The notion of the “Deep State” has become a particular bugaboo for a certain type of conservative. Those would be populists. Thus not of my feather, as I’m an elitist. If only modern elites lived up to my expectations.
What is called the Deep State by the QAnon morons (or by lunatics who invoke the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, the Masons, the Trilateral Commission, the Hollywood pedophile conspiracy, etc.) are what used to be called the Establishment. You know, the older pipe-smoking Ike-like guys in three piece suits whom the hippies hated. Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, David Bruce, those individuals.
These were the sagacious solons that kept America running year after year and thank God torpedoed some of the sillier ideas of incumbents of both parties. Their type is best epitomized by Sir Humphrey in “Yes, Minister.” They are the civil service and you can’t run a country without them. After all, somebody in DC has to have institutional knowledge above that of a rutabaga. And once upon a time they did a bangup job, with the occasional hiccup.
But starting in the 70s and continuing with a feverish pace today, the balding guys with the decent apparel who knew the Oysters Rockefeller at Ebbitt’s is killer good got replaced by the scum who were in the streets in the 60s. Government was a natural choice for their hippy vocations, as they were statist bluestocking busybodies who liked nothing more than to attempt to run the lives of strangers. Think Hillary.
But even they have been supplanted by a new breed of radical bureaucrats. The old liberal, like Bill Clinton, could be bought off with perks, accolades, and a sinecure. You knew where you stood with those people, as DC sharks inherently understood other predators. The current manifestation are ideological adolescents who have a deep hatred for the United States of America. As a projection of their sordid psyches, they see free brave Americans going about their business and it drives them batty. So they attempt to bring down from within the system that allows and encourages those Americans to do just that.
How do we change this? By talking about and acting on an issue that was very big in the late 19th century and early 20th century: Civil service reform. Then it was mostly about cronyism and corruption. It still is. But throw in the bacillus prevalent in the professional left and it takes on any entirely different coloration. Granted, there’s nothing we can do about Hill staffers, as they come in with their members and will serve those aims.
But we need to and can weed out the Bernie Sanders and AOC fans in federal civil service. Not just with a nice old fashioned Tailgunner Joe persecution, but with a housecleaning that restores professionalism to government. First, outlaw AFSCME at the federal level. Public servants are servants, not primarily union goons. Then make the civil service exams so intellectually rigorous that the chowderheaded masses of the left, or any babbling fool, can’t pass it. There are more measures no doubt. But something must be done to bring back objective fact driven adults into the vast recesses of government. The alternative to that, as in the future Deep State acolytes who we can now see burning down cities, is waiting in the wings.