The Deep State - fact or fiction?

[Nick1911]

Heard this term plenty over the past number of years.

Some believe that that collusion and cronyism exist within the US political system and hold such sway and influence to constitute a hidden government within the legitimately elected government. 

Some people reject the premise of an American deep state on the grounds that our governmental power structures are almost entirely transparent - who gets a position of power and from where their authority derives is known and codified.

Snowden uses the term to refer to the power of civil servants over elected officials.  AKA, Yes, Minister

Some people see many wealthy and influential people lobbying and attempting to influence government policy in their favor as the deep state, even if done openly.


How do you define the term?  Do you believe it is something which actually exists, and to what extent?

[zahc]

What is different between deep state and bureaucracy?

For some reason people started to talk about deep state but it just sounds like bureaucracy to me, and if you ask random people if they think bureaucracy exists a lot more of them will say yes vs. deep state.

[Hawkmoon]

I believe it exists, and I believe that it is nearly all-powerful. To me, the "deep state" is the entrenched bureaucracy that exists from the lowest levels of civil service employees up to the highest level immediately beneath the political appointee level -- the career bureaucrats. They are the people who know how to get things done in the swamp, and they are also the people who know how to delay, obfuscate, and derail anything that an administration wants done but they (the deep state operators) don't agree with.

One example:

Many years ago, as a practicing architect I had a small contract with a small public housing authority. The project was to be funded by HUD, so I was asked to sign a HUD contract. The contract required that I carry professional liability insurance. The contract also included thirteen (13) specific requirements that were specifically and explicitly excluded from coverage under standard architect and engineer professional liability insurance.

As a matter of public policy, it should be obvious that nothing positive can come out of imposing requirements on consulting professionals that voids the insurance the government requires them to carry -- for the protection of the government's interest. Further investigation revealed that these requirements were NOT in the standard contract form promulgated by HUD in Washington; the uninsurable requirements were added by the HUD regional office for my state. I called the HUD staffer assigned to the project, explained the problem to him, and he said, "No problem, just cross out and initial the provisions that can't be insured."

So I did that, sent back the contract, and started work. Several weeks later I got a notice that my contract had been rejected. I called the guy, and he said it was rejected because I had changed it.

"You told me to change it."

"Yeah, but you changed it!"

The guy went on to say that other architects had signed the contract, so he didn't understand my problem. I pointed out that every architect in the state had the same insurer that I used, and that those contract terms weren't insurable -- they were explicit exclusions in the policy. That meant if other architects signed the contract, it just meant the government wasn't getting the insurance protection that was expected. The guy's attitude was, "I don't care about that. They signed the contract. As far as I'm concerned, they have insurance."

That's not good enough for me, so in the end I had to resign from the project and I lost several weeks worth of time that I couldn't get paid for.

Apparently other HUD area offices around the country were doing the same thing, and the problem made its way to the American Institute of Architects in Washington. The AIA set up a task force to address the issue, and I was asked to serve on it. The AIA finally got as far as getting us a meeting with HUD in Washington. I attended, along with three other architects from around the country. The meeting was surreal. We met with three people from HUD, who told us the contract form we had the problem with was in the process of being revised and updated, so they would very much welcome our input. So we gave it to them. We explained in detail why the contract should not include requirements that can't be insured, because it cancels the whole purpose of requiring us to carry insurance. The HUD officials sanctimoniously said they understood our concerns and that they would take them into account in revising the contract. I asked if we could have a copy of the working draft so that we could comment on the proposed changes. Oh, no! That wasn't allowed.

So we went home, thinking that we had had a fruitful and constructive meeting. Months later, the revised contract came out. The HUD guys had listened to us, all right. They must have written down everything we said was a problem, and they put ALL of those things into the new contract. So many uninsurable provisions I don't even remember them, or even how many there were. Suffice it to say -- a lot.

To what end? HUD can decline to enter into a contract with an architect or engineer if the design professional doesn't have insurance, but HUD can't dictate to the insurance company what acts they exclude from coverage. So the end result was that a small cadre of career HUD bureaucrats got their jollies by throwing a bunch of impossible requirements into the contract, and the end result was that they made the insurance requirement into a joke. That's the kind of decision that could only be made by career bureaucrats who never worked a single day in the private sector. A political appointee who had made his (or her) way far enough up the career ladder to be appointed to a senior leadership position in an agency like HUD would have seen in 15 nanoseconds that it's just plain stupid to insist on contract provisions that void the very insurance the contract requires. But the senior political appointees are too busy making general policy and being the public face of the agency to get involved in the nitty gritty work of writing and reviewing specific contracts. Such work is carried out by the career drones, who function more or less autonomously.

