Episode 162: Is the Administrative State Democracy's Death Knell with Michael Pack

Your eyes may glaze over when you hear people talking about the “administrative state.” But if you care about liberty, it’s long past time to start paying close attention to what the Administrative State is and how impervious it has become to election outcomes. Today in Washington, we have what’s become effectively a fourth branch of government: an unelected permanent bureaucracy of self-regarding “expert” progressive elites who staff and run the federal agencies. And if you believe they are hostile to conservatives you would be right. Joining me for a first-hand look at this is Michael Pack, who was selected by President Trump to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media in March 2017, two months after President Trump was sworn in. Agency leadership, along with others in the federal bureaucracy and eventually Democrats in the Senate, blocked his confirmation for three years and three months. As a celebrated film-maker who knew what he was doing, he was too dangerous to their agenda. The USAGM has a vital responsibility for all government international broadcasting – including Voice of America – to broadcast to over 350 million people a week in over 70 languages. When he was finally sworn in as the Agency head, Michael Pack’s essential goal was to return the news services to their legally mandated mission: to report news that is “accurate, objective, and comprehensive” (in the words of the VOA charter, which is U.S. law), and to promote American ideals like democracy and human rights around the world. “But from the moment Donald Trump was elected president until the day he left office, government officials refused to follow his orders that conflicted with their own views, in spite of their obligation to serve whoever is president.” Michael calls this the “death of democracy.” “Democracy dies when the elected president doesn’t have a chance to implement his agenda,” Michael explains. When Voice of America was established in the 50’s, the American consensus was to project an image of American democracy and freedom and constitutional government to the rest of the world as an example of how they could live and as a beacon of freedom. But today that consensus has vanished. The American left now sees America as fatally flawed, and those views predominate among the USAGM hierarchy who produced a five part series targeted to Africa celebrating Black Lives Matter that portrayed America as a racist society. What’s happening in the USAGM is a microcosm of what’s happened at bigger agencies like the Justice Department, State Department, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence agencies. “No matter that Donald Trump was the duly elected president of the United States, federal bureaucrats did not accept that. After all, they knew better how to run the country, so that is what they did. This is tyranny, pure and simple — government by unelected bureaucrats, subverting the will of the majority.” This is a riveting story. Please listen in.