Deep State Stuff

 I guess I should have realized sooner. One of the many things I have learned observing Donald Trump and his colleagues over the last four years is that he lies a lot. But, even more important, he actually routinely gives away his game in advance. That is, whenever Trump tells you about some nefarious scheme his opposition is doing or planning, that nefarious scheme is something he is already doing, or planning to do shortly. Every time.

 So, then what are we to make of all these “Deep State” pronouncements by Trump and (mostly) his close associates (like QAnon). And what, you might ask is the “Deep State”?  Well, the term refers to a conspiracy theory (QAnon’s main specialty) involving secret elements operating in government and business that actually rules our country. From Wikipedia:

“The deep state is a conspiracy theory which suggests that collusion and cronyism exist within the U.S. political system and constitute a hidden government within the legitimately elected government. Author Mike Lofgren believes that there is "a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process", or consider the deep state to encompass corruption prevalent among career politicians and civil servants.

The term was originally coined to refer to a relatively invisible state apparatus in Turkey "composed of high-level elements within the intelligence services, military, security, judiciary, and organized crime" and similar alleged networks in other countries including Egypt, Ukraine, Spain, Colombia, Italy, Israel, and many others.

So, Trump and/or his associates have been reporting to us on a parallel government structure that actually rules America.  The implication, of course is that we ordinary Americans have no idea who actually rules our Land, but that a nefarious structure exists that combines elements of both elected representatives and private interests to make decisions out of the eye of the public. That decisions are made routinely that are never reported to the public by any of the official news outlets—you know . . . the Fake News Networks like the New York Times.

So, apparently, we are being governed by a cabal of mostly evil people to enrich themselves and allow evil ways to be carried out—you know like that child predator ring Hillary was operating out of the basement of that Pizza Shop that apparently has no basement.

I routinely simply dismissed these rantings as Donald Trump at his most ill-imagined brainstorming. But now I think that maybe Donald Trump and his cohort of gangsta wannabees were simply describing the governance structure they were planning, or perhaps even operating within the Trump Administration.  And that the deep hysteria after the election was mostly about the fact that their actual “deep state” carrying-ons was going to be exposed, or, simply, disemboweled. i.e., destroyed.

It seems fairly clear that the actual Trump “deep state” was a cabal including:

·         Donald Trump;

·         Donald Trump’s family, especially Ivanka, Jared, and Junior;

·         The main members of Fox News, but mainly Sean Hannity, and perhaps even Rupert Murdoch personally;

·         Mitch McConnell, and the extreme right wing cast of the Senate.

There are likely other members of his cabal, including right wing monied interests that stand to benefit from Trump executive orders, high level staff appointments, and other actions of Trump's government. We have seen little evidence that he has included our military, although he seems to have caused almost the collapse of our legitimate foreign services under Pompeio.

And this is perhaps the main task facing Joe Biden and his public cast of characters now at work trying to dismantle the Trump fake government.  I assume it is a bit like attempting to remove all elements of the Mafia currently hidden within our government.  Everywhere you turn now, one finds Trump appointees who have been actively working to sabotage legitimate United States Government policies. The State Department seems especially hard hit, with Trump appointees even hard at work trying to destroy elements like our Voice of America—why? Oh, because they have been committed to legitimate facts, and Trump doesn’t do facts.  And what was his thing with the United States Postal Service, which DeJoy has been trying to destroy?

Everywhere you turn, Trump’s cabal was hard at work trying to dismantle our government and substitute a private sector approach (think Betsy Devos and her hard press to fund private schools over public schools).  Now whether all this work by Trump and his family of gangsta’s was part of a massive plot to eliminate the participation of the public sector throughout our economy, or it was simply ineptitude by Trump and his amazingly incompetent staff of appointees is hard to tell.  Trump’s “Deep State” is really little more than a gang of thieves trying to enhance their own personal interests at the expense of the American people. I guess you could call that a “Deep State”, but it seems to me more along the lines of a supremely incompetent state staff of pseudo-government operatives.  See, “Deep State” suggests a cabal of evil-doers who are remaking our state into a complete autocracy of an older sort—like those days of absolute monarchies, or perhaps Russia at its worst. But in reality, we wound up with a ragtag motley crew of incompetent evil-doers who mostly had no idea what they were doing.

Even their last, failed attempt at a violent overthrow of our Republic never had a chance because they really do not know what they are doing.  It was a revolution of Idiot-Malenfants, sort of akin to letting your nasty schoolyard bully five year old's go out into the streets armed with guns and no guidance by adults, but an admonition to “take over the world kids, It’s your turn”.

My now greatest fear is that this motley crew will be taken over by evil-doers with functioning brains, and that they will try again, perhaps this time using the actual powers available to them, that is further gerrymandering, voter-denial efforts, and other intimidation efforts in an attempt to bring power back to their cabal in 2022. Look for it folks. The evil-doers never actually give up, with or without Donald Trump. They always have Ted Cruz standing by in reserve.