...
What has been lost in the discussion of the Deep State, however, is that even if it is fiction, it is a profoundly useful one for the White House. As Trump takes a wrecking ball to the federal bureaucracy—what Steve Bannon has called “the administrative state”—an illusory enemy like the Deep State is exactly what is needed to justify the destruction. Repetitive allusions to sinister officials and administrators will expand and energize the constituency for a radical downsizing and weakening of government agencies, especially among Republicans, who
appear to believe Trump’s utterances no matter how much the media debunks them. However thoughtful the
New York Times or the
New Yorker criticisms of the Deep State rhetoric may be, the White House seems to have plenty of reasons to stick with its new myth.
Indeed, the Trump administration seems to be enjoying the brush fire building in the right-wing press. It’s probably not a coincidence that
Breitbart, Bannon’s former domain, has put out a string of
tales about Deep State infestation, including at the Commerce Department and
Environmental Protection Agency. This is the sort of allegation that would brings tears of laughter to a true Deep Stater—say a Pakistani ISI officer—who would never imagine that an agency dedicated to the environment would be worth penetrating. But it makes sense when you recall that the EPA has been identified as a key target of the administration. The “skinny budget” just released by the White House
shows EPA targeted for the biggest budget cuts of any agency, 31 percent in all.
The Deep State fiction also fits well with the White House’s apparently deliberate strategy to leave such traditional behemoths as the State Department almost without any leadership. On Mahogany Row, the department’s seventh floor power corridor, 7 of 9 of the top positions are empty—only Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Undersecretary for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, a career Foreign Service member, are in office. There are no assistant secretaries for the different regional bureaus, or for such functional powerhouses as the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, which spends billions a year on what one would have thought was a top Trump issue. More astonishing, there are no nominations for any of these posts.
...
