4 ms·

> Operation Warp Speed is, to me, an indication of the power of government "intertia". We call this the Deep State

dragonwriter 5y ago
> We call this the Deep State If by “we” you mean fans of the arbitrary, irresponsible, corrupt patronage-based governance of the spoils system who use the term to denigrate the idea of a professional civil service with loyalty that extends beyond the person of the current chief executive on whom their tenure depends, then, sure, “we” do.
azinman2 5y ago
I find this whole deep state thing very strange. It's meant to sound ominous, but really it's just a bunch of career diplomates that have worked over many administrations who are the ones that make anything that works, work. We should be doing our best to preserve their knowledge and capability.
- ummwhat 5y ago
  It's not meant to sound ominous. It's a phrase that's been coopted.
oblio 5y ago
No need to use a conspiracy theory name for it. The truth is that any government needs a ton of people to operate properly and you can't change all of them upon election. Actually, scratch that, you can sort of do that every election/change of government. Do you know where they do that? Failed states. Failed states change most if not all the government employees upon regime change, to put people from the new regime in their place. It's an unmitigated disaster, because you also need people other than politicians to do the heavy lifting. And those skills can't always be built up over just 4 years, you need more than that. It's dumb to throw them away. Let alone the fact that changing them with the regime means that it's super unlikely you keep the competent people, you just get new loyal folks.
- lliamander 5y ago
  It's not really a conspiracy theory though, it's just the reality that much/most of the power of the government is in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. That doesn't imply the bureaucrats are conspiring. And that's not necessarily a bad thing (for the reasons you describe) but there's a fundamental deceit going on if the president can't actually control that bureaucracy (because people assume that he can).
distances 5y ago
Stable Western nations have career bureaucrats that continue working their office regardless of which political party is at helm. This brings expertise and continuity and has nothing to do with deep state. A new minister will assign new goals but retain the old team that has the best understanding available in their specific field.

> We call this the Deep State If by “we” you mean fans of the arbitrary, irresponsible, corrupt patronage-based governance of the spoils system who use the term to denigrate the idea of a professional civil service with loyalty that extends beyond the person of the current chief executive on whom their tenure depends, then, sure, “we” do.

azinman2 5y ago

I find this whole deep state thing very strange. It's meant to sound ominous, but really it's just a bunch of career diplomates that have worked over many administrations who are the ones that make anything that works, work. We should be doing our best to preserve their knowledge and capability.

ummwhat 5y ago
It's not meant to sound ominous. It's a phrase that's been coopted.

oblio 5y ago

No need to use a conspiracy theory name for it. The truth is that any government needs a ton of people to operate properly and you can't change all of them upon election. Actually, scratch that, you can sort of do that every election/change of government. Do you know where they do that? Failed states. Failed states change most if not all the government employees upon regime change, to put people from the new regime in their place. It's an unmitigated disaster, because you also need people other than politicians to do the heavy lifting. And those skills can't always be built up over just 4 years, you need more than that. It's dumb to throw them away. Let alone the fact that changing them with the regime means that it's super unlikely you keep the competent people, you just get new loyal folks.

lliamander 5y ago
It's not really a conspiracy theory though, it's just the reality that much/most of the power of the government is in the hands of unelected bureaucrats. That doesn't imply the bureaucrats are conspiring. And that's not necessarily a bad thing (for the reasons you describe) but there's a fundamental deceit going on if the president can't actually control that bureaucracy (because people assume that he can).

distances 5y ago

Stable Western nations have career bureaucrats that continue working their office regardless of which political party is at helm. This brings expertise and continuity and has nothing to do with deep state. A new minister will assign new goals but retain the old team that has the best understanding available in their specific field.