Deep State Reality: The Anatomy of America's Shadow Government

The idea of a "deep state" has been around for a long time, going back at least as far as the imperium in imperio ("government within the government") of ancient Rome and demonstrated in recent times--even to this day--in such places as Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran. As applied to the United States, the notion was first explored in detail by sociologist C. Wright Mills, who identified "deep states" in the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, and Wall Street. The modern deep state has been associated with "fringe right" conspiracy theorists who hold that a cadre of career government employees--civil servants, bureaucratic administrators--have covertly coordinated to shape state policy by working around or beneath the elected government. Within the last two years, this belief in the deep state graduated from unorganized fringe groups to the so-called Alt-right, members of which formed an influential faction of supporters during the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and who are today represented among the inner circle of the Trump presidency. Today, clearly, the deep state cannot be dismissed as the stock-in-trade of talk radio fantasy. In fact, the deep state is real--but its reality is not what the Trump administration believes it to be. There is an American shadow government. It is government by lobby and lobbyist. The deep state of the professional influencers is closely connected to both the elected government and the "permanent bureaucratic structure" --that is the unelected government. This real deep state coexists with the elected and unelected governments, a relationship that is part symbiotic, part parasitic, and often downright malignant. Deep State Reality, driven neither by partisan affiliation nor ideological orientation, presents an anatomy of America's shadow government that makes up the true substance of an American deep state.