I am only writing this because I stumbled across this viral tweet.
Which contains an info graphic from a “TikTok focused disinformation researcher” named Abbie Richards which depicts “The Conspiracy Chart.” In this chart, Abbie lists out conspiracies in a spectrum from “things that actually happened” all the way to ideas “detached from reality” that “promote hatred towards marginalized groups.” Now I tend to think Twitter is a cesspool where nuanced analysis goes to die, and I even believe a lot of the goofy concepts on this chart are rightly framed as ludicrous.[1] However, one “conspiracy theory” that she put at the far end of detachment from reality and past the “antisemitic point of no return” is The Deep State and I find that to be ridiculous. The deep state is very much a real thing and ignoring or discrediting the concept is dangerous.
From the outset let me say – this is not a political piece. I am not a republican, conservative, or Trump-supporter.[2] I think the current political divide in the US is ridiculous and little better than distraction. Politics are useless and the culture wars are fake; however the deep state is not. Though the concept of the deep state was utilized by Trump – that doesn’t make it any less real.[3] I can understand people having qualms with what Trump had to say about the deep state, but cannot accept denialism about its existence.
Edward Snowden calls Trump “the worst of politicians” and still admits there is a deep state in the US. Rolling Stone calls the deep state a conspiracy theory then asks: “Is there actually a deep state? If you mean entrenched bureaucracy, then of course there is.” The Guardian admits the deep state exists; so too do NPR and PBS; and the list goes on. The deep state is not an antisemitic conspiracy theory it is a well-known concept with very real implications for every American.
The term Deep State originated in the 1990’s from the Turkish term derin devlet to describe autonomous coalitions of individuals and institutions, both in and out of the government, that work together towards their own ends and outside of the reach of democratic processes. In Turkey it was primarily composed of high-level elements within the bodies of the military, intelligence, law enforcement, judiciary, and organized crime.
The term since then has gone on to describe networks of institutions and persons in countries across the globe. As former congressional aide, Mike Lofgren, applies it to the US: The Deep State is, “a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.” High level, the deep state represents the collusion of agencies and institutions to act outside of the constitutional, democratic, or representative process. Evidence of its existence pops up all over the place once one knows where and how to look.
For some salient confirmation, simply observe where exactly the majority of rulemaking takes place within our government. The Constitution states that only Congress has the ability to pass laws. Yet the non-democratically elected bodies of the bureaucratic state create more laws and rules than the House and Senate do: in 2020 Congress passed 178 laws, while Federal Agencies issued 3,353 rules. The seat of power for government has been taken out of the control of the electorate and placed in unelected hands. To attempt to even wrap one’s mind around the gigantic size of these behemoth unrepresentative institutions is a task in itself. Nobody even really knows how many federal agencies actually exist, such is the Kafkaesque reality that we are living in.
Deep state legitimacy is further exemplified through the level of impunity with which bureaucrats and bureaucratic agencies act. Recent examples include:
Director of CIA, John Brennan, lying about his agency’s unconstitutional spying on Senate staffers who were investigating CIA torture practices. Or his repeated lying about the existence of civilian casualties from drone strikes.
IRS director, Lois Lerner, who oversaw the political targeting through audits of fringe right and left-wing organizations, refusing to testify before the Senate and destroying evidence subject to subpoena.[4]
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, admitting to lying under oath to the Senate about NSA spying on civilians. Then later claiming he only gave the “least untruthful” answer possible.
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, usurping the nuclear launch chain of command by stating that he would halt any nuclear launches.[5]
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe lying to federal investigators about leaking information to the media.
Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, and NIH Director, Anthony Fauci, admitting to lying to the public about mask wearing for their own good.
All of these actions, which were direct insults to democratic process and constitutional checks and balances, took place without retribution.
Perhaps the most genius idea to come out of the enlightenment was the conception that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The designed division and balance of powers built into the US government was a direct result of this. It was meant to ward off corrupting centralization of power, but these bureaucratic agencies were designed to be undemocratic. Woodrow Wilson, largely considered one of the most important founding figures of public administration, directly stated that government bureaucracy should be a tool outside the confinement of public opinion and oversight.
Further, the auspices of the Deep State are no longer bounded just within government. Capitalism and statism grow together. The state wants to capture and benefit from the tax revenue and influence of large corporations and enterprise, and large corporations want to capture the state and the regulators, legal monopolies, contracts, and military protection it provides. This is why we have seen the continued co-mingling and blurred-lines between the state and private sphere. The deep state is now a hybrid of government and big business.