That's what the deep state is, IMHO.

[Nick1911]

I believe it exists, and I believe that it is nearly all-powerful. To me, the "deep state" is the entrenched bureaucracy that exists from the lowest levels of civil service employees up to the highest level immediately beneath the political appointee level -- the career bureaucrats. They are the people who know how to get things done in the swamp, and they are also the people who know how to delay, obfuscate, and derail anything that an administration wants done but they (the deep state operators) don't agree with.

Is it organized?  How do all these people know what to say or do to derail administrative objectives without stepping all over each other?

One example:

Many years ago, as a practicing architect I had a small contract with a small public housing authority. The project was to be funded by HUD, so I was asked to sign a HUD contract. The contract required that I carry professional liability insurance. The contract also included thirteen (13) specific requirements that were specifically and explicitly excluded from coverage under standard architect and engineer professional liability insurance.

As a matter of public policy, it should be obvious that nothing positive can come out of imposing requirements on consulting professionals that voids the insurance the government requires them to carry -- for the protection of the government's interest. Further investigation revealed that these requirements were NOT in the standard contract form promulgated by HUD in Washington; the uninsurable requirements were added by the HUD regional office for my state. I called the HUD staffer assigned to the project, explained the problem to him, and he said, "No problem, just cross out and initial the provisions that can't be insured."

So I did that, sent back the contract, and started work. Several weeks later I got a notice that my contract had been rejected. I called the guy, and he said it was rejected because I had changed it.

"You told me to change it."

"Yeah, but you changed it!"

The guy went on to say that other architects had signed the contract, so he didn't understand my problem. I pointed out that every architect in the state had the same insurer that I used, and that those contract terms weren't insurable -- they were explicit exclusions in the policy. That meant if other architects signed the contract, it just meant the government wasn't getting the insurance protection that was expected. The guy's attitude was, "I don't care about that. They signed the contract. As far as I'm concerned, they have insurance."

That's not good enough for me, so in the end I had to resign from the project and I lost several weeks worth of time that I couldn't get paid for.

Apparently other HUD area offices around the country were doing the same thing, and the problem made its way to the American Institute of Architects in Washington. The AIA set up a task force to address the issue, and I was asked to serve on it. The AIA finally got as far as getting us a meeting with HUD in Washington. I attended, along with three other architects from around the country. The meeting was surreal. We met with three people from HUD, who told us the contract form we had the problem with was in the process of being revised and updated, so they would very much welcome our input. So we gave it to them. We explained in detail why the contract should not include requirements that can't be insured, because it cancels the whole purpose of requiring us to carry insurance. The HUD officials sanctimoniously said they understood our concerns and that they would take them into account in revising the contract. I asked if we could have a copy of the working draft so that we could comment on the proposed changes. Oh, no! That wasn't allowed.

So we went home, thinking that we had had a fruitful and constructive meeting. Months later, the revised contract came out. The HUD guys had listened to us, all right. They must have written down everything we said was a problem, and they put ALL of those things into the new contract. So many uninsurable provisions I don't even remember them, or even how many there were. Suffice it to say -- a lot.

To what end? HUD can decline to enter into a contract with an architect or engineer if the design professional doesn't have insurance, but HUD can't dictate to the insurance company what acts they exclude from coverage. So the end result was that a small cadre of career HUD bureaucrats got their jollies by throwing a bunch of impossible requirements into the contract, and the end result was that they made the insurance requirement into a joke. That's the kind of decision that could only be made by career bureaucrats who never worked a single day in the private sector. A political appointee who had made his (or her) way far enough up the career ladder to be appointed to a senior leadership position in an agency like HUD would have seen in 15 nanoseconds that it's just plain stupid to insist on contract provisions that void the very insurance the contract requires. But the senior political appointees are too busy making general policy and being the public face of the agency to get involved in the nitty gritty work of writing and reviewing specific contracts. Such work is carried out by the career drones, who function more or less autonomously.

That's what the deep state is, IMHO.

This sounds like the result of way too much self serving bureaucracy to me.  Do you think there was structure - and intention behind this?  If so, to what end?  To put architects in a catch-22, make sure they can't be compliant with the contract requirements?  Maybe they thought they could force the insurers to cover these additional requirements?  When ended up happening with that... is that still the current situation with HUD contracts?

