The Deep State and its real motives

ponderingturtle said:
Functionally yes, practically no. Deep State is also the idea that the bureaucracy is fundamentally partisan and engaging in political manipulation. It isn't just reframing it in more frightening language but attributing motive and effect. See the writing off of the FBI as being entirely out to get Trump the whole time and so on.
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It also works under the assumption that disagreeing with Trump's actions, or even pointing out when they are illegal, is inherently partisan rather than, you know, doing their jobs. The same could be said about Trump's anti-press campaign.
 
Pterodactyl said:
Somebody before made the argument that the terms "Deep State" and "Bureaucracy" have effectively the same meanings.
Deep state sounds much more insidious, but ultimately we know there is validity to the idea of bureaucracy, so it's a concept worth discussing in the current, and any political context.
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Beureaucratic inertia is a real thing, as career civil service employees may be less than enthusiastic about carrying out policies they don't like. When the policies are the kind of idiocy that Trump is promoting, it might actually be a good thing.

However, the notion that this constitutes some kind of conspiracy to subvert the will of the people is laughable. Rush's notion that the "deep state" deliberately fed misinformation to the Bush administration about WMD in Iraq is so beyond ridiculous. The Bush administration flat out ignored anything that didn't fit their agenda to invade Iraq. They weren't fooled by the "deep state"; they fooled themselves.

The only real alternative to beureucratic inertia would be to give the executive branch the authority to fire government employees at will, which would lead inevitably back to all Federal jobs being filled by political patronage, a cure far worse than the disease.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I thought the subject of the alleged "Deep State" probably deserved a thread of its own. Especially as I couldn't think of a suitable thread in which to post this fun nugget: Rush Limbaugh opines that the Deep State were responsible for planting fake evidence about Saddam Hussain having WMD's, in order to embarrass Bush

It's quite a versatile theory, this "Deep State" - you can use it to excuse anything by anybody, it seems.
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I guess Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich are the Deep State. The NSA archive releasing a pile of memos the day after this showing the Bush Admin was looking for any reason to invade Iraq back in 2001 is serendipitous timing.
 
I always think Deep State sounds like a hidden subterranean kingdom of mole people. We should make friends with them, they know where all the gold and oil is!
 
Pterodactyl said:
I see your point (and this is the point that I think is worth debating about the use of the term) but a bureaucracy tends to act as a moderating force on political extremes in either direction, if by no other means than its inefficiency in implementation of changes. So, i think for someone like Trump, or conversely if Bernie had been elected, a bureaucracy is always going to seem like it is partisan even if it really is not.
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Right... the idea of a bureaucratic inertia seems to be an important part of the American Founders' vision. It's the reason the Seal has a pyramid on it. It represents the state, which is solid and hard to move, while inept or malevolent elected representatives come and go.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I thought the subject of the alleged "Deep State" probably deserved a thread of its own. Especially as I couldn't think of a suitable thread in which to post this fun nugget: Rush Limbaugh opines that the Deep State were responsible for planting fake evidence about Saddam Hussain having WMD's, in order to embarrass Bush

It's quite a versatile theory, this "Deep State" - you can use it to excuse anything by anybody, it seems.
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As Stacko wrote, this is a great example of how patently stupid this conspiracy theory is. When you talk to the actual people in this supposed "Deep State", you quickly discover that it's full of career bureaucrats that see it as a duty to provide elected officials with the best possible data and analysis regardless of the party of said officials. So, for example, the reports of Russia interfering with Dolt 45's admin isn't some incredible "deep state" conspiracy, it's something that the workers warned him (and Clinton, and likely every other candidate who had a chance of winning) about, and that they told them the consequences of - and which his team immediately ignored, and thus set themselves up for prosecution and bribery.

...now that I think about it, pretty much any time the idiot in chief complains about some "deep state", it's been about someone warning him that his policies are harmful for every purpose except for him and his cronies stuffing money into their pockets. It doesn't shock me to see other bigoted conspiracy theorists like Limbaugh (along with left wing nuts like Jimmy Dore) eagerly taking up the same talking point.

That's not to say that intelligence is perfect - in particular, "analysis" is often an educated guess based on collected but possibly flawed data. Yes, COINTELPRO was a genuine conspiracy, as shown by evidence. Yes, there were career workers who thought it possible that Hussein had WMDs. But we know of COINTELPRO precisely because of additional data, and the "Saddam has WMDs!" case was wildly overstated by non-career officials, and should have ended for good when the UN inspectors turned up nothing.

