Adrian Vermeule

A convert to Catholicism, Vermeule has become an advocate of integralism, a form of modern political thought originating in historically Catholic-dominant societies and opposed to the liberal ideal of division between church and state. Integralism in practice gives rise to state order (identifiable as theocratic) in which a religiously-conceived "Highest Good" has precedence over individual autonomy, the value prioritized by liberal democracy. Rather than electoral politics, the path to confessional political order in integralist theory is “strategic ralliement,” or transformation within institutions and bureaucracies, that lays the groundwork for a realized integralist regime to succeed a liberal democratic order it assumes to be dying. The new state would "exercise coercion over baptized citizens in a manner different from non-baptized citizens".[10][11][12]

To achieve this end, Vermeule has suggested giving confirmed Catholics priority in immigration, allowing them to "jump immediately to the head of the queue". Vermeule describes this as being essential to "the eventual formation of the Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and ultimately the world government required by natural law".[13]

In an article in The Atlantic in March 2020, Vermeule suggests that originalism – the idea that the meaning of the American Constitution was fixed at the time of its enactment, which has been the principal legal theory of conservative judges and legal scholars for the past 50 years, but which Vermeule now characterizes as merely "a useful rhetorical and political expedient" – has outlived its usefulness and needs to be replaced by what he calls "common-good constitutionalism". Under this theory of jurisprudence, the moral values of the religious right[14] would be imposed on the American people whether they, as a whole, believe in them or not.[15]

Vermeule's concept of common-good constitutionalism is:

based on the principles that government helps direct persons, associations, and society generally toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate. ... This approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers; respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of government and society; and a candid willingness to "legislate morality –indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority. Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and well-ordered society.[15]

Vermeule specified that common-good constitutionalism is "not tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of the legislators who created them", so the stated purpose of the legislation is irrelevant to him. Yet he also says that "officials (including, but by no means limited to, judges)" will need "a candid willingness to 'legislate morality'" in order to create a "just and well-ordered society."[15]

The main aim of common-good constitutionalism:

is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power (an incoherent goal in any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well ... Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them — perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.[15]

The values which Vermeule believes should be upheld for the good of the "subjects" of the "ruler" include traditional family values, traditional sexual and gender roles, and outlawing abortion.

According to Eric Levitz, the values Vermeule promotes are those of Catholicism and the Christian right.[14] Law professor Randy E. Barnett characterizes Vermeule's essay as "an argument for the temporal power of the state to be subordinated to the spiritual power of the Church."[16] Constitutional law professor Garrett Epps characterizes Vermeule as "an authentic Christian nationalist to whom the Constitution is only an obstacle". Vermeule's common-good constitutionalism argument is, according to Epps, really "authoritarian extremism" which "has absolutely nothing to do with the actual United States Constitution, and in many ways flatly contradicts it. ... In fact, the Constitution as such is not a binding text to Vermeule" since it must be, in Vermeule's words, "read into" in order to arrive at the results he prefers. In the end, Epps criticizes Vermeule's concept as a "banal" anti-constitutional theory akin to Falangism.[17] Levitz notes that Vermeule received little support from conservatives for his arguments, although some did object to characterizing him as "authoritarian".[14][15]

In a column in The Washington Post, prominent conservative George F. Will described Vermeule's "common-good constitutionalism" as "Christian authoritarianism — muscular paternalism, with government enforcing social solidarity for religious reasons. This is the Constitution minus the Framers’ purpose: a regime respectful of individuals’ diverse notions of the life worth living." Will goes on to say about Vermeule's concept and some other contemporary conservative views "...American conservatism, when severed from the Enlightenment and its finest result, the American Founding, becomes spectacularly unreasonable and literally un-American."[18]

Elliot Kaufman, writing in the conservative magazine National Review, has described Vermeule as a "reactionary" and an "illiberal" following in the footsteps of German Nazi thinker Carl Schmitt. In Kaufman's view, Vermeule's illiberalism is "dangerous."[19] The American philosopher Brian Leiter has described Vermeule as a "run-of-the-mill legal conservative" who found an intellectual home among other "reactionary Catholics."[20] Fellow law professor Rick Hills has been much harsher in his criticism, describing Vermeule's recent writings as a kind of "anti-liberal chic," or "a really cheap way to signal one’s willingness to offend without putting any specific cards on the table about one’s own specific views about, say, the acceptability of locking up demonstrators who offend the regime in power."[21]