Theocratic libertarianism?

A closer look at Brat’s rhetoric reveals a man who is not very populist beyond that one issue. He’s a typical libertarian (albeit with a theological twist). And so along with his commitment to end corporate welfare, one would presumably need to take the bitter with the sweet. He thinks it’s unfair that people pay less into Medicare and Social Security than they take out so these programs have to be slashed or eliminated. He believes that Obamacare should be scrapped along with employer-based insurance so that people will buy their own health policies, which will (he doesn’t say how) eliminate the problem of preexisting condition exclusions. He thinks education funding should be drastically cut. He believes that if the country is rich enough it will solve the climate crisis — because rich countries always solve their problems.

The K Street-Wall Street nexus is a scandal; as is our absurdly complex tax code (largely devised for corporate welfare and for those with expensive tax lawyers). Put that together with a left-sounding defense of the American middle-class against millions of undocumented, low-wage immigrants, and you’re beginning to get somewhere.

Brat calls himself a “Calvinist (in theory not practice)” by which he likely means that while he is a practicing Catholic, it is the Calvinist tradition that shapes his view of the world. This means at least two things: first, that there is no aspect of life outside the realm of religion, and second, that human beings left to their own devices are inherently sinful (what Calvinists refer to as Total Depravity).

These commitments play out in Brat's Interpretation essay in the form of an argument that not all biblically prohibited activities must necessarily made illegal. He is relying on the Reformed notion, popular among Tea Partiers, that God delegates limited authority to specific human spheres.

Brat notes a division between the responsibilities of the state and the church. The state, in this model, is severely restrained in its authority over economic activity. The best check on the depravity of individuals who make up the civil government is the decentralization of authority into the distinct spheres; the best check on the depravity of human beings in the economy is the decentralization of the market created by competition.

Historian Michael McVicar has this called this "theocratic libertarianism": it creates an economic zone free of government regulation, but it does not create a zone free of the regulations of religion.

This is the model in which care for the poor is the responsibility of the family and the church and any government safety net is labelled “socialism.” It is the model in which education is the sole responsibility of families, leading to the goal of eliminating public education and any state regulation of private education and home schooling. At the very heart of this version of Calvinism is the goal of bringing all areas of life “under the Lordship of Christ.”