By Mike Lofgren, former Republican U.S. Congressional aide & author of “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.”
~
As the author who popularized this term, I’m invoking the privilege of correcting them.
There is no deep state as the right imagines it — that is, a secret cabal of government insiders hellbent on undermining the White House.
Rather, it is Trump himself, under the camouflage of populist rhetoric, who has overseen the open expansion of the deep state: entrenched interests gaining outsize influence and setting their own policy agenda, unchecked by the will of the people, their elected representatives or the civil servants meant to regulate them.
✄
It seemed that whichever party controlled government, a kind of GPS ensured that the arrow always pointed in the same direction: toward money.
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“Deep state” seemed to fit: On the Hill, we used to remark how corporate lobbyists always knew the inside dope, and the dirt, first.
The real power-lobbyists tended to concentrate in a few sectors: the military-industrial complex, of course (which Dwight Eisenhower warned us about); financial services, supercharged after decades of deregulation; and information technology, with its trillion-dollar companies.
Boosted by the revolving door that lets those industries’ executives shuttle through government policy positions, and unfettered by any meaningful campaign finance limitations, that concentration of power formed the basis of the deep state.
No conspiracies in the dark of night, no grassy knoll, no Area 51. The players are known, their actions legal.
syzygy47 over 4 years ago
And Willie Wealthy, like other well heeled conservatives, hires people like you to keep people like you from people like them.
Masterskrain Premium Member over 4 years ago
America, home of the best politicians money can buy!
Silly Season over 4 years ago
By Mike Lofgren, former Republican U.S. Congressional aide & author of “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.”
~
As the author who popularized this term, I’m invoking the privilege of correcting them.
There is no deep state as the right imagines it — that is, a secret cabal of government insiders hellbent on undermining the White House.
Rather, it is Trump himself, under the camouflage of populist rhetoric, who has overseen the open expansion of the deep state: entrenched interests gaining outsize influence and setting their own policy agenda, unchecked by the will of the people, their elected representatives or the civil servants meant to regulate them.
✄
It seemed that whichever party controlled government, a kind of GPS ensured that the arrow always pointed in the same direction: toward money.
✄
“Deep state” seemed to fit: On the Hill, we used to remark how corporate lobbyists always knew the inside dope, and the dirt, first.
The real power-lobbyists tended to concentrate in a few sectors: the military-industrial complex, of course (which Dwight Eisenhower warned us about); financial services, supercharged after decades of deregulation; and information technology, with its trillion-dollar companies.
Boosted by the revolving door that lets those industries’ executives shuttle through government policy positions, and unfettered by any meaningful campaign finance limitations, that concentration of power formed the basis of the deep state.
No conspiracies in the dark of night, no grassy knoll, no Area 51. The players are known, their actions legal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-real-deep-state-is-about-corporate-power-not-bureaucrats/2019/11/15/9bd203d6-0701-11ea-ac12-3325d49eacaa_story.html
dougsathome over 4 years ago
His motto is “I’ve got mine – the HELL with YOU!”