Deep State Recast As Heroes

It wasn't that long ago that the idea of the Deep State was considered a right-wing conspiracy, and anyone that believed in it was a paranoid nutjob. Now, according to Michelle Cottle, in her role as a member of The New York Times editorial board:

President Trump is right: The deep state is alive and well. But it is not the sinister, antidemocratic cabal of his fever dreams. It is, rather, a collection of patriotic public servants — career diplomats, scientists, intelligence officers and others — who, from within the bowels of this corrupt and corrupting administration, have somehow remembered that their duty is to protect the interests, not of a particular leader, but of the American people.

John Daniel Davidson, writing at The Federalist, takes umbrage at Cottle's characterization:

      Simply put, the American people never asked these public servants to protect their interests. In fact, a great many Americans who elected Trump did so specifically because they were fed up with unelected bureaucrats acting like unaccountable rulers—rather like a deep state, actually.

      More to the point, “protecting the interests of the American people” isn’t the job of these public servants. They have other, rather specific jobs. The job of career officials in the intelligence agencies, for example, is to provide the White House with intelligence relevant to national security. That’s it. They have no other role to play in public life, and for good reason. Appointed and unelected officials are supposed to serve those who were put in office by the people, from whom elected officials derive their authority. That’s how a republic is supposed to work.

      But lately it seems our unelected officials think of themselves less as public servants and more as a Praetorian Guard. ...

      The idea that these people are pure-hearted patriots is laughable. On the contrary, there’s plenty of reason to suspect that what Comey and the others were up to was a coordinated, premeditated effort to remove a duly elected president whom they despised. There’s likewise plenty of reason to believe the impeachment effort directed by Schiff is simply an extension of this same ploy under a new pretext. The Mueller probe didn’t work out for them, so now we have an anonymous whistleblower complaint and secret testimony from a different set of unelected career bureaucrats who might well have similarly biased motives for cooperating with impeachment investigators.

      More disturbing, as I noted the other day, is that high-ranking military commanders also appear to be part of this Deep State. Angelo Codevilla rightfully chastises retired Admiral William McRaven for his recent op-ed at The New York Times and McRaven's claim to holding the moral high ground:

    ...consider a few of these notions of “good and right.” Following rules and the chain of command is high among them, especially for the military. Officers are supposed to obey superiors. That authority flows from the president. Why? Because only the president is elected by the whole people, and because the Constitution, which they are sworn to “uphold and defend,” says so. If officers cannot abide superiors, they are supposed to resign their commissions.

      But McRaven and a host of senior officers do not resign. They subvert.

      The Constitution prescribes all manner of procedures by which any and all who dissent from the president can counter him, including legislation, overriding vetoes, and impeachment. But McRaven’s essay merely, and dishonestly, adds to the united ruling class’s effort to attack Donald Trump outside of these constitutional procedures by feeding the media’s production of innuendos.

* * *

     Even as McRaven brays for removing the president, he pretends solicitude for “the republic.” But remember: the American republic is founded on the will of the people, expressed by elections. The foremost thing to keep in mind about what is happening in Washington is that it is, above all, an attempt to subordinate the will of the people, expressed in elections, to the will of the ruling class, expressed through its control of social and political institutions.

 Codevilla seems to be of the same assessment as me: "At the very least, McRaven called for impeachment ahead of an election, or perhaps for a coup, and pretended to do so on the military’s behalf. In fact, his was just one more voice from an establishment that has squandered the public’s trust, senses that it can no longer win elections honestly, and is pulling out all the stops."

     A writer going under the pseudonym Adam Selene writes about McRaven and retired General James Mattis in American Greatness, and contends that their views are part of "the anti-republican nature common to the modern military officer." He continues:

       It should be obvious to everyone by now that these military men are, in fact, representative of the “nonpartisan, patriotic professionals” in government, and that their nonpartisanship means “agreeable to the Left,” their patriotism includes more love for foreign peoples than for their own country and countrymen, and their professionalism includes hardly any competence at all. It should be manifest that those who choose to fight and kill for money and a career are not necessarily the noble men we pretend they are, and that they can just as easily be guided by self-interest and the interest of their faction, the military-intelligence-industrial-academic-political complex, as any other bureaucrat. That this faction is part of a larger D.C. establishment faction should also be obvious. 

      They are not just now turning toward praetorianism; they are the Praetorian Guard’s front rank. They are not just now behaving like a junta; they think they are one. 

       In fact, there is nothing republican about those in the upper echelons of our modern military, and their anti-republican nature should be plain to see. And it should not really surprise us. We created a military power greater than any in human history, with more money, more people, and more raw power than anyone has ever seen, and we lavish praise on it and worship its members as if they are infallible. This is a recipe for a ruling faction if ever there was one. 

      Perhaps we should revisit the warnings from America’s Founders about the dangers of standing armies and professional soldiers to republican government.

 Herschel Smith of the Captain's Journal has similar views that are worth your time to read.