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>The idea of a unified "ruling class" is laughable. The current president is constantly at odds with the political party that controls the Senate and the House

by gozur88 10y ago

>The idea of a unified "ruling class" is laughable. The current president is constantly at odds with the political party that controls the Senate and the House of Representatives. Sort of. Not really. The political parties do represent different power factions. But they are unified in the sense that people in the "deep state" - mid-high level bureaucrats, academia, and the media have more in common with each other than they do with you and me. And anything that threatens their collective control will be dealt with more harshly than they deal with each other.

linkregister 10y ago
Can you go into more depth? Also I believe you are leaving out a group; high-level business leaders, who often do a tour in government posts. (I'm not criticizing the practice; we want competent, subject matter experts working in government)
- gozur88 10y ago
  I agree. Business leaders belong on the list. I once worked a job that involved dealing with a lot of civil service folks. We worked on a land-locked Navy base which had exactly two uniformed naval personnel (that I ever saw, anyway), who were in theory the #1 and #2 people in charge of a few hundred civil servants and a similar number of contractors. Now, everyone knew the Navy guys (a captain and his XO) would be there for about 18 months and then they'd get transferred or retire. If the captain wanted something to get done, it would only get done if the civil servants (who had been there 20+ years) wanted it to get done, because they knew how to gum up the works until he was gone. They also knew how to undermine and embarrass him, which at flag ranks (or wannabe flag ranks) will end your career. You can't fire a civil servant unless there's a felony involved, so even if he figured out what was going on he couldn't do much. That's what happens in Washington, too. Political leaders come and go. They put appointees at the top positions of giant bureaucracies, but the bureaucrats have their own agendas, and they know how to work the system. They're know which reporters to leak what to if the president upsets them. In Congress the Congressmen (and women) come and go. But they all rely on staff for information, and the same people pop up on congressional staffs over and over. Those are the people who actually write the laws (or edit what the lobbyists produce) - the congressmen don't even read what they're voting on. The point is there's an entire layer of people, what I've seen called the "deep state", that you don't get to vote on except in the most indirect way. You could say they're not very ideological, if you're generous, or you could say their ideology is power. They went to the same schools, they go to the same parties, they marry each other, they read the same books, watch the same TV shows, etc. It's not some grand conspiracy. It's just one of those self-organizing aristocracies that pops up whenever a government isn't overthrown for a long time.

by gozur88 10y ago

linkregister 10y ago

Can you go into more depth? Also I believe you are leaving out a group; high-level business leaders, who often do a tour in government posts. (I'm not criticizing the practice; we want competent, subject matter experts working in government)

gozur88 10y ago
I agree. Business leaders belong on the list. I once worked a job that involved dealing with a lot of civil service folks. We worked on a land-locked Navy base which had exactly two uniformed naval personnel (that I ever saw, anyway), who were in theory the #1 and #2 people in charge of a few hundred civil servants and a similar number of contractors. Now, everyone knew the Navy guys (a captain and his XO) would be there for about 18 months and then they'd get transferred or retire. If the captain wanted something to get done, it would only get done if the civil servants (who had been there 20+ years) wanted it to get done, because they knew how to gum up the works until he was gone. They also knew how to undermine and embarrass him, which at flag ranks (or wannabe flag ranks) will end your career. You can't fire a civil servant unless there's a felony involved, so even if he figured out what was going on he couldn't do much. That's what happens in Washington, too. Political leaders come and go. They put appointees at the top positions of giant bureaucracies, but the bureaucrats have their own agendas, and they know how to work the system. They're know which reporters to leak what to if the president upsets them. In Congress the Congressmen (and women) come and go. But they all rely on staff for information, and the same people pop up on congressional staffs over and over. Those are the people who actually write the laws (or edit what the lobbyists produce) - the congressmen don't even read what they're voting on. The point is there's an entire layer of people, what I've seen called the "deep state", that you don't get to vote on except in the most indirect way. You could say they're not very ideological, if you're generous, or you could say their ideology is power. They went to the same schools, they go to the same parties, they marry each other, they read the same books, watch the same TV shows, etc. It's not some grand conspiracy. It's just one of those self-organizing aristocracies that pops up whenever a government isn't overthrown for a long time.