Unitary executive theory and the Führerprinzip

SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts subscribes to the unitary executive theory of American government and Constitutional interpretation. The unitary executive theory posits that the President possesses total, unrestrained authority over the entire executive branch, including the power to direct, supervise, and remove all officers within it. 

If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s been tried before in history. The Führerprinzip was the basis of executive authority in the government of Nazi Germany. It centralized total authority in the Führer, replacing legal, institutional, and democratic structures with a hierarchy where directives flowed downward, establishing a personal dictatorship.

And before the Nazis, the Bolsheviks began abandoning the practical application of "all power to the soviets" almost immediately after seizing power, with the shift from democratic worker councils (soviets) to centralized party control solidifying between late 1917 and early 1918. The slogan was effectively replaced by the dictatorship of the party during the Russian Civil War, finalized by the banning of opposition parties in 1921. Lenin, and then Stalin, were the unitary executives of the Soviet Union.

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

~George Santayana

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