I didn't mean to imply any overthrow of the government or any sort of vast conspiracy, I was referring more to 'manufactured consent' along the lines of Chomsky

I didn't mean to imply any overthrow of the government or any sort of vast conspiracy, I was referring more to 'manufactured consent' along the lines of Chomsky. Even if there's no intentional manipulation of Fed policy for one reason or another, a socialist (or democratic socialist) would certainly find more success in selling their ideas to voters in the middle of an economic crisis, especially if most voters view it as primarily Trump's fault. If a recession, or an even greater economic downturn, is inevitable it would seem to me that the Fed could either delay the inevitable, or quicken it. The Fed is supposed to be politically independent, but politicians present and past have tried to influence and pressure them. In a notable instance, LBJ physically threatened the then Fed chairman - probably a little worse than how Trump tries to influence today (mean-spirited tweets mostly). Of course, no Fed chairman will admit they changed course due to political pressure, but we'll probably never know if that's completely true: https://mises.org/wire/when-lbj-assaulted-fed-chairman https://mises.org/wire/when-lbj-assaulted-fed-chairman I understand that many 'deep state' actors are Republicans - I believe your implication is that, because they are Republicans, they would oppose popular policy proposals from Democrats like Medicare-for-All, Free Higher Education, and certainly sweeping proposals like the Green New Deal. But is that true? I think there's a real possibility that many of these Republicans are more loyal to statism than they are to any concrete political ideology. It seems that any time a government is formed, it becomes an entity that continues to grow and continues to spend, some faster than others. The establishment of fiat money systems probably accelerates the pace of this pattern as there's more room to be fiscally irresponsible or to simply pass the burden along to the next generation. The national debt of the US is evidence of this - regardless of whether it's a Dem or Republican in the Oval Office, spending continues and so do military misadventures. It's easier to paint the Dems as the 'statist' party as their proposals typically involve government intervention, but I think the question needs to be asked: when's the last time a conservative president 'conserved' something?