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There’s incredible utility to the term. It refers to people in the government with a lot of power and little public exposure, and perhaps some indication of us

There’s incredible utility to the term. It refers to people in the government with a lot of power and little public exposure, and perhaps some indication of using their power against the will of the general public, and yes there’s tons of these people, and it’s quite good to have the public generally worried about them. American political history is littered with deep state plots that turned out to be true - Iraq war being a big recent one, the insurance policy FBI agents another.

KingOfCoders 1y ago
"littered with deep state plots" My argument is that these are not deep state plots, these are just plots. This are plots that states are doing. This is the state. This is an organization of millions of people. There is no deep state. The state is just like any other large organization. Take for example the eBay stalking scandal. "The eBay stalking scandal was a campaign conducted in 2019 by eBay and contractors. The scandal involved the aggressive stalking and harassment of two e-commerce bloggers, Ina and David Steiner, who wrote frequent commentary about eBay on their website EcommerceBytes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal The CEO was not involved. There is no "deep eBay", there is just eBay. We don't use the phrase "deep eBay" for a reason. And in the same way "deep State" does not make any sense.
tokai 1y ago
Iraq war was definitely not the work of any deep state, if you follow your definition. It was pushed by the president and his government, not faceless bureaucrats.
- nwienert 1y ago
  Certainly the pressure on them and the “intel” they saw on WMD was in part the work of the deep state, that the president was captured by them is sort of the point.
  - esseph 1y ago
    You've got it backwards, at least in your description. They went after the intel they wanted to find to justify their position. It didn't matter if it was real or true, it just needed to come from the intelligence apparatus.
  - michael1999 1y ago
    That's completely backwards. The CIA was very clear that there was nothing there, and the publicly appointed leadership (Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, etc) badgered them until they gave in and made some wishy-washy statement that Powell could pretend was real. The war was led from the top - Sec Def and VP. That Bush was a moron and appointed liars to Sec Def and VP is on him. Cheney and Rumsfeld had a long history of making things up, going back to the 70s.
    - nwienert 1y ago
      Source being that ridiculous fanfic Cheney movie? You’re even further off than me, even high level CIA was divided, along many other orgs that supported it. Where did Colin Powell get his evidence from? And the OSP? Even if we agreed Iraq wasn’t a good example, it’s irrelevant to the point as I don’t think anyone actually thinks there aren’t powerful and largely behind the scenes figures - defense, lobbying, billionaires, and so on that aren’t actively steering the government away from the will of the people.
      - michael1999 1y ago
        No. The source being that Cheney and Rumsfeld had form going back to the 70's with Team B. And just like Iraq, they didn't like the story coming out of the CIA that the USSR was a decrepit aging empire that was struggling to maintain parity with NATO. Cheney and Rumsfeld were SURE there were whole secret programs, with secret bases, and secret funding. So they badgered Ford into appointing a parallel team to produce different estimates. That was the whole "missile gap" scare. Sound familiar? And guess what? It was all bullshit. Just like Iraq turned out to be. I believe in conspiracies. The 20c was defined by conspiracies! Bolshevism, Naziism, Fascism, Maoism, Scientology, Heavens Gate, etc. The soviets really did fund post-modernism. The CIA really did run the National Review. Those are well documented. What I don't believe is that Iraq every had even the beginning of a nuclear weapons program. Nobody with any sense did either. All the evidence came from known liars. As for Powell's evidence: he was a lib, trying to keep the post-war order intact, while Cheney and Bolton were working to blow it up. Powell knew it was bullshit, but he thought it was a better grade of bullshit that wouldn't make him look like such a moron. All he needed was enough of a figleaf to get either the UN or a compliant Nato to join in. Turns out, the yellow-cake story was such low-grade bullshit he'll never live it down. There is no fancy latin name for giving known paranoids fantasists like Cheney and Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt. But there really should be. I'll grant that Cheney and Rumsfeld have networks in the agencies they could lean on to muddy things. And that deservers the name deep-state. Invisible, and unaccountable. But you can't really call the gang that led this deep state when they are confirmed by congress, and go on TV.
mr_toad 1y ago
> There’s incredible utility to the term. It’s a red flag, so there’s that.