In 1961 Eisenhower warned against the Military Industrial Complex, 60 years later there are more private contractors that hold top secret security clearances than employees of the government who hold them. Indeed 70% of our intelligence budget goes to private firms.
Further, Eisenhower warned about the encroachment and influence of government bureaucrats on technology and science. We now witness big tech companies being paid millions in “shadow revenue” by the NSA to cover up for illegal surveillance. Given this, is it any surprise Google would allow the justice department access to search history data. Or that Google actually plans on partnering more with the Pentagon in the future.
Private corporations also enjoy the impunity of rule breaking that bureaucrats do. In 2009 Congress retroactively gave immunity to AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom companies for their illegal assistance in NSA wiretapping.
It is often hard to tell where big government ends and where big corporations begin. In March of 2001, months before 9/11 or any war in the Middle East was underway, Dick Cheyney had a map dividing up the oil fields of Iraq between the energy companies that he had formerly been a captain of industry of.
In 2008, a Citigroup executive, Michael Froman, at the height of the Global Financial Crisis, hand-picked who would be in Obama’s cabinet. Froman is an interesting person, as he sat on both the National Economic and National Security Councils, and prior to joining Citigroup he was Chief of Staff of the US Treasury, and after he left investment banking he became Trade Representative to White House, after which he became Vice Chairman of Mastercard. He is a great example of the revolving door between regulators and the supposedly regulated.
For more examples of revolving doormen see Scott Gottlieb who was a former FDA Commissioner and is now on the Pfizer Board of Directors. Or Stephen Hahn, another former FDA Commissioner, who is currently the Chief Medical Officer of Flagship Pioneering the Venture Capital fund behind Moderna.
Now as alluded to before, our TikTok researcher Abbie likely denounces the concept of the deep state because doing so would help undermine conservatives and be a tally-mark in the win column for her political team. Again, I do not have a side in the puerile bickering between the right and left. Though I will note it is immensely telling that a side effect of the culture wars – the dynamic actively dividing Americans and keeping them constantly at each other’s throats – is a dismissal of the looming, nefarious, antidemocratic power of the deep state.
Divide and conquer strategies have been a leitmotif of political history, from Caesar’s conquest of Gaul to British Colonial rule in India, the Middle East, and Africa. If one were to design an autocratic body and the divide and conquer strategy it would utilize to maintain control in today’s world – one would be hard pressed to come up with an illustration better than the deep state and the divide between the right and left.
It is jarring to juxtapose the swiftness of deep state government action like enacting war or handing out of corporate bailouts, with the theater of gridlock that is put on for other issues of state, like ensuring benefits for the population or building useful infrastructure. Some may even call it insulting to witness the regular flouting of rules and laws by bureaucrats and corporate executives in a nation that has the largest prison population in the world, both on a per capita and absolute basis. In so far as people are willing to blame democrats or republicans for this and not the system itself they are acting in futility, while the power of those in control becomes more thoroughly entrenched.
I would like to leave with is a quick note about the historical precedent of authoritarian blends of state and private interest, in the hope that it can relay the gravity of the implication of a deep state and what can go wrong if it is blithely ignored.
The often-unmentioned aspect that was central to the rise of Hitler & Mussolini was the concept of economic fascism, or the melding of business and industry with government. Paraphrasing DiLorenzo, government-orchestrated collaboration with private industry in 1930’s Italy and Germany was necessary for fascism because the tight grip of fascist power depended on controlling and mandating economic outcomes. A sine qua non facet of fascism was an utter disregard for input from citizens. As Mussolini wrote “The Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State.”
For the complete control of their countries both Hitler and Mussolini deemed that a comprehensive hybridization of the public and private spheres was necessary. And further that the locus of control of these hybridized institutions was tucked far away from the interests or input of individual citizens.
The goal of a perfect joining of industry and government into one authoritarian regime was echoed in the draconian communism of the USSR and within the ominous private-public partnerships of the World Economic Forum.
Everywhere it has been or seeks to go, this blend of undemocratic collusion between business and state has led to tragedy. There is a serious implication of a deep state, and it is nothing to dismiss as conspiracy theory.
[1] I don’t even know what Tartaria is, nor do I really care to find out.
[2] It is incredibly sad commentary that people have to do this little dance in today’s political theater
[3] Though I am not surprised that many people on the opposite side of the political divide automatically disagree with Trump – just look at what they had to say about vaccines before he left office.
[4] In general, with its ability to deem and regulate the tax exempt status of political bodies, religious orgs, and philanthropies, the IRS can be seen an unconstitutional arbiter in all three areas of American life.
[5] It should be noted the command of nuclear launches does not rest with the trigger-happy military by design.