[Perd Hapley]

What Hawkmoon said, plus read what Ben has said over the years about his work in the government. The bureaucracy, especially in D.C., have a point of view on how government/society should operate. They have a certain ideology. Not all of them (see Ben), but most of them (ask Ben). Many things elected officials do or try to do, if it conflicts with said ideology, the bureaucrats will slow down or otherwise frustrate. Perhaps consciously, perhaps because - well, because such things just aren't done!

Whether the above is an accurate description of how our bureaucracy works, or not, I believe that is what is commonly meant by "the deep state." At least in the U.S.

Two illustrations that look at other motives for "deep state" behavior:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/schumer-intelligence-agencies-have-six-ways-from-sunday-of-getting-back-at-you/

https://www.city-journal.org/thomas-sowell-race-poverty-culture

In 1960, he worked as an economist with the Labor Department. His task was to study the sugar industry in Puerto Rico, where the department enforced a minimum-wage law. Upon discovering that unemployment was rising with each increase in the minimum wage, Sowell wondered whether the law was causing the rise—as standard economic theory would predict. His coworkers had a different take: unemployment was rising because a hurricane had destroyed crops. Eventually, Sowell came up with a way to decide between the competing theories: “What we need,” he told his coworkers excitedly, “are statistics on the amount of sugarcane standing in the field before the hurricanes came through Puerto Rico.” He was met with a “stunned silence,” and his idea was dismissed out of hand. After all, administering the minimum-wage law “employed a significant fraction of all the people who worked there.”

[Hawkmoon]

Is it organized?  How do all these people know what to say or do to derail administrative objectives without stepping all over each other?


This sounds like the result of way too much self serving bureaucracy to me.  Do you think there was structure - and intention behind this?  If so, to what end?  To put architects in a catch-22, make sure they can't be compliant with the contract requirements?  Maybe they thought they could force the insurers to cover these additional requirements?  When ended up happening with that... is that still the current situation with HUD contracts?

Why does there have to be a structure, or an intent? The idea of "deep state" is nothing more nor less than a deeply entrenched bureaucracy that just rolls along, doing what it has always done, more or less independent of and largely unchanged by shifts in administration. The only structure is federal civil service rules, which make it difficult to fire or even discipline employees once they have survived their probation period.

It seems to me that the notion of a self-serving bureaucracy is the perfect description of "deep state."

[Ron]

The Pacific Ocean - wet or dry?

[French G.]

We had unelected career officials nearly remove a president, so yes.

[DittoHead]

The Pacific Ocean - wet or dry?

The Pacific Ocean is a fiction of the MSM & George Soros. While they are busy pillaging the country we're arguing over wet vs dry

Snowden uses the term to refer to the power of civil servants over elected officials.  AKA, Yes, Minister

Never heard of the show before but from the brief description there, that sounds pretty accurate to me. I think some people take it too far into giant conspiracy territory (Qanon) but the reality is more boring.

[cordex]

Is it organized?  How do all these people know what to say or do to derail administrative objectives without stepping all over each other?

In the same way the bootlegger and the Baptist organize their support for prohibition.

[Ron]

The Pacific Ocean is a fiction of the MSM & George Soros. While they are busy pillaging the country we're arguing over <insert distraction du jour>

fixed it :)

[Ben]

What Hawkmoon said, plus read what Ben has said over the years about his work in the government.

I'm traveling today, but will write a "refresh synopsis" of my experience through three (pre-Trump) administrations when I get to the hotel tonight. Essentially, regarding zahc's post, the deep state and bureaucracy are subtly the same, yet subtly different.

[MechAg94]

You don't really even need it to be organized.  For a deep state type group to act, they just need enough key people in different federal agencies to make stuff happen and/or cover up actions.  I see the "Deep State" as more about small groups of people in the bureaucracy using/abusing the bureaucracy to support political goals.

[WLJ]

Is it organized?  How do all these people know what to say or do to derail administrative objectives without stepping all over each other?


This sounds like the result of way too much self serving bureaucracy to me.  Do you think there was structure - and intention behind this?  If so, to what end?  To put architects in a catch-22, make sure they can't be compliant with the contract requirements?  Maybe they thought they could force the insurers to cover these additional requirements?  When ended up happening with that... is that still the current situation with HUD contracts?

This I have to agree with. While I think there is a deep state it's not as monolithic as it may appear on the outside but rather made of little bureaucrats having very similar goals, the main one being keeping their jobs and the power that comes with it. The deep state isn't one big snake with one big head to cut off but thousands of little snakes.

[MechAg94]

This I have to agree with. While I think there is a deep state it's not as monolithic as it may appear on the outside but rather made of little bureaucrats having very similar goals, the main one being keeping their jobs and the power that comes with it. The deep state isn't one big snake with one big head to cut off but thousands of little snakes.

