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I'm having trouble parsing the narrative of the article. It's frankly bizarre. It seems to be implying very heavily that this leaking of the administrations act

by erentz 10y ago

I'm having trouble parsing the narrative of the article. It's frankly bizarre. It seems to be implying very heavily that this leaking of the administrations actions is bad for democracy. And that the administration is right in attempting to consolidate more power away from agencies as a response. If the administration doesn't like its laundry being aired in public perhaps it should behave better. The worst part is it's attempt to somehow make a comparison to Turkey here. Erdogan is a dictator that has seized control of Turkey. His purging of the "deep state" was not a good thing. And it is an offensive stretch to suggest the 110,000 teachers, police, judges and other civil servants caught in that purge constitute some kind of evil "deep state".

Ygg2 10y ago
I think the fear here is, that conflict between them will lead to a paralysis of state, that could be abused by outside actors. Or it might strengthen deep state too much, making them true unelectable power. Or it might be used as excuse to purge and reorganize deep state, as Trump sees fit.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
The notion of the 'deep state' is that of a controlling body within the government which controls the actions of the nominally 'representative' part of the government. So a collection of people who "actually" set policy vs the the President. And their means of control is generally to create a narrative that supports their chosen course of action, whether or not the elected official agrees with it. And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.
- coliveira 10y ago
  Every country already has a well established "deep state" constituted by the rich 0.1%. Wealth determines what is allowed in a state, with small variations that have to do with the particular party in power. In the USA both Democrats and Republicans represent the elite, with the Democrats having additional progressive support and republicans with conservative support.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Imagine hypothetically that the rich 0.1% were NOT the "deep state". What policies would be different?
    - shard972 10y ago
      Unless you assume those people were purely altruistic, what would stop them from becoming the rich 0.1%?
      - coliveira 10y ago
        Taxation.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - mistermann 10y ago
      Taxation. War.
    - someguydave 10y ago
      Even better: imagine the government forced the sale of all assets. Then imagine the government distributes the proceeds to all citizens in equal measure. What's the probability that after a few years the 0.1% will be in the 0.1% again? I suspect it's pretty high.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      That is powerful analysis tool right there. I tend to suspect that the policies would not be much different than they are. The top 20% of earners still pay 84% of the income taxes[1]. Lyndon Johnson felt the "military industrial complex" was a sort of deep state. However I would distinguish between the notion of a deep state which is making foreign policy vs corruption which is simply enriching a few special interests. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384 https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...
paulsutter 10y ago
The leaks would be better if they came with full transcripts, instead of some vague handwringing about malfeasance.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Right. The Flynn leak is unfortunately just a rumor, and some partisans are trying to amplify it while others are trying to diminish it. Since a full transcript/recording obviously exists, the leaker seemingly felt that his/her political aims would not be strengthened if he/she released the actual source material.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    There are many less sinister explanations, and one should generally go for them before resorting to conspiracies: – The leaker had listened to discussions, but did not see/have the actual transcripts – Leaking documents carries much stiffer penalties – Leaking documents feels worse than talking about them in general terms – Copies are strictly limited and can only be seen in a guarded document room - Documents may contain hidden markers to identify leakers ...
    - shard972 10y ago
      If the journalists reporting this aren't even seeing snippets of the conversations that's even worse. Intel agencies for decades have been known to manipulate the press.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        Right. If there is a deep Russian conspiracy to undermine government and Trump and many on his team are compromised, surely a leaker would feel confident that he/she would be vindicated for having helped inform the public about it (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).
        10y ago
microcolonel 10y ago
Do you believe that the administration is doing so much worse of a job than the previous ones? I suspect it has more to do with 20 years of backdoor deals suddenly meaning diddly because they couldn't predict the outcome this time. 20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  The president in the US has always been a position that is opposed by bureaucracy, not able to simply dictate their will on non-partisan agencies. I think that's a good thing: they can lead and influence the course of the nation on behalf of the people, but can't whip it around and effectively wield it outside of those agencies' mandates -- which are themselves controlled by elected representatives (the Congress). What Trump is discovering is that his job is to manage agencies who are created by the Congress and ultimately must live up to the mandate imposed by the Congress, and their oaths to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies, such as would-be dictators (eg Trump). The oath that officers take mandates that they oppose Trump, and his undermining of the separate branches of government (and separation of powers), role of media, etc. The system is working, and we should appreciate the dedication of the people making it work -- by checking the president's autonomous power. Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen.