More importantly, both are cases of elected or appointed officials getting out of pocket, rather than some evil conspiracy among analysts or field workers. J. Edgar Hoover, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Dolt 45 and family - all are examples of corrupt people manipulating data and analysis for their own ends. And all had the power to do so via either election or appointment.

ETA: Simply put, the reason that the career folks tend to push against Republicans is that they're the folks that are tasked with collecting and analyzing data and prosecuting corruption, and over the past couple of decades, the Republicans have been the major source of corruption and routinely ignore facts and reason.
 
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Well, it's certainly a conspiracy theory. But since it's one that's touted seriously by the POTUS, I think a thread discussing it belongs in USA Politics.

Still, if you want to, feel free to report it to the mods, and they can decide.
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I'm a vote for leaving it in the USA politics because it's going to get thick around here in the next month or two with the Trumpers trying to stir this up as a means of getting their base to disbelieve Mueller's findings.

I suspect their goal is to make sure the GOP legislators either have an out for not impeaching the POTUS or they actually want to convince the legislators that indeed the case against Trump is fabricated.
 
Pterodactyl said:
Somebody before made the argument that the terms "Deep State" and "Bureaucracy" have effectively the same meanings.
Deep state sounds much more insidious, but ultimately we know there is validity to the idea of bureaucracy, so it's a concept worth discussing in the current, and any political context.
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"Bureaucracy" is not being asserted as the reason Dumpy Trumpy is being persecuted.
 
ahhell said:
My two cents:
Its a scare label but:

If you mean a concerted effort with the government bureaucracy to achieve particular political goals, that almost certain doesn't exist and in the absence of more evidence, is just a CT.

If you mean, government bureaucrats have incentives that mean they tend to support particular political goals and these biases result in bureaucracies collectively acting to aid or hinder the agenda of elected officials then you probably have point worth talking about. Numerous cabinet secretaries have complained about how hard it is to get the bureaucracies to change. If anything should be taken from Benghazi its that this form of the "Deep State" occasionally gets people killed.

I do think the second form almost certainly benefits Democrat administrations. Seriously, if you have a boss who got his job in part by promising to get rid of a bunch of jobs in your department, reduce your benefits, and make you work harder, you're not going to give it your all to advance their agenda.
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:boggled: There's some serious twisting of the facts there. I'll have to get back to them later.
 
Hans said:
The Deep State is just a facade for the Deep Hidden Inner Secret State (DHISS) yah gotta watch out for
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D'uh!

I don't quite get it that some people in the thread think "deep state" is something other than a trumped up scam to distract from the Trump-Russia investigation.
 
I thought "Deep State" was basically Illuminati-lite. I see it used in essentially the same contexts.

Want to sound edgy but slightly less crazy than PrisonPlaneteers? Just say "deep state."
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Turns out that the Strzok/Page emails contain an exchange in which they are both angered by a suggestion from someone who doesn't work for the FBI that they misuse FBI resources in order to help Clinton and harm Trump
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If they were part of a “deep state” operation to keep Trump from being elected, weaponizing government power to target a critic of the FBI and root out anti-Clinton forces within the bureau would’ve been a pretty solid move.
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Face palm....
 
isissxn said:
I thought "Deep State" was basically Illuminati-lite. I see it used in essentially the same contexts.

Want to sound edgy but slightly less crazy than PrisonPlaneteers? Just say "deep state."
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Yeah, this is a classic CT.
 
Forget the Deep State, what about the Deep State WITHIN the Deep State? So deep that it hits the bottom of the Marianas Trench....

Deep stuff, I know. :D
 
But to be serious for a minute, wouldn't the Deepest parts of the Deep State be the lowest-level, greenest analysts in the CIA and the NSA? Doesn't seem like they'd have much power, to be quite honest.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
I thought the subject of the alleged "Deep State" probably deserved a thread of its own. Especially as I couldn't think of a suitable thread in which to post this fun nugget: Rush Limbaugh opines that the Deep State were responsible for planting fake evidence about Saddam Hussain having WMD's, in order to embarrass Bush

It's quite a versatile theory, this "Deep State" - you can use it to excuse anything by anybody, it seems.
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And the loony wing of the Left uses it just as much as the loony wing of the Right.
 
dudalb said:
And the loony wing of the Left uses it just as much as the loony wing of the Right.
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Big difference, which you continuously overlook when you foist this equivalency from your middle-ground high horse...

