If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be hilarious. On March 19, The New York Times published a video titled “It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ is Actually Kind of Awesome.” Wow. And the subhead reads, “Meet the unsung heroes making our country great.” Yikes. That’s a fantastic overstatement the size of a DC monument.
The Times article isn’t so much an effort to explain what the Deep State is all about, but a silly attempt to redefine its meaning in a kinder and gentler way. As the Times would have us believe, the Deep State is essentially a fraternity of ordinary Americans with a noble mission to make a better world through government.
Meet ordinary American Scott Bellamy. The Times reports that he’s a mission manager in the Planetary Missions Program Office, drives a Nissan Titan four by four, and has loved “Star Trek” since he was a kid. What the Times chose not to mention is the Planetary Missions Program Office is part of NASA, an agency that likely never comes up in conversations about Deep State mischief.
And there’s Radhika Fox. She’s an assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency. A more fitting example, perhaps. Except that the Times doesn’t mention the EPA’s well earned reputation for making its own laws and regulations without the approval of Congress or the voters. However the Times does make the point that Fox loves Pilates, making salads and watching the Taylor Swift Eras Tour on TV with her family. Now that’s the Deep State we’ve come to know and love.
The Times’ purpose is clear: Create a friendly narrative that paints government staff as regular folks no different than you and me. They’re just like your next door neighbors who tend to their gardens, and barbecue on the weekends. They’re a congenial community of hard working civil servants just doing their jobs.
In one sense, the Times is right. But it’s a sleight of hand trick meant to draw attention away from actual bureaucratic malfeasance. And their premise is as absurd as it is laughable. To characterize these federal departments as benign agencies staffed with harmless low level employees is like describing the Nazi regime based on Hitler’s secretarial staff. It’s the high level directors with questionable motives and hidden agendas that run the FBI, IRS, and the Department of Justice that make up the real Deep State. And let’s add something to the Times warmhearted evaluation. The Deep State’s loyal personnel, who are just following the orders of their department leaders, must share in the complicity of their unscrupulous directors.
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