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    >Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen. Treason is the alternative?
    - 10y ago
fvdessen 10y ago
It is hard to know if the leaks are honest attempts to reveal bad governance practices, or if they are politically selected to achieve partisan motives.
- grandalf 10y ago
  It only matters what the motivations of the leaker were when the leak is a rumor. If the leak is an actual source document (or recording, etc.), it can stand on its own. Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.
  - fvdessen 10y ago
    A sourced leak doesn't always stand on his own. A recording / email taken out of context can paint the target in a bad light. If someone with bad intentions and access to my emails and phone conversations would selectively release excerpts for the world to see, he could certainly ruin my life.
  - ben_w 10y ago
    I disagree: even with purely factual information, neither lie nor rumour, it is possible to create a biased impression by leaving out related information. Purely as an example, "The current US President ordered his troops to fire on American citizens" may sound outrageous, but make sense when enarged to "American citizens who have joined the Army, as part of a live-fire excercise in Texas". (I'm not familiar with how live fire excersises work, this may be a bad example, but I think it still illustrates the point even as a straw man — the point is only that withheld information can radically change the ethics of even true statements).
  - hueving 10y ago
    A leak of a fact can lie by exclusion and put people in a position where they can only refute it by revealing secret information.
    - 10y ago
nostrademons 10y ago
Don't assume that just because an article criticizes one side it supports the other. It's very possible for the deep-state leaks to be bad AND for the consolidation of power by Trump's administration to be bad. The two feed into each other, and both sides are wrong. That was actually my read on the article - I got the impression that it didn't support either the deep state nor the Trump administration, but rather was labeling a dynamic that is toxic and could potentially lead to the destruction of American democracy. I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.
fsloth 10y ago
'...some kind of evil "deep state".' Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.
- XorNot 10y ago
  Which again, would be a valid point, if the first shot wasn't clearly and obviously fired from the White House which engaged in an unprecedented purge of all executive positions, without even having nominees ready to fill most of them (70+ last I checked?) and which has been obviously filling the ones they can with political lackeys who are demonstrably grossly underqualified.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    I don't disagree with you - but deep state is still an antipattern. Another political pathology - a recless executive branch - does not make it any better.
cperciva 10y ago
The comparison to Turkey is indeed quite odd. What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"; to the contrary, Erdoğan has completed a very successful coup d'état.
- toyg 10y ago
  To be fair, Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). We absolutely agree that the result was the same as an outright coup.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). Sure. But I'm a bit skeptical of the "initial coup", given that analysts at the time were saying things like "this is the most pathetically incompetent coup attempt I've ever seen"; I avoid using the word "countercoup" since it implies the conclusion that there was in fact a real coup attempt to which Erdoğan responded.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  "American media" consists mostly of the copying and pasting of press releases (sometimes called "anonymous leaks"), and Erdoğan is the only one left to release those. They won't have another narrative until someone in the "Deep State" decides he's next on the chopping block... probably shortly after Russia bribes him into blocking fossil fuel pipelines from Saudi to Europe.
- shard972 10y ago
  > What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt" The same media who is interpreting the term "fake news" being used against them means trump wants to destroy every single one of them and just have state run media. I know his twitter is popular but jeez, calm down a bit.
foxhedgehog 10y ago
"Deep state" on the libertarian-leaning left is "federal bureaucracy" on the Rush Limbaugh right.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Libertarian-leaning left?
  - foxhedgehog 10y ago
    typically civil libertarians
Super_Jambo 10y ago
There isn't a narrative it's an attempt to derail a narrative the people in charge of NYT don't like. Trump supporters are pushing the narrative of "Trump VS the Deep State!". So people will google "Deep State" and NYT is using it's cred with liberals to try and shape their opinion. See: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!". What does this article actually do: Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?": "Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really. The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.
- shard972 10y ago
  > The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny anymore. Somehow people are justifying unnamed, unelected officials bringing down a government because they don't like who won the election. It's incredibly scary that some of the same people who would have defended snowden for his revelations on the deep state are now praying for the same deep state to enact a Coup d'état.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    It's amazing to me how 6 months ago, reddit (just as one example) saw problems, problems everywhere in the world, whereas their current recollection of that very same period in time seems to be something resembling nirvana.
  - 10y ago

by erentz 10y ago

Ygg2 10y ago

I think the fear here is, that conflict between them will lead to a paralysis of state, that could be abused by outside actors. Or it might strengthen deep state too much, making them true unelectable power. Or it might be used as excuse to purge and reorganize deep state, as Trump sees fit.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

