.
“One of the more vocal neo-Schmittians is Auron MacIntyre, podcaster and writer for The Blaze and internet popularizer of postliberalism. MacIntyre has a long-running affinity for Schmitt, describing the friend-enemy distinction as ‘the true essence of the political.’ His 2024 book The Total State denounces the classical liberal conception of democracy as America’s ‘founding myth’ and turns to Schmitt as the antidote, although he brushes aside Schmitt’s Nazi affiliations as ‘deeply unfortunate.’ In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, MacIntyre’s podcast has transformed into a full-fledged Schmitt show.”
This neauveau “Europeanism” must be rejected and the much beleagured true “Americanism” embraced once again.
Carl Schmitt’s essay, “The Legal Basis Of The Total State”, can be read here or below:
The Legal Basis of the Total State by Carl Schmitt (1933) by ThePoliticalHat
