The "Deep State" is not real. The "Deep State" is not real. The "Deep State" is not real.

Like, there are plenty of reasons to criticize the government. The continuity of federal bureacrats isn't one of them.

The term first garnered usage in political theory as referring to state functionaries who did not change when administrations did, e.g., your local DMV worker works where she does no matter who your governor is. This was seen as a positive thing, as day-to-day...

government operations could continue impeded even during transitions, and people whose jobs were largely non-political and functional could continue their work unimpeded by political change. Your DMV worker, for example, continues processing your license renewal...

despite who the president or governor or your state is, and that's a good thing. But sometime around the 90s, a bunch of Turks got together with transnational drug dealers to eliminate ethnic Kurds, and the Turkish version of the term took on a sinister caste, that of a state...

"within-a-state," or a sort of shadow government immune from political pressure or liabilities because their networks of power were so far outside of either the administrative or political states that no pressure could be brought to bear upon them.

The idea that such a cartel operates within the United States is SQUARELY in the realm of political fantasy. While it is undoubtedly true that organizations and agencies within the government act in such a way as the Turkish government did with the drug dealers...

the notion that it is somehow organized or has a common set of goals is where the fantasy enters. Consider something like BATFE gun running, which came to light with the "Fast and Furious" scandal. Gun running programs are done all the time, and this particular program...

started with the AZ local office of the BATFE during the Bush years. Obviously, in a hierarchical state, there's no to little direct oversight from DC over the state branches, and so no one in DC probably knew or cared that AZ was running guns to Mexico.

After all, it's a valid investigatory technique to find out where the concentrations of power are. But because of idiot local dipshittery in AZ, the program got out of hand during the Obama era and the gun runners lost track of some guns they were running... big fucking "oops!"

The AZ office continued its business across two administrations with little to no oversight because that's how federalism and bureaucracies *work*, not because someone in DC blessed the program . That's why it's BS to hang it at either Bush or Obama's door. It's not their fault.

But it does illustrate how the day-to-day business of the state continues regardless of who is at the helm. It is not evidence of some great "conspiracy" by these groups to undermine federal or presidential authority. It's just how business is done.

Administratively, micromanaging an apparatus as big as the federal government would be impossible. You could fill every available minute of every day with work and still not make a dent in it. The federal system only WORKS because so much executive business is administrative.

The reason Congress outsources rulemaking authority to agencies isn't some nefarious plot to let unelected bureaucrats run everything and put gold fringe on flags; it's because in a nation of 330 million people that stretches across a continent, you don't have a choice.

Most people don't (or can't) understand this, because large numbers defeat the human brain. Your economy of scale doesn't possess a factor to let you know how difficult that would be. You think running the country is like running your 6-employee small business.

But on such a massive scale as the USA, a core of unelected, non-political functionaries at all levels of government must exist just to make the machine run, including at investigatory, intelligence, regulatory, and diplomatic agencies.

These agencies largely run according to their own devices and plans, maybe with some general "feel good" mission statement dictated by Cabinet-level or above figures, with little oversight from the President.

The same is true of regulatory agencies, which get their mission from Congress and generally act according to that mission, with perhaps review every few years as the enabling legislation comes due again.

While there may be individuals within this apparatus that are corrupted or venal, the entire apparatus is so large that any individual malfeasance is subsumed within the larger machinery. To orchestrate a conspiracy a la the Turkish model would require corruption on a scale...

so far outside the normal understanding of how governments work as to be impossible. To have that many disparate parts working toward a single unifying goal in any meaningful way would be the greatest feat of management EVER.

So either George Soros and Bill Gates are the world's most premiere managers, capable of carrying out a shadow government within the United States with precision and control unseen at any level of government or business before, or... the whole "deep state" conspiracy is bullshit.

Ockham's Razor tells me the more parsimonious theory is the correct one. So either I must posit the existence of god-like managers whose powers of mind control outstrip even Scientology's, or... the "deep state" conspiracy is 101% pure Grade AAA bullshit.