The notion of the 'deep state' is that of a controlling body within the government which controls the actions of the nominally 'representative' part of the government. So a collection of people who "actually" set policy vs the the President. And their means of control is generally to create a narrative that supports their chosen course of action, whether or not the elected official agrees with it. And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.

coliveira 10y ago
Every country already has a well established "deep state" constituted by the rich 0.1%. Wealth determines what is allowed in a state, with small variations that have to do with the particular party in power. In the USA both Democrats and Republicans represent the elite, with the Democrats having additional progressive support and republicans with conservative support.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Imagine hypothetically that the rich 0.1% were NOT the "deep state". What policies would be different?
  - shard972 10y ago
    Unless you assume those people were purely altruistic, what would stop them from becoming the rich 0.1%?
    - coliveira 10y ago
      Taxation.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mistermann 10y ago
    Taxation. War.
  - someguydave 10y ago
    Even better: imagine the government forced the sale of all assets. Then imagine the government distributes the proceeds to all citizens in equal measure. What's the probability that after a few years the 0.1% will be in the 0.1% again? I suspect it's pretty high.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    That is powerful analysis tool right there. I tend to suspect that the policies would not be much different than they are. The top 20% of earners still pay 84% of the income taxes[1]. Lyndon Johnson felt the "military industrial complex" was a sort of deep state. However I would distinguish between the notion of a deep state which is making foreign policy vs corruption which is simply enriching a few special interests. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384 https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...

paulsutter 10y ago

The leaks would be better if they came with full transcripts, instead of some vague handwringing about malfeasance.

grandalf 10y ago
Right. The Flynn leak is unfortunately just a rumor, and some partisans are trying to amplify it while others are trying to diminish it. Since a full transcript/recording obviously exists, the leaker seemingly felt that his/her political aims would not be strengthened if he/she released the actual source material.
- matt4077 10y ago
  There are many less sinister explanations, and one should generally go for them before resorting to conspiracies: – The leaker had listened to discussions, but did not see/have the actual transcripts – Leaking documents carries much stiffer penalties – Leaking documents feels worse than talking about them in general terms – Copies are strictly limited and can only be seen in a guarded document room - Documents may contain hidden markers to identify leakers ...
  - shard972 10y ago
    If the journalists reporting this aren't even seeing snippets of the conversations that's even worse. Intel agencies for decades have been known to manipulate the press.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Right. If there is a deep Russian conspiracy to undermine government and Trump and many on his team are compromised, surely a leaker would feel confident that he/she would be vindicated for having helped inform the public about it (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).
      - 10y ago

microcolonel 10y ago

Do you believe that the administration is doing so much worse of a job than the previous ones? I suspect it has more to do with 20 years of backdoor deals suddenly meaning diddly because they couldn't predict the outcome this time. 20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
The president in the US has always been a position that is opposed by bureaucracy, not able to simply dictate their will on non-partisan agencies. I think that's a good thing: they can lead and influence the course of the nation on behalf of the people, but can't whip it around and effectively wield it outside of those agencies' mandates -- which are themselves controlled by elected representatives (the Congress). What Trump is discovering is that his job is to manage agencies who are created by the Congress and ultimately must live up to the mandate imposed by the Congress, and their oaths to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies, such as would-be dictators (eg Trump). The oath that officers take mandates that they oppose Trump, and his undermining of the separate branches of government (and separation of powers), role of media, etc. The system is working, and we should appreciate the dedication of the people making it work -- by checking the president's autonomous power. Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  >Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen. Treason is the alternative?
  - 10y ago

fvdessen 10y ago

It is hard to know if the leaks are honest attempts to reveal bad governance practices, or if they are politically selected to achieve partisan motives.