The loony left is by and large a fringe phenomenon. Whereas the loony right is running the country.
 
varwoche said:
Big difference, which you continuously overlook when you foist this equivalency from your middle-ground high horse...

The loony left is by and large a fringe phenomenon. Whereas the loony right is running the country.
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And my greatest fear is the the Loony Left takes over the Democratic party and we end up with a choice between two extremes.....
 
varwoche said:
Big difference, which you continuously overlook when you foist this equivalency from your middle-ground high horse...

The loony left is by and large a fringe phenomenon. Whereas the loony right is running the country.
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I think you might be underestimating how much influence far-left ideas have had.

In any case, both the loony left and the loony right are trying to control your life, so we should be concerned in both cases.
 
Whenever I witness clueless people honestly inquiring into topics like this, I ask them to do a little homework for themselves (and don't bother me with quickly found answers): How come we are fighting a "war on terror" in Afghanistan for so many years now, with the drug industry being a main funding source for terrorism, while the country has for all those years been the top - meaning almost monopolist - opium producer, and the US has been for all those years the top heroin consumer. Good luck!
 
So was it the Deep State that restarted the Hillary Investigation a week before the election? Was it the Deep State that was investigating her in the first place for no good reason at all?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
I'm a vote for leaving it in the USA politics because it's going to get thick around here in the next month or two with the Trumpers trying to stir this up as a means of getting their base to disbelieve Mueller's findings.

I suspect their goal is to make sure the GOP legislators either have an out for not impeaching the POTUS or they actually want to convince the legislators that indeed the case against Trump is fabricated.
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The legislators aren't that stupid. Bigoted? Yes. Hypocritical? Yes. But not that stupid.

What it will do is convince the voters they need to primary any competition that doesn't toe the party line. Give them cover to support any lies they want to spout.

A voice of reason is the quickest way to talk yourself out of winning any GOP primary these days.
 
I dunno what's going to happen. I only know what needs to happen. But not exactly how it needs to happen.

Whatever ends up happening to Trump should at least serve as a warning to Grand Inquisitor Pence.

They both need to be seriously checked and balanced. I'm not at all sure Pence isn't worse than Trump. But it's looking increasingly likely that Trump will end up having to chew his foot off and make a run for Russia. So it's not too early to start thinking about who is going to be keeping an eye on Grand Inquisitor Pence.

Which immediately disqualifies the GOP. And 40% of the electorate.

The remaining 60% are as fractious as a herd of wildebeest. They could go stampeding off in any direction at any time. So there's going to be lots of counterprods in lion suits trying to stampede them into the informational gulags, where they can be permanently imprisoned, to the collective detriment of all of humankind. So whatever part of humankind doesn't have it's head screwed on backward needs to start trying to calm these wildebeest down (without de-energizing them) and get them headed toward the polls.

I'm not talking about the Trumpkins. They're crazy-ass, wall-eyed counterprods until they die. Don't waste time trying to deprogram them. Maybe tell them the Antichrist is coming and they need to not vote or anything, lest they accidentally vote for the Antichrist and get tatooed. Just kick back, enjoy the show, and wait to be smugly raptured up.
 
dudalb said:
And my greatest fear is the the Loony Left takes over the Democratic party and we end up with a choice between two extremes.....
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Why are you worrying about what might happen when there is no evidence of any such movement growing, while there is an actual alt-right wing promoting ridiculous fear mongering that there is a deep state conspiracy against Trump, all the while working to make charges of his criminal (family) enterprise go away?
 
Travis said:
So was it the Deep State that restarted the Hillary Investigation a week before the election?
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Absolutely ! How else were they going to ensure that President Trump was elected so that they could go on to undermine him :boggled: :p
 
Is anyone worried that with Fox News naming agents and saying they are trying to Coup Trump that someone might take some vigilante justice out on them?

I mean last night Lou Dobbs openly said that a huge portion of the FBI needs to be taken into custody for treason.
 
Toontown said:
Whatever ends up happening to Trump should at least serve as a warning to Grand Inquisitor Pence.
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So...being ripped apart and hung from the White House gates by a pussy-hat wearing angry mob?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Why are you worrying about what might happen when there is no evidence of any such movement growing, while there is an actual alt-right wing promoting ridiculous fear mongering that there is a deep state conspiracy against Trump, all the while working to make charges of his criminal (family) enterprise go away?
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Some might see the popularity in the last election of Bernie Sanders as evidence of such a movement.
 
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