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Of course, most proponents of #RuleOfLaw would object to these outcomes—the Holocaust, slavery, an unrestrained Donald Trump. But all of these are perfectly, completely legal under the constitution of an allegedly liberal democracy!

And thus one of the contradictions inherent to the concept of Rule of Law. Its proponents understand it to mean certain kinds of *outcomes* they associate with “liberal democracy” regardless of the actual laws involved or the legal processes in place for adjudicating and interpreting these laws.

When people advocate for Rule of Law, in other words, they tend to mean “the production of legal outcomes we see as good and just,” not the equal and dispassionate application of actual laws.