Who even is the deep state any more? MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats. Project 2025 has provided much of the playbook for this administrations run, and thats deep red conservative territory. Meanwhile we have an overwhelming body of evidence for market manipulation and extreme profit taking on the war and oil fronts, pointing to politically aligned financiers.
I don't think the deep state is any discernible single group, but rather whoever we want to point the finger at on a particular topic.
The deep state is and always has been the ultra-wealthy.
Rampant, uncontrolled consolidation of media, PACs, lobbying, and granting cushy jobs to retired congresspeople all give the wealthiest individuals extremely outsized control over what happens in the US government.
I think the problem is that the "deep state" really came into public consciousness with Trump, on his first run. While I agree with your definition of the deep state, that is not what most people think of in current days, and Trump is probably the deepest of deep state you can legally be. He ran against the deep state, while being deeply embedded inside it. It was just easier to pass off because he wasn't a politician (at least from an American point of view, not sure of your country of origin).
It’s just funny he ran on releasing all of the Epstein Files, didn’t, and when we caught a glimpse of a slither of it, it turned out he was in there so much it could have been renamed the Trump Files
The deep state is any agent of meaningful power/influence that works for the government or is very closely entangled with the government, and that retains some or all of their power/influence from one admin to the next.
That includes for example powerful figures in the Pentagon or intelligence agencies that remain from one admin to the next. These people all have agendas of their own, and they network as people do. Dick Cheney was a deep state figure across a couple of decades, often working in the shadows. So was Rumsfeld. So was Kissinger across a few decades during his prime power/influence years. They all had long-term agendas, their ideas about the world, and extremely deep connections throughout the Federal Government.
It's not a mysterious conspiracy. It's just people with power/influence pursuing outcomes that they'd like to see happen, and working with other like-minded people to get there.
There is this building where guys wearing masks wheel you into a room behind locked doors at dawn and then use drugs to knock you out. They then take sharp knives and cut you open and rummage around your insides, sometimes taking organs out. Blood goes everywhere. The footage is gory. When they're done with you it may takes you weeks to recover.
The rest of just call his "surgery at a hospital".
My point is that you've just described in nefarious terms the "civil service" or the "administrative state". Every government department is full of career civil servants who will go through many administrations. Only the very top officials in any department are political appointees. We're talking the secretary, their deputies and some positions under those.
Government simply cannot function without career civil servants who end up becoming subject matter experts in what they're administering.
Or, you know, you can nerfariously say "deep state".
In my opinion a 'civil servant' sees their job as serving the American people to the best of their ability even if they don't agree with the outcomes of the latest election.
A member of the 'deep state'; however, is ideologically driven. If their favorite party is in power, they use their job to push their ideology to its limits. If the opposition party won the election; then they view their role as a means to 'resist', 'thwart', or otherwise delay any policies the elected officials try to implement.
Their general view is that their own opinions are superior to those of voters.
> In my opinion a 'civil servant' sees their job as serving the American people to the best of their ability even if they don't agree with the outcomes of the latest election.
Sure, but a bunch of stuff isn't supposed to change just because the president changes. It's supposed to take laws to change it, or even amendments. If those haven't been passed and the President tries to do that stuff anyway, we should want our civil servants to resist that.
The contrary notion is the Unitary Executive, which is that the president should be absolute dictator of what the executive branch does, with legality to be sorted out elsewhere even in egregious cases. This notion is very bad and we should not let it become normal, especially in a world where we've already seen absolutely insane rulings that place the president personally above the law.
If the executive is empowered by the legislative, we should not want civil servants to do gladly do every thing a president might ask of them. If the president is instead possessed by default of unlimited power to direct the executive branch and it's the legislative branch's job to reign in that boundless power (until the president ignores the law, then it's the judicial's job to finally make the executive knock it off one or more years later) then we would want totally obedient (to the president) civil servants. However, this latter idea is stupid and bad, so, we should want civil servants that don't treat the president's word as law, but the law as law.
> A member of the 'deep state'; however, is ideologically driven
What you're describing is a federal employee. The kind that takes a massive pay cut, and loses out on paycheck stability (due to government shutdowns), because they at least start out earnestly attempting to improve the system.
How they define "improving the system" varies by ideology, but career civil servants, in wanting to follow their definition of improving the system, are ideologically driven.
What you're describing is still just "A collection of civil servants that aren't disillusioned and dead inside"
I'm sorry but no. "Deep state" is nothing more than enemy within propaganda to justify a purge of government departments to replace them with ideologues and to further concentrate power in the hands of the so-called "unitary executive".
The point of my comment is that Republicans have this habit of describing perfectly ordinary and normal things in nefarious tones to make them sound sinister. The real problem is people are so gullible in falling for it.
The deep state, for example, would tell a president that if you bomb Iran and kill its autocratic leader, the country might close the Strait of Hormuz. And that naval escorts through the strait will only get sailors killed.
Trump ran on vanquishing the deep state because all he cares about is personal loyalty, not loyalty to the country, the Constitution, or objective fact.