KingOfCoders 1y ago

"littered with deep state plots" My argument is that these are not deep state plots, these are just plots. This are plots that states are doing. This is the state. This is an organization of millions of people. There is no deep state. The state is just like any other large organization. Take for example the eBay stalking scandal. "The eBay stalking scandal was a campaign conducted in 2019 by eBay and contractors. The scandal involved the aggressive stalking and harassment of two e-commerce bloggers, Ina and David Steiner, who wrote frequent commentary about eBay on their website EcommerceBytes" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal The CEO was not involved. There is no "deep eBay", there is just eBay. We don't use the phrase "deep eBay" for a reason. And in the same way "deep State" does not make any sense.

tokai 1y ago

Iraq war was definitely not the work of any deep state, if you follow your definition. It was pushed by the president and his government, not faceless bureaucrats.

nwienert 1y ago
Certainly the pressure on them and the “intel” they saw on WMD was in part the work of the deep state, that the president was captured by them is sort of the point.
- esseph 1y ago
  You've got it backwards, at least in your description. They went after the intel they wanted to find to justify their position. It didn't matter if it was real or true, it just needed to come from the intelligence apparatus.
- michael1999 1y ago
  That's completely backwards. The CIA was very clear that there was nothing there, and the publicly appointed leadership (Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, etc) badgered them until they gave in and made some wishy-washy statement that Powell could pretend was real. The war was led from the top - Sec Def and VP. That Bush was a moron and appointed liars to Sec Def and VP is on him. Cheney and Rumsfeld had a long history of making things up, going back to the 70s.
  - nwienert 1y ago
    Source being that ridiculous fanfic Cheney movie? You’re even further off than me, even high level CIA was divided, along many other orgs that supported it. Where did Colin Powell get his evidence from? And the OSP? Even if we agreed Iraq wasn’t a good example, it’s irrelevant to the point as I don’t think anyone actually thinks there aren’t powerful and largely behind the scenes figures - defense, lobbying, billionaires, and so on that aren’t actively steering the government away from the will of the people.
    - michael1999 1y ago
      No. The source being that Cheney and Rumsfeld had form going back to the 70's with Team B. And just like Iraq, they didn't like the story coming out of the CIA that the USSR was a decrepit aging empire that was struggling to maintain parity with NATO. Cheney and Rumsfeld were SURE there were whole secret programs, with secret bases, and secret funding. So they badgered Ford into appointing a parallel team to produce different estimates. That was the whole "missile gap" scare. Sound familiar? And guess what? It was all bullshit. Just like Iraq turned out to be. I believe in conspiracies. The 20c was defined by conspiracies! Bolshevism, Naziism, Fascism, Maoism, Scientology, Heavens Gate, etc. The soviets really did fund post-modernism. The CIA really did run the National Review. Those are well documented. What I don't believe is that Iraq every had even the beginning of a nuclear weapons program. Nobody with any sense did either. All the evidence came from known liars. As for Powell's evidence: he was a lib, trying to keep the post-war order intact, while Cheney and Bolton were working to blow it up. Powell knew it was bullshit, but he thought it was a better grade of bullshit that wouldn't make him look like such a moron. All he needed was enough of a figleaf to get either the UN or a compliant Nato to join in. Turns out, the yellow-cake story was such low-grade bullshit he'll never live it down. There is no fancy latin name for giving known paranoids fantasists like Cheney and Rumsfeld the benefit of the doubt. But there really should be. I'll grant that Cheney and Rumsfeld have networks in the agencies they could lean on to muddy things. And that deservers the name deep-state. Invisible, and unaccountable. But you can't really call the gang that led this deep state when they are confirmed by congress, and go on TV.

mr_toad 1y ago

> There’s incredible utility to the term. It’s a red flag, so there’s that.