The ‘Deep State’ Canard Spreads

It’s become a partisan talking point in defense of almost everything President Trump does.

The deep state is the right’s new bogeyman.

I’d wager that until fairly recently, few people had ever heard the phrase. I’d also bet that roughly 99 percent of those who fling the term around have no idea that it’s borrowed from Turkish politics.

The idea of a deep state, or “state within a state,” is that there are undemocratic forces within the permanent bureaucracy, the military, and the intelligence services who pursue their own interests rather than those of the people or the agenda that voters desire.

Depending on the country in question, deep states are not only real, they are sometimes as devious as people fear. At various times in the history of the Soviet Union, the secret police ran the government and the Communist party for its own benefit.

In the democratic West, the civil service and other bureaucratic institutions often accumulate enough power and arrogance that they see themselves as immune to the desires of voters or politicians. Prior to a few years ago, some people would call this sort of thing the “deep state,” and depending on the context, that was fine.

But now it’s become a partisan talking point in defense of almost everything President Trump does. It’s a warrant for widespread paranoia and hysteria. People talk as if we live in a Jason Bourne or James Bond movie, with secret deep state organizations plotting to overthrow the government or something.