Revised, expanded, 2-20-26.
The so-called "Deep State" is the force behind a "covert resistance" to the President (Donald Trump). White House aides reportedly blame it for the daily stream of leaks that have kept Trump's team on the defensive since before he even took office.
I did not understand what people meant by "the Deep State" so I searched for explanations and found that the Deep State is what Trump and his administration perceive as his enemies: federal staff who resist the political agenda of Trump's administration. This political insight is not particularly relevant to this Writers and Editors website except that it explains phrases common in political discussions that elude understanding for most readers. I have updated this entry by adding the first two clear explanations, which date from 2017.
• President Trump’s Allies Keep Talking About the ‘Deep State.’ What’s That? (Alana Abramson, Time, 3-8-17)
A far-right website loyal to Donald Trump says a so-called “Deep State” is the force behind a “covert resistance” to the new President. White House aides reportedly blame it for the daily stream of leaks that have kept Trump’s team on the defensive since before he even took office.
But what is the so-called “Deep State?”
To allies of Trump in the conservative media and on Capitol Hill, it is an organized resistance within the government, working to subvert his presidency. They blame career bureaucrats, many of whom they see as loyal to former President Barack Obama, for leaking damaging information to the news media.
But until recently, “Deep State” was a term mainly used outside the United States, and generally associated with authoritarian regimes like Turkey and Egypt. And government experts are skeptical one exists in America.
“This is a dark conspiratorial view that is being pushed by [top Trump strategist] Steve Bannon, his allies at Breitbart and some others in the conservative movement that is trying to delegitimize the opposition to Trump in many quarters and pass the blame to others,” said David Gergen, who has advised presidents in both parties.
"The term, which emerged toward the end of the 20th century, was originally used to describe a shadow government in Turkey that disseminated propaganda and engaged in violence to undermine the governing party, often coordinating with people who were not part of the government."
• Ryan Gingeras, War on the Rocks (2-4-19)
Almost two years have passed since the “deep state” became a part of the American lexicon.
It was in early February 2017, just weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, that news reports first mentioned the term’s increased use within the president’s inner circle. Over the following months the president and supporters of his administration publicly embellished upon the deep state’s meaning and significance, making it into a catchphrase for perceived internal adversaries within Washington.
• Deconstructing the Deep State (Charles S. Clark, in Government Executive)
Donald Trump isn’t the first president to be deeply skeptical of the institutions and people he now leads.
“When Democrats come to Washington, they arrive as an army of liberation. They turn to the civil service and say, `We love you, go forth and let 1,000 flowers bloom.’ Then comes the madness, and the Democrats wake up,” Turk said.
“Then the Republicans arrive as a conquering army and put their heels on the neck of the civil service. But after about a year or 18 months, they realize that they actually need them to run the place. So they take their heels off the necks, and things are fine.”
The label deep state “assumes there’s some kind of planned conspiracy going on,” said Donald Devine, who headed the Office of Personnel Management in the Reagan administration, who still bemoans the obstacles to firing federal employees.
“It is irrational to allow people to run around government doing anything they want, simply following the parochial interests of their agencies. Federal employees need and legally require political supervision, which was the essence of the Carter reforms, a lesson that the Trump administration Office of Management and Budget needs to explain to the White House rather than promoting a naïve version of the permanent bureaucracy.”
“To refer to career civil servants in the U.S. government as some form of deep state is a clear attempt to delegitimize voices of disagreement," says Nancy McEldowney, former director of the Foreign Service Institute. “Even worse, it carries with it the potential for fear-baiting and rumor-mongering, and is really a dark conspiratorial term that does not correspond to reality.”
• Trump and the “deep state” (Robert Horowitz, Policy Studies, Nov. 2021)
"Donald Trump and his loyalists invoked the concept of the deep state when confronted with resistance to the president’s agenda. The hazy concept of the deep state was tied to the long-standing conservative critique of the administrative state and the growth of the federal bureaucracy. Together, they conveyed reproach that Trump was subverted by a shadowy network of unelected bureaucrats that illegitimately holds the levers of real power in the United States.
"But there is no deep state. The conflict between the bureaucracy and Trump underscores a conflict between liberal and populist conceptions of democracy; between, utilizing Max Weber’s “Politics as a Vocation,” an ethic of responsibility and an ethic of Read More