Multiple little power broker bureaucrats.  Looks monolithic only when more than a few all decide to go in the same direction. 

[RoadKingLarry]

Vogons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon

[Jim147]

A bottle of Jameson around th fire and I'll tell you a few stories.

[kgbsquirrel]

Why does there have to be a structure, or an intent? The idea of "deep state" is nothing more nor less than a deeply entrenched bureaucracy that just rolls along, doing what it has always done, more or less independent of and largely unchanged by shifts in administration. The only structure is federal civil service rules, which make it difficult to fire or even discipline employees once they have survived their probation period.

It seems to me that the notion of a self-serving bureaucracy is the perfect description of "deep state."

Spot on. 

[Ben]

So I'll put the executive summary at the top of the post:

IMO: Is there a deep state as in a cabal of D&R civil servants that wants to protect the status quo at all costs? I've never seen one. What I saw was more of an entrenched bureaucracy that leaned heavily left across most agencies I worked with, with a couple of exceptions. So they, across all GS levels, enthusiastically helped dem administrations achieve their goals, but were not so enthusiastic, and in some cases you could use the word "sabotage" when dealing with the Bush administration directives. You might be able to call the latter "deep state", though it was more of an unethical and entrenched partisan bureaucracy IMO. Not any coordinated effort, just a lot of people who think the same way.

I started out in the last term of Clinton, so only have that as my baseline. Everyone pretty happily carried out the philosophy of and tried to meet the goals of Clinton appointees. One thing I noticed was that there sure were a lot of SES (Senior Executive Service) employees that used to be things like the director of the Ocean Conservancy and other former higher ups of other enviro NGOs.

Then Bush came along. I remember getting a talking to for playing "Hail to the Chief" in my office. Other people were saying vile things about Bush or doing the, "I'm moving to Canada" thing. That was all okay and just venting. People were very grumbly. Anytime I was at an interagency meeting, people would always be complaining about either some Bush directive or something their Department Secretary (Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Interior, etc) initiated. The only exceptions were DOD and DHS people, who I guess were making out under that admin or else were smart enough to keep their complaints to themselves. Those Clinton SES people were still there, and didn't mind talking trash about Bush, which made it easier for the lowly GS-7 to come up with reasons not to do their job. "Hey man, my Director says Bush is an ass, so why should I put effort into this Bush admin directive? He and his appointees will be out after one term anyway."

Two terms later, Obama came along. Celebration by all. Enthusiasm by all. Obama appointed his secretaries. Then in my and other departments I worked with, I noticed a lot of new SES and GS-15s who got hired by their secretary or undersecretary and were assigned to direct some office or other. Same as with Clinton, they came from NGOs, Academia, and other left-leaning organizations. They got to hire new FTEs that were GS-12s. 11s, 9s, etc. Often people who worked in those same organizations they came from. Maybe some of that happened under Bush from the conservative side, but I sure didn't see it in my circles.

So most of what I saw was basically "biased hiring" that creates something of a left-leaning bias in the overall makeup of the Civil Service. I just especially noticed it during the Obama admin. I can't help but think it happens under most dem admins, since they like to grow the gov. Conservatives like to cut gov, so there are usually fewer FTEs hired under those admins. Eventually you get the left-leaning bias and people who hang around for 20-30 years.

Not being around for Trump, I can only assume all the SJW civil servants blew a gasket at his election and are off doing the same things I saw under Bush but at 10X.

So is that "deep state"? Or is that unethical and spoiled sore losers who can't stand that someone not establishment (which I would argue that Bush was) is shaking up their lives?

Either way, many of the things we have seen since Trump got in are certainly worth getting fired over, and likely, even under current government rules, people could get fired. I've actually seen civil servants fired, so it can be done.  

[Ron]

Pay no attention to the "man" behind the curtain.

Ben's description of useful idiots does nothing to dispel the idea that there are very powerful and wealthy interests manipulating and pulling the strings of society and pushing every lever of influence they have accumulated over the decades.

Do you really think crazy stuff like transgender acceptance and drag time story hour is organic?

Now, just imagine all the mundane changes in society that power and money can change without even being on the radar.

I don't necessarily think there is one monolithic human organization running things but multiple power centers both cooperating and competing with each other.

The powers that be aren't showing up on any ballots.

Things don't really work they way we've been told they work.

You know that, intuitively.

That's a fact, Jack.

[WLJ]

Pay no attention the "man" Lizard  behind the curtain.

