The Deep State and the Creep State

by G. Murphy Donovan

Regime change zealots are now working the home front.  Billy Kristol, erstwhile editor of white blight and right fright at the Weekly Standard, says that he would rather have the “deep state” than the Trump state. If you ever wondered why neo-conservatives are often confused with National Socialists, you might want to read Kristol’s polemics.

The deep state is “a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy.” To this definition we might add that the deep state also includes unelected and often arrogant defense and Intelligence agency apparatchiks and their contractor camp followers.

Think permanent federal sinecures. Think nanny state. Think revolving door. Think “non-partisan,” non-profit, untaxable think tanks. Think military/industrial complex. Think coup plotters. Think partisan shills who leak classified data to the Washington Post or New York Times on burner phones.

Think George Orwell.

Or don’t think at all, if your politics is Trump hate. Seditious, if not treasonous, federal bed wetters in Washington seem to straddle both political parties. In short, the deep state is actually the creep state.

Indeed, elected mules like Senator Charlie Schumer (D-NY) now openly endorse and convey deep state threats. In a recent appearance on the Rachael Maddow show (MSNBC), Schumer warned Trump not to take on the Intelligence Community as the IC has “six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Indeed.

The District of Columbia is a company town, an elitist political ghetto. Donald Trump may have swept the heartland in 2016, but a nomenclatura, right and left, still controls the nation’s capital. Indeed, the neo-con right with zealots like John McCain (R-NM) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is aligned with obstructionists like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, principals of the bi-coastal left. Trump hate is the glue that now binds much of the national media and the Washington establishment.

Prominent racist crackpots like congressman Maxine Waters (D-Ca) are already calling for impeachment with help from fake news conduits like CNN.

The deep state is a law unto itself. The political assassination of General Mike Flynn is testimony to the power of recidivism in Washington. Direct action, like the Flynn kill, is merely the opening shot across the White House bow.

The existential threat to reform inside the Beltway is passive aggression, legions of apparatchiks who are dug in for a long war. Federal agency drones believe they can outwait any elected or appointed official, all the while slow rolling any reforms to insure that Trump’s first term is his last term.

Entrenched party elites are energized by mixed motives: dump Trump, demonize Putin, appease Islamism, and defend the status quo. Race baiting, class warfare, and entitlements are part of the drill wherever they can be worked in. For the Beltway bigot; a white, rich male, indeed a successful chap like Trump is reason enough for obstruction and sedition.

The relentless hostility of DC elites is now underwritten, most notably, by the national security establishment: the Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense, and the Justice Department.

In another era, these institutions were presumed to be non-partisan or apolitical, but that day is long gone. And the Flynn classified leaks puts the lie to any deep state motives like patriotism. Intelligence leaks from the national security establishment are designed to undo the legitimate election of last November and torpedo any forthcoming policy initiatives.

If deep state establishment leakers are patriots, then Edward Snowden should be rehabilitated with honors. Indeed, knowing what we now know about Snowden’s motives, the post-9/11 behavior of Intelligence officials is the real danger to the rule of law and national security.

Snowden tried to alert taxpayers to the hazards of universal surveillance that compromise human to say nothing of American privacy rights. The Flynn affair is probative. If sensitive data can be misused, it will be misused. Where there are no boundaries for Intelligence or Justice officials, there are no civil rights for citizens who vote, work, and pay the bills.

The least we can do for now is promote Snowden from traitor to whistle blower. Surely his disclosures are more noble than the seditious, if not traitorous, attempts to undo the 2016 election and now a sitting president. For deep state operatives; the law, professional loyalty, and the Constitution are window dressings.

The first casualty in any deep state is democracy.

Snowden has the courage of his convictions. The same cannot be said of his critics in the Intelligence Community or the creeps who leak secrets to the Washington Post and CNN.  

Corruption within the national security establishment is now manifesting. The deep state is too big, too partisan, too unmanageable, too incestuous, too parochial, too well-funded, and, sadly, now dangerous by virtue of a mix of treachery and incompetence.  

Failure is more relevant than success when it comes to Intelligence performance and funding.

Recall that the Director of NSA was promoted after the 11 September 2001 Arab/Muslim attack on New York City. Recall that the director of CIA who authored the fake intelligence that underwrote three wars in Iraq has an anti-terror decoration created in his name. Recall that the CIA station chief in Benghazi who ran a gun running fiasco was retired with a pension and honors. Recall that none of the various Muslim small wars in the Ummah have been successfully resolved in thirty years. Recall the various US sponsored regime change fiascos, most recently Ukraine and Libya, that were botched and then left to fester.

American Intelligence has not had a big win since James Angleton got lost in the “wilderness of mirrors.”

Now the creep state aspires to execute yet another regime change, this time at home. In the interests of mercy, pray the Trump coup takes less time than the decade it took to find Osama bin Laden. Trump will not fall on his sword, but he, like Julius Caesar, may get the knife from a cabal of treacherous American Senators.

If Trump expects to survive, he cannot play defense. The Flynn episode is just business as usual in DC, another “gotcha” game where the usual suspects and the media conspire to flog Republicans like a piñata. If Trumpsters fold at the first whiff of grapeshot, they might as well take down the Jolly Roger and run up a diaper.

Short of a vertical chop or a wholescale purge, neither the Justice Department nor the Intelligence Community can be trusted to stop the hemorrhage of classified holdings or exterminate deep state rodents trying to gnaw through a restive nation.

Beyond irony, deep state alarms are even ringing on the left. Glen Greenwald, Edward Snowden collaborator, claims that deep state efforts to undermine Trump are a “prescription for destroying democracy.”

Indeed.

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3 Responses

  1. Spot on, well articulated, and timely take on what the Donald is faced with (what else to expect from Mr.Donovan) except that it doesn't touch at all on a key aspect of the collision between the new Potus and the institutionally embedded hydra of special interests.

    The Donald kept saying 'he'll drain the swamp', to do it he should have taken it slowly with key policies, begin with replacing the top layers of the swamp institutions with his own people, instructing them to purge the middle, and only then hitting the road with policies implementing his pre-election promises. It's a mis-judgment on the part of his and his team if the swamp hydra is swallowing him now. 

  2. The British series "Yes, Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" is essentially a comic study of/ satire upon this phenomenon.

  3. You may be correct Baron, early signs not promising. Although, the slow roll on confirmations, I"m sure, is opposition drag. And Christina, nice to hear from you. Happy New Year. I'm afraid that you are correct too. Although what's happening here would be as amusing as BBC were it not so tragic. Democracy is a terrible thing to squander. 

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