Deep state/2017 Popularisation

 Deep state/2017 Popularisation

A 2017 video by WeAreChange on the "Deep State"

The phrase "Deep state" experienced a surge in popularity in 2017, after some commercially-controlled media outlets began to use it after the 2016 US Presidential election. This is interesting when we consider the abundant evidence that the deep state controls the corporate media. Those interested in the deep state could do worse than study the work of the researcher who coined the term - Peter Dale Scott.

February 2017

WhoWhatWhy noted in February 2017 that the term 'Deep State' was as popular as #resistance. In February 2017, the Washington Post wrote that the "deep state" is a "sexy new label being used in Washington to describe embedded anonymous bureaucratic bias against President Trump and Republican rule." While there may be an entrenched bias against Trump by many in congress, to characterise this as the "deep state" is to overlook its fundamentally non-partisan nature. In February 2017, the New York Times wrote that “Though the deep state is sometimes discussed as a shadowy conspiracy, it helps to think of it instead as a political conflict between a nation’s leader and its governing institutions.” This captures the non-partisan nature, but misleads about the extent to which the US President is already a puppet leader.

Mike Lofgren had expressed the non-partisan nature of the deep state as in 2014 as follows: “There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.” Peter Dale Scott approves of this 'iceberg' metaphor for giving an impression of the size of the deep state, but emphasises that it fails to reflect the fluid nature of the deep state.

Old official narrative

The LA Times wrote that "In a country controlled by the deep state, members of the armed forces and intelligence agencies can overthrow presidents they don’t like; that’s what happened in Egypt in 2013. They hold veto power over major decisions. They often run large parts of the economy, or at least enough government contracts to make their families rich. And they’re rarely held accountable for their actions. They act with impunity. U.S. intelligence agencies, on the other hand, are restrained by law." It seems they missed the coups d'etat that have occurred in the US since November 1963.

The Atlantic echoed this official narrative in February 2017, with an article entitled "There Is No American 'Deep State'" which argued that "The deep state was a kind of criminal organization. What we’re witnessing in the U.S., it’s basically institutional channels." The Atlantic's article went so far as to suggest that there are "dangers in allowing a deep state to become a real menace in the mind of the public."

March 2017

In March 2017, CNN, as if hoping to influence the meaning of the phrase even amongst readers who didn't read their piece gave it the headline "What's a 'Deep State' and why is it a new buzzword for the online right?"

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Canada/Deep state	“You may have heard the term “deep state” in recent months, especially out of the United States. It is a powerful term, but in Canada its meaning is getting stripped. Up here, “deep state” is in danger of becoming just another term for bureaucratic inertia and a resistant civil service. That distorts the concept, so let’s take a look at this term, and an example of a deep state in Canada. Democracy depends on a wide range of institutions: political parties; courts, police, and media; non-partisan civil servants and arms-length regulators; and universities with experts who pursue truth wherever evidence may lead. A key feature of democracy is that these institutions are genuinely independent. They are not beholden to any private interest, and are instead loyal to the public interest and obedient to the rule of law. But what happens when public institutions lose their independence? Even more, what happens when a whole series of democratic institutions falls under the sway of one private interest? This would occur, for example, when the governing party, the opposition party, the civil service, universities and regulators all follow the lead of the same private interest. When several key democratic institutions are captured and held by the same private interest, a “deep state” forms. A deep state is an unofficial system of government that arises separately from, but is closely connected to, the official system. It is a public-private hybrid that operates outside public view. In a modern democracy like Canada, a deep state typically comprises leading owners and executives of major private interests and their allies, together with a selection of politicians and bureaucrats tied to the success of those private interests. A successful deep state captures and harnesses the institutions of democracy for its own use. Very few private interests have the resources to establish a deep state. In Canada, one that does is the oil industry.”	Kevin Taft	6 October 2017

Rating

3 December 2018 Robin  An important topic
An overview of how the corporate media, after years of ignoring the phrase, suddenly started to talk about the "deep state", possibly an unsuccessful effort to stem its rising popularity.

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