 

[Ben]

Ben's description of useful idiots does nothing to dispel the idea that there are very powerful and wealthy interests manipulating and pulling the strings of society and pushing every lever of influence they have accumulated over the decades.

What I wrote doesn't negate that possibility. I'm only one data point and most of what I saw was from the "environmental" side of the gov (NOAA, NASA, EPA, MMS, etc.). There is no doubt though, that what I saw was the two dem administrations top loading the civil servant (SES, GS-15,14) positions with former higher level people from special interest groups that were "pro-environment". Under Bush, the "top loading" was appointees. Maybe Bush appointees* did the same thing with civil servants in departments I didn't have a lot of contact with, I don't know.

Regardless, the idea of putting people that fit your agenda in high level civil servant positions that outlive administrations, rather than appointee positions, could certainly be argued as "manipulating". It could certainly explain what's happening with Trump with the FBI, etc.

*It's important to note that it wasn't the Presidents doing this stuff, it was their appointees and lower.

[fifth_column]

Pay no attention to the "man" behind the curtain.

Ben's description of useful idiots does nothing to dispel the idea that there are very powerful and wealthy interests manipulating and pulling the strings of society and pushing every lever of influence they have accumulated over the decades.

Do you really think crazy stuff like transgender acceptance and drag time story hour is organic?

<snip>

I think an organic explanation of transgender and drag queen storytelling is much more likely than some organization somewhere coming up with a long term plan that incorporates that kind of crazy stuff.  Transgender, homosexual, transvestite stuff has been going on for a very long time.  I can't imagine anyone 75 years ago coming up with a plan that would get us where we are today.  I can't even imagine anyone 75 years ago wanting to get to where we are today.  And I'm sure cross-dressing and homosexuality have been around a lot longer than that.

[kgbsquirrel]

I think an organic explanation of transgender and drag queen storytelling is much more likely than some organization somewhere coming up with a long term plan that incorporates that kind of crazy stuff.  Transgender, homosexual, transvestite stuff has been going on for a very long time.  I can't imagine anyone 75 years ago coming up with a plan that would get us where we are today.  I can't even imagine anyone 75 years ago wanting to get to where we are today.  And I'm sure cross-dressing and homosexuality have been around a lot longer than that.

You have a very limited imagination.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679.html

Excerpt:

Even a cursory review of the material revealed that the educational work at the Rote Freiheit ("Red Freedom") after-school center was unorthodox. The goal of the center was to shape the students into "socialist personalities," and its educational mission went well beyond supervised play. The center's agenda included "agitprop" on the situation in Vietnam and "street fighting," in which the children were divided into "students" and "cops."

Pantomiming Intercourse

The educators' notes indicate that they placed a very strong emphasis on sex education. Almost every day, the students played games that involved taking off their clothes, reading porno magazines together and pantomiming intercourse.

According to the records, a "sex exercise" was conducted on Dec. 11 and a "*expletive deleted*ing hour" on Jan. 14. An entry made on Nov. 26 reads: "In general, by lying there we repeatedly provoked, openly or in a hidden way, sexual innuendoes, which were then expressed in pantomimes, which Kurt and Rita performed together on the low table (as a stage) in front of us."

The material introduced the broader public to a byproduct of the student movement for the first time: the sexual liberation of children. Besser passed on the reports to an editor at the West Berlin newspaper Der Abend, who published excerpts of the material. On April 7, 1970, the Berlin state parliament discussed the Rote Freiheit after-school center. As it turned out, the Psychology Institute at the Free University of Berlin was behind the center. In fact, the institute had established the facility and provided the educators who worked there. Besser now believes that it was a concerned employee who dropped off the reports at her door.

[MechAg94]

What I wrote doesn't negate that possibility. I'm only one data point and most of what I saw was from the "environmental" side of the gov (NOAA, NASA, EPA, MMS, etc.). There is no doubt though, that what I saw was the two dem administrations top loading the civil servant (SES, GS-15,14) positions with former higher level people from special interest groups that were "pro-environment". Under Bush, the "top loading" was appointees. Maybe Bush appointees* did the same thing with civil servants in departments I didn't have a lot of contact with, I don't know.

Regardless, the idea of putting people that fit your agenda in high level civil servant positions that outlive administrations, rather than appointee positions, could certainly be argued as "manipulating". It could certainly explain what's happening with Trump with the FBI, etc.

*It's important to note that it wasn't the Presidents doing this stuff, it was their appointees and lower.

I think if you add in some leftist activists among the general left leaning group you mentioned, it wouldn't be too hard steer things certain ways.  Certainly enough to do what we have seen.  Those activists would know who they could use to do the things they wanted.