Isn't it time to drop the "Deep State" nonsense once and for all?

[pecksniff]

It does not exist, at least not in the form Trump describes, if that is not too strong a word. There is a "permanent government" of career civil servants who remain in place regardless of how elections go, but every country has (and needs) one of those -- there is nothing sinister or alarming about it.

 

[phrodeau]

It’s the district courts and the IRS that worry Trump.

 

[Tigersman]

The only "Deep State" was the one Trump installed and Biden is having to weed out.

 

[DanDraper]

The only "Deep State" was the one Trump installed and Biden is having to weed out.

Exactly. He spent years, firing people for doing their jobs and giving pro-trump people key positions in various areas, especially in the last few weeks of his presidency. he tried, and failed, to create his own deep state and claim it was everyone else that was doing it as another one of his many conspiracy theories.



....

 

[2021Noobie]

As soon as the Postmaster is fired
Until then, the Deep State lives

 

[ShyBiGuy954]

https://64.media.tumblr.com/04288a4d4207015f5a7839cf0d276954/cf2ad0db1dfd2697-79/s540x810/946e1ae664fd6b25194814e77a06d25a69e52f9b.jpg

 

[pecksniff]

https://64.media.tumblr.com/04288a4d4207015f5a7839cf0d276954/cf2ad0db1dfd2697-79/s540x810/946e1ae664fd6b25194814e77a06d25a69e52f9b.jpg

What's that got to do with this?

 

[pecksniff]

Trump never did "drain the swamp," whatever that was supposed to mean.

 

[pecksniff]

There is a Deep State, it's just not what Trump says it is. Check out The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, by long-time Washington insider Mike Lofgren. The Deep State is a grouping of some (not all) federal agencies, plus some private corporations, mainly in Silicon Valley. It remains in power no matter how elections go. Its political function is to police the boundaries of the Overton Window and prevent serious consideration of anything that falls outside the "Washington Consensus" -- neoliberalism in economic policy, neoconservatism in foreign policy. That's frustrating to anyone who wants any fundamental change, but it's hardly alarming or sinister.

 

[Rightguide]

It does not exist, at least not in the form Trump describes, if that is not too strong a word. There is a "permanent government" of career civil servants who remain in place regardless of how elections go, but every country has (and needs) one of those -- there is nothing sinister or alarming about it.

You're an idiot, it does exist. The Deep State is a reference to those people or departments in the administrative state ("bureaucracy" for the mentally lame) who are politicized to the point of opposition to the elected executive, or pursue policy interests of their own, instead of those expressed through the election process by the American people themselves. Every country, with a democratic form of government, "does not" need a cabal of entrenched fifth columnists working to assure that change expressed by the voters never occurs. The bottom line in America is all of those in government work for us.

 

[Rightguide]

There is a Deep State,

You just said in your very first post, "it does not exist."

 

[pecksniff]

You just said in your very first post, "it does not exist."

"at least not as Trump describes it."

 

[pecksniff]

You're an idiot, it does exist. The Deep State is a reference to those people or departments in the administrative state ("bureaucracy" for the mentally lame) who are politicized to the point of opposition to the elected executive, or pursue policy interests of their own, instead of those expressed through the election process by the American people themselves.

Except as described in post #9, there is no evidence any such thing exists.

 

[Rightguide]

"at least not as Trump describes it."

It's the same as he understands it, and as I have described it. You are naïve and uninformed. The real truth is, it's worse than we think.

 

[Rightguide]

Except as described in post #9, there is no evidence any such thing exists.

Obviously none your limited perception and overall bias will allow.

 

[ShyBiGuy954]

What's that got to do with this?

FBI, CIA, assorted media underground operations, AKA: deep state

 

[pecksniff]

It's the same as he understands it, and as I have described it. You are naïve and uninformed. The real truth is, it's worse than we think.

The real truth is in post #9. See also here, also by Lofgren:

There is little evidence that America will be saved by concealed and powerful forces in the manner of the shadowy Caped Crusader rescuing Gotham City from the deranged Joker, or, alternatively, that the rough-hewn populist good guy Trump is in mortal combat with the Deep State. It is true that he ran as a populist against elite institutions: the power centers of the 1 percent — Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex — mostly supported his opponent. But his actions so far have strongly reinforced rather than weakened their position.

A glance at the membership of the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum shows they are flocking to his side, with masters of financial buccaneering like Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, along with Doug McMillon of retail giant Walmart. There is even an ex-governor of the Federal Reserve Board, Bush appointee Kevin Warsh. This is hardly a populist revolution of the kind preached by John Steinbeck’s Tom Joad.

 

[zipman]

Trump never did "drain the swamp," whatever that was supposed to mean.

It didn't have to mean anything. His mouth breathing supporters just love a good 3 syllable chant.

Drain the swamp
Build the wall
Lock her up

Anything longer and they got confused.

 

[Earthlyone]

All countries have their "deep state". It is just the largely faceless, embedded vested interest throughout all the major institutions that collectively ensure that the status quo remains the same for the privileged elites. To suggest no such thing exists is naive in the extreme.

How active this deep state is depends on the nature of the government of the day; it was pretty dormant throughout Obama's time because that administration wasn't a threat to the elites, whereas it had to work overtime against Trump.

 

[pecksniff]

. . . whereas it had to work overtime against Trump.

See post #17.

 

[ShyBiGuy954]

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a15e647736f688ae9ad86dc90d560505/ee043457608ce272-1c/s1280x1920/6c1e07d59ab014ed5227caf682b1d07ce7a4c3ed.jpg

 

[LincolnDuncan]

You're an idiot, it does exist. The Deep State is a reference to those people or departments in the administrative state ("bureaucracy" for the mentally lame) who are politicized to the point of opposition to the elected executive, or pursue policy interests of their own, instead of those expressed through the election process by the American people themselves. Every country, with a democratic form of government, "does not" need a cabal of entrenched fifth columnists working to assure that change expressed by the voters never occurs. The bottom line in America is all of those in government work for us.

Proof, propagandist?

 

[LincolnDuncan]

It didn't have to mean anything. His mouth breathing supporters just love a good 3 syllable chant.

Drain the swamp
Build the wall
Lock her up

Anything longer and they got confused.

Exactly, trump supporters live for bullet points. It enables them to believe that they know wtf they're talking about.

 

[nowisthetime]

There's one thing about deplorables, they lack general intelligence and empathy, but man, are they tenacious.

 

[ShyBiGuy954]

https://64.media.tumblr.com/41837f80be533f4d63ff0f275e3f5de6/d695f40361efeb6e-29/s1280x1920/e4eb7699217d658209c6ff5a2dc2273102ca7e71.jpg