The Gospel of Expertise
One essential principle of Progressivism and the Progressive Project is that society should be governed not by the slow, grinding machinery of constitutional or legislative processes or the selfish impulses of a free people pursuing their own individual aims, but by credentialed experts empowered to engineer better outcomes. And when those engineered outcomes conflict with the Constitution, tradition, or the will of the people, Progressivism holds that it is the outcomes—not liberty, not process—that must prevail.
From the beginning, Progressives understood that such expertise could not thrive in Congress, with its factions and delay, but must reside in the executive—“the only national voice in affairs,” as Woodrow Wilson put it—where the President would act as “the political leader of the nation,” guiding it not just by law, but by enlightened will.
In his work Constitutional Government in the United States (1908), Wilson articulated this perspective: “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can.”
But there is a tension inherent in this worldview: when the pursuit of better outcomes collides with institutions or individuals that fall outside the Progressive consensus, the commitment to expertise gives way to ideology. Outcomes once paramount are suddenly suspect if they arise from the wrong source, and the machinery of process and constitutional restraint—long dismissed as obsolete—is temporarily resurrected as a shield against those deemed unfit to wield authority.
Progressives have long said, and not without some justification, that their political adversaries are ideologues in pursuit of power for its own sake. As we have seen—and as a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions make clear—Progressivism and the Progressives are worse.
Catholic Schools and the Expertise They Hate
The two cases—Trump v. Wilcox and Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond—in which the three Progressives on the Court voted as a bloc, put the lie to the essential precepts of Progressivism and expose the movement for what we all know it to be: not a principled commitment to reason or results, but a justification for ruling-class preferences, wrapped in the language of progress.
First, the Oklahoma case. Talk about expertise. Despite its many and manifold flaws, there’s one thing the Catholic Church knows how to do: give kids—especially poor and minority kids—a first-class education, on the cheap.
There’s plenty of good data from New York City. Let’s use it. I suspect it’s at least representative of results across the country.
Ninety-eight percent of students attending Catholic schools in New York City graduate. Ninety-eight percent are accepted into college. And the demographics are astounding: 91 percent are minorities, 67 percent live at or below the poverty line, and 46 percent are raised in single-parent households.
Outcomes in the public school system are significantly worse, with some schools reporting graduation rates as low as 50 percent. Only 33 percent of NYC public school fourth graders are proficient in math. Seventy-two percent are reading below grade level.
Could it be investment? Nope.
Catholic schools in New York City spend, on average, $5,650 per pupil, per year.
The public schools? A staggering $35,914 per pupil, per year. And just 28 percent of their students can even read.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems the Catholic schools might be on to something. Something we might just call expertise. You’d think the Progressives would be eager to dispense with the Establishment Clause—such as it is—and lean into educators who actually know how to educate.
You’d be wrong.
As a bloc, the three Progressive justices voted to bar the establishment of a religious charter school in Oklahoma—on constitutional grounds.
Good to see we’ve got a solid bloc of constitutional originalists on the bench—when it helps shut down Catholic schools.
For the record, Chief Justice John Roberts joined Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson in opposing religious charter schools. Justice Barrett recused, so the decision of the lower court stands. There will be no Catholic charter schools in Oklahoma.
For whatever it’s worth, I think that’s probably good for charter schools generally—and good for the Church. But it’s hard not to see this as a beatdown of expertise.
The President Is the Boss
Reference to the Constitution seems like an eminently reasonable basis on which to ground a Supreme Court decision. And that’s precisely the basis the three Progressive justices relied on in the Oklahoma case.
Trump v. Wilcox? Not so much.
Before we get into the details of the case—which aren’t all that interesting—let’s look at the clause in the Constitution at issue. It reads:
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
The Constitution is full of vague language that can, and often does, mean whatever the reader wants it to mean. The Second Amendment is a case in point.
But this? This could not possibly be more clear. No elaboration is needed, and none is possible.
The President is the boss. End of story.
And the new boss—largely the same as the old boss—is unacceptable to Progressives, especially the Progressive bloc on the Court.
The Constitution—the very same Constitution that kinda-sorta prohibits religious public schools—could not be more clear about who wields the executive power of the United States. And if “executive” means anything at all, it means the power to pick your own people and to fire those who oppose your program.
Indeed, Progressives rally to the President and the exercise of his constitutional power—when it suits them.
Executive Power for Me, Not for Thee
In 2021, President Joe Biden fired the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, despite an explicit provision in the law stating that he could only be removed “for cause.” “Being a Trump appointee” was not among the listed reasons.
The Supreme Court—conservative majority and all—upheld Biden’s decision. The Trump appointee was fired. Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the majority.
But both Kagan and Breyer’s replacement, Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson, opposed a nearly identical assertion of executive authority when the President in question was Donald Trump.
There may not be a cleaner example of outcome-based jurisprudence. It reduces to: Orange Man Bad.
That may be true. But don’t insult my intelligence by dressing up silly partisan vendettas and ruling-class preferences as principled progressive governance. If the principles only matter when they help your side, then what you’re running isn’t a government—it’s a partisan power grab.
Leave Us Alone
Let’s be clear: all sides of this debate are wrong, and spectacularly so. The federal government has no business whatsoever intruding into education, housing, or health care—no matter how loudly the left or right insists otherwise. These sectors, choked by decades of meddling and regulatory overreach, are now incomprehensibly expensive and barely functional. Public schools deliver a 22 percent on-grade reading level and still have the nerve to ask for more. No—not ask. Demand.
There’s no clause in the Constitution—and no appeal to “expertise”—that justifies any of it. The best people to set housing policy are buyers, sellers, builders, and bankers. Education policy? That’s for parents and teachers. Health care? Doctors and patients.
Not Elena Kagan. Not John Roberts. Not Joe Biden. Not Donald Trump.
These parts of American life are broken because we’ve handed the keys to people with credentials who smear a patina of intellectual sophistication on their corrupt pursuit of the perquisites of power. They call it governance. I call it criminality.
We’d all be better off left to our own—not inconsiderable—devices.
Expertise in the Bleachers
I consider myself something of an expert on baseball. I’ve followed the game for over six decades. Played it as a kid. Pitched a perfect game once. I argued—persuasively, I’d say—with my father that Curt Flood’s free agency case would be good for the sport, that it would bring better athletes into the game.
Was I right? Duh.
I even read Moneyball. And watched the movie.
If anyone ought to be in charge of baseball, it’s me. I’ve got the credentials. I’ve got the track record. I’m an expert.
And I want the job.
But here’s the problem: I’m also a partisan. I am a rabid fan of my beloved Philadelphia Phillies. I genuinely question the ethics—and frankly, the intelligence—of Mets and Dodgers fans. If you gave me the gavel, I’d rule against the Dodgers every damn time. And I’d do it with a straight face, solemnly citing “the rules” or “the good of the game.”
Because baseball is better when the Dodgers lose.
Everybody knows that.
Which brings me back to the Court, and to the Progressives who claim to rule by expertise, guided only by outcomes and reason. Maybe they even believe it—although I doubt it.
From where I sit, it looks a lot like Phillies-style fandom in a black robe. And if we’re just rooting for outcomes that flatter our side, let’s at least be honest about it.
Honesty?
Fat chance.