A daily check-in on news and social media feeds reflects great chaos in our national life. The hundreds of legacy and social media sources offering a scatter shot, 360 degree spectrum of perspectives on Iran, gas prices, Wall Street, AI, China, redistricting, uncontrolled spending, scandals, etc., is, in a word, exhausting. Is it any wonder more Americans are tuning out?
Why and how did we get to this point in our national discourse? For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Supreme Court Justice Thomas recently zeroed in on the root cause of the chaos in a speech at the University of Texas. During his talk, Thomas gave a stringent defense of the “self-evident truths” recognized in our Declaration of Independence. In contrast to the wisdom of the Founders, Thomas criticized the turn-of-the-twentieth century social engineer progressives who rejected our founding truths and the freedoms they guaranteed and opted instead for a trust in government to solve every problem the modern world presented. Citing progressivism’s “many inroads into our system of government,” Thomas warned that “it is unclear whether [the Declaration’s] principles will endure.” He stated, correctly, that because progressivism opposes the Declaration’s principles, “it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.”
While the Founders proclaimed self-evident truths, progressives ridicule, undercut and deny the very idea of truth. Another Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., called truth “the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others.” In other words, if 51% of the nation says something is true, then it is. With that premise, however, there is nothing to prevent the 51% from enslaving the 49%. Regrettably, Holmes’ thinking has not yet reached the ash heap of history. Advocates for Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, for example, are comfortable with the radical subjectivism that denies the inalienable right to life of an entire class of human beings. After all, as we were told in Casey, “at the heart of liberty is the right to determine one’s own concept of existence, of meaning of the mystery of human life.” Although Roe and Casey are no longer the law of the land, the relativistic philosophy inherent in what was an “exercise of raw judicial power” lives on.
Because relativism denies the existence of truth, it is no leap at all for relativists and progressives to deny the “self-evident” truths in our Declaration. With those truths out of the way, the path to unbridled power is opened. Just look at Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia and Mao and Xi’s China. Hitler’s and Stalin’s anti-human, anti-universal truth experiments are over; China will face the same fate, as will any system built on relativism. That is because relativism itself is a lie. It proclaims the universal truth that there are no universal truths, except the truth that there are no universal truths. Be careful which universal truth you choose.
Just in time for this debate on truth, Pope Leo XIV recently released a teaching on the magnificence of humanity in which he addresses this crisis:
“Those who command powerful technological and economic resources, along with substantial human capital for intervention, possess significant capabilities for influencing cultural change. Ultimately, they can influence a significant number of people concerning the truth about humanity, the world, the meaning of existence, the family and even God. This is pure power detached from truth, which subtly or overtly imposes what it wishes others to accept as true.”
While the progressive left is increasingly gunning for an all-out victory of will over truth, the voices of Justice Thomas and Pope Leo in defense of truth are in stark contrast to the voices of transactional populism seen on the American right today. Demagoguing issues that 51% of people may agree upon is not going to save America. What is needed, as Justice Thomas told his audience at the University of Texas, is the courage to defend what the Founders did. “There are too few people,” Thomas said, “who are willing to do what it takes to do the right thing, to sacrifice the popularity, flattery, comfort and security that are the purchase price for principle.” And sometimes the purchase price for principle is incredibly high. Just ask Congressman Thomas Massie.
So with the approaching 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let us summon the courage to defeat the chaos that threatens our nation and let us proclaim without equivocation the truths that are in the Declaration. And let us insist that our political leaders do the same.
(Congressman Keith Rothfus served 3 terms in the U.S. House. He is a Notre Dame Law School graduate living near Pittsburgh where he and his wife raised their family.)