I think the distinction between the one that you're describing and the one that the person you're replying to is describing is crime.
People like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheneye were part of a criminal conspiracy to rob the America people and destabilize the US to make it ripe for further hijacking.
That's the deepstate -- it's everything you mentioned above + a criminal conspiracy mindset.
Calling it "civil service" instead of "deep state" does not make it any better. We don't have either in the Constitution so whatever you call it, it has to be removed from power.
And then what? The spoils system? Rampant incompetence?
And, we have to get rid of it because it's not in the Constitution? You know what else isn't in the Constitution? DHS. The IRS. ICE. An enormous number of other agencies.
The Constitution gives very little guidance on the Executive Branch, other than the President and Vice President. That does not mean that hiring people in federal agencies is unconstitutional! It just means that the Constitution is silent on the topic, neither requiring nor prohibiting very much.
Then back to the system defined in the Constitution, it gives enough guidance. If you think the President is not enough for the Executive - amend the Constitution, used to be enough for ~200 years though.
The Constitution does not define a civil service system. You seem to interpret that as saying that any system is unconstitutional until the Constitution is amended to define one. That is... let's just call it "very much a minority interpretation".
We are not going to either amend the Constitution nor abolish the civil service just because some pseudonymous online account says we should.
The Constitution defines just three branches of power, if the "civil service system" has a power and is not one of the branches then it unconstitutional by common sense and elementary logic. And this "civil servant system" evidentially has power and is not a part of either of the three branches (which are all enumerated in the Constitution) ergo it's an unconstitutional junta.
>We are not going to either amend the Constitution nor abolish the civil service just because some pseudonymous online account says we should.
Did not you participate in the mass crying out on this very site when DOGE had been firing the "civil servants"?
The constitution says the president must "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". That means hiring people to enforce the laws, that's the civil servant system.
That means the whole Executive branch is the president and if he can delegate his power to some other people he also should be able to revoke the delegation and fire those people, which is not the case now. The president is semi-successful in firing these "servants" and some judges insist that it's illegal.
How is it stupid? If I truly believed in such constitutional purity I would have no problems saying a simple yes or no to it. For example sometimes I am accused of hating a particular religion, I gladly say I am not a fan of any religion and name a few to make it clear.
Again, its a simple question. Just answer yes or no. Do you or do you not believe in the dissolution of those agencies per your interpretation of the constitution?
There are many things that are not in the Constitution: the USAF, computers, antibiotics, sea cruises, cars, steak, etc. Not being in the Constitution does not make them unconstitutional. Hope this helps.
As for dissolution of those agencies, my answer is: no. You have to ask a question before demanding an answer.
Why not? You literally said "We don't have either in the Constitution so whatever you call it, it has to be removed from power.". What's different about ICE and DHS but not about governments having civil services? Or the other things you listed?
If t hat's bad how do you feel about ICE and DHS or any other agency contracting private companies? They are even less accountable then. Why don't you support banning government agencies from hiring private companies?
I feel you want to talk about ICE and DHS instead of the topic at hand, the Deep State/"civil service". I feel the government contracting private companies is fine, the government is accountable so are the private companies. I don't support banning government agencies from hiring private companies because I don't see how the country would benefit from have government making everything it uses in the course of executing its duties.
>the comment you replied to literally said "Not being in the Constitution does not make them unconstitutional."
Then why make stupid statements in the first place. I am not a telepath. Thats absolutely not what your original comment said. Why make such stupid comments in the first place and then later lie and say "No I didn't mean that".
"We don't have either in the Constitution so whatever you call it, it has to be removed from power."
Dude you're hilarious, you're one to call someone having cognitive impairment when you are literally saying something and the exact opposite of the same thing and then somehow being unable to see the obvious question already in AnimalMuppet's and my first comment to you. Get yourself checked man.
I don't necessarily disagree with the existence of ICE and DHS but you do, and then you said you don't, somehow.
And if you feel the Civil Service Act or any other act violates the constitution, nobody's stopping you from arranging for a lawsuit against it. Go do that and come back.
The same thing it's always been: The military-industrial complex.
> MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats.
It's not that hard to distinguish "them", just look at how fast the mainstream media threw Biden under the bus over Afghanistan withdrawal.
1)POTUS orders the withdrawal.
2)Generals botch the withdrawal on purpose.
3)Mainstream media (left and right) eviscerates the POTUS. This sends a strong message to this POTUS, as well as any subsequent Presidents: "Don't mess with the profits of the complex or else."
This was the tipping point for me when I realized that the deep state is not a just a bogeyman conjured up by the right wingers. Should you cross the complex, it will just as easily come for you even if you're a Democrat that's been in politics for 50 years.
Finally, the Atlantic is as establishment as it gets. No matter which party is in power, their editorial board serves the ruling class, of which almost nobody on HN is a part of.
Whether their interests align with yours or not you can ascertain just by looking at approval ratings of the US Congress.
I don't think the deep state is any discernible single group, but rather whoever we want to point the finger at on a particular topic.