[10] A convert to Catholicism, Vermeule has become an advocate of integralism, a form of modern legal and political thought originating in historically Catholic-dominant societies and opposed to the Founding Fathers' ideal of division between church and state.
Integralism in practice gives rise to state order (identifiable as theocratic) in which the Common Good has precedence over individual autonomy, the value prioritized by American democracy.
[11][12][13] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Social media Miscellaneous Other On judicial interpretation, Vermeule believes: The central question is not "How, in principle, should a text be interpreted?"
Jonathan Siegel has written that Vermeule's approach to the interpretation of law: eschews, and attempts to transcend, the main elements of the long-standing debates over methods that courts should use to interpret statutes and the Constitution ... he sees no need to resolve apparently burning questions such as whether courts are bound by what legislatures write, or by what legislatures intend ... For Vermeule, everything comes down to a simple but withering cost–benefit analysis.
[14]In 2007, Vermeule said about the United States Supreme Court that it should stay away from controversial political matters, such as abortion laws and anti-sodomy statutes and defer to Congress, as the elected representatives of the people, except in extremely obvious cases.
[5]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, according to writer Eric Levitz, the moral values of the religious right[16] would be imposed on the American people whether they, as a whole, believe in them or not.
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.
In that vein, 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.
"[17] 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.
[16][17] In a column in The Washington Post, conservative columnist George F. Will described Vermeule's "common-good constitutionalism" as "Christian authoritarianism — muscular paternalism, with government enforcing social solidarity for religious reasons.
"[24] 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.
[26] Peter J. Wallison, who served as White House Counsel during the Reagan presidency, described Vermeule's book as "more an embarrassment than a legal masterpiece" and that "the political structure he devises is highly authoritarian, perhaps even totalitarian".
Wallison complained that Vermeule "never successfully defines what he means by the common good or how it can be achieved" and for failing to understand the distinction between textualism and originalism.
[5] He said in an October 2016 interview that the logic behind his Catholic beliefs is inspired by John Henry Newman, and added: Raised a Protestant, despite all my thrashing and twisting, I eventually couldn't help but believe that the apostolic succession through Peter as the designated leader and primus inter pares is in some logical or theological sense prior to everything else – including even Scripture, whose formation was guided and completed by the apostles and their successors, themselves inspired by the Holy Spirit.