More than 100 countries and the European Union, accounting for more than half of the world’s population, held elections in 2024. In Europe, the elections resulted in a rightward shift away from globalism toward an emphasis on national sovereignty. And the American election has seen Donald Trump secure a second, non-consecutive term as President and the Republican Party regain control of Congress. Almost as if on cue, leftists and progressives, especially after the American election, began warning the world of the impending collapse of democracy and the erosion of human rights. The U.S. Supreme Court with three Trump-appointed justices has, after all, just returned the abortion debate to the states by overturning Roe v. Wade and coronated Trump in a landmark decision on presidential immunity. The vociferous opponents of these electoral and legal developments have even claimed, according to various and complex reasons, that the U.S. Supreme Court is illegitimate and the defense of national sovereignty regressive and counterproductive.
Given this context, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the idea of government by consent of the governed and political legitimacy when the populations of Western nations seem so bitterly divided. So, Dr. Paul DeHart’s excellent and strikingly original work, The Social Contract in the Ruins: Natural Law and Government by Consent, could not have come at a better time.
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