grandalf 10y ago
It only matters what the motivations of the leaker were when the leak is a rumor. If the leak is an actual source document (or recording, etc.), it can stand on its own. Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.
- fvdessen 10y ago
  A sourced leak doesn't always stand on his own. A recording / email taken out of context can paint the target in a bad light. If someone with bad intentions and access to my emails and phone conversations would selectively release excerpts for the world to see, he could certainly ruin my life.
- ben_w 10y ago
  I disagree: even with purely factual information, neither lie nor rumour, it is possible to create a biased impression by leaving out related information. Purely as an example, "The current US President ordered his troops to fire on American citizens" may sound outrageous, but make sense when enarged to "American citizens who have joined the Army, as part of a live-fire excercise in Texas". (I'm not familiar with how live fire excersises work, this may be a bad example, but I think it still illustrates the point even as a straw man — the point is only that withheld information can radically change the ethics of even true statements).
- hueving 10y ago
  A leak of a fact can lie by exclusion and put people in a position where they can only refute it by revealing secret information.
  - 10y ago

nostrademons 10y ago

Don't assume that just because an article criticizes one side it supports the other. It's very possible for the deep-state leaks to be bad AND for the consolidation of power by Trump's administration to be bad. The two feed into each other, and both sides are wrong. That was actually my read on the article - I got the impression that it didn't support either the deep state nor the Trump administration, but rather was labeling a dynamic that is toxic and could potentially lead to the destruction of American democracy. I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.

fsloth 10y ago

'...some kind of evil "deep state".' Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.

XorNot 10y ago
Which again, would be a valid point, if the first shot wasn't clearly and obviously fired from the White House which engaged in an unprecedented purge of all executive positions, without even having nominees ready to fill most of them (70+ last I checked?) and which has been obviously filling the ones they can with political lackeys who are demonstrably grossly underqualified.
- fsloth 10y ago
  I don't disagree with you - but deep state is still an antipattern. Another political pathology - a recless executive branch - does not make it any better.

cperciva 10y ago

The comparison to Turkey is indeed quite odd. What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"; to the contrary, Erdoğan has completed a very successful coup d'état.

toyg 10y ago
To be fair, Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). We absolutely agree that the result was the same as an outright coup.
- cperciva 10y ago
  Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). Sure. But I'm a bit skeptical of the "initial coup", given that analysts at the time were saying things like "this is the most pathetically incompetent coup attempt I've ever seen"; I avoid using the word "countercoup" since it implies the conclusion that there was in fact a real coup attempt to which Erdoğan responded.
jessaustin 10y ago
"American media" consists mostly of the copying and pasting of press releases (sometimes called "anonymous leaks"), and Erdoğan is the only one left to release those. They won't have another narrative until someone in the "Deep State" decides he's next on the chopping block... probably shortly after Russia bribes him into blocking fossil fuel pipelines from Saudi to Europe.
shard972 10y ago
> What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt" The same media who is interpreting the term "fake news" being used against them means trump wants to destroy every single one of them and just have state run media. I know his twitter is popular but jeez, calm down a bit.

foxhedgehog 10y ago

"Deep state" on the libertarian-leaning left is "federal bureaucracy" on the Rush Limbaugh right.

mcguire 10y ago
Libertarian-leaning left?
- foxhedgehog 10y ago
  typically civil libertarians

Super_Jambo 10y ago

There isn't a narrative it's an attempt to derail a narrative the people in charge of NYT don't like. Trump supporters are pushing the narrative of "Trump VS the Deep State!". So people will google "Deep State" and NYT is using it's cred with liberals to try and shape their opinion. See: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!". What does this article actually do: Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?": "Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really. The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.

shard972 10y ago
> The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny anymore. Somehow people are justifying unnamed, unelected officials bringing down a government because they don't like who won the election. It's incredibly scary that some of the same people who would have defended snowden for his revelations on the deep state are now praying for the same deep state to enact a Coup d'état.
- mistermann 10y ago
  It's amazing to me how 6 months ago, reddit (just as one example) saw problems, problems everywhere in the world, whereas their current recollection of that very same period in time seems to be something resembling nirvana.
- 10y ago