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What "The Deep State" Actually Is...and Is Not [1]
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Date: 2025-01-30
For many months now, we’ve been hearing all kinds of rhetoric from right-wing ideologues, especially from the authors of Project 2025, about how they were going to take down the “Deep State” once Donald Trump got back into office. Sure enough, since Trump has been inaugurated, he’s been ginning up hostility against the so-called Deep State conspiracy as a pretext for his fascist campaign of conquest against the entire federal government. Frankly, I’m getting sick of hearing about it.
Amidst the fog of ignorance, confusion and fear about the Deep State, I thought it high time we had a moment of clarity, rationality and reason about what the Deep State actually is — and what it is NOT. Although I’m just one small voice in the wilderness, I want to do my part to help refute the wave of right-wing Republican bullshit that threatens the democratic fabric of our country:
What The Deep State Is Not
The Deep State is not the ordinary, rank-and-file Washington bureaucracy of the Executive branch, i.e. the departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Transportation, Education, etc.; along with their various sub-entities, i.e. IRS, SSA, NTSB, CFPB, etc. Nor is it any secret cabal of high-level bureaucrats within any of those organizations. All of this is nothing more than a baseless conspiracy theory. Full stop.
What The Deep State Is
The Deep State is, in very sweeping terms, the military-industrial complex — something that has existed since before the time of Eisenhower, and with which I suspect Trump has very little quarrel. And one of its most intrusive manifestations is a deeply covert, deeply troubling program of domestic espionage, set up under the auspices of the National Security Agency during the George W. Bush administration. It’s the national security apparatus run amok, directed against innocent American citizens. As far as I know, the program is still in operation today.
About 10 years ago, there was a Frontline documentary on PBS that tells all about it. For those who can afford the time, it’s well worth checking out:
United States of Secrets, Part One
United States of Secrets, Part Two
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