Loren DeJonge Schulman describes himself as a "card-carrying former member of America’s vast national security bureaucracy." (They give cards for that?) He doesn't like people claiming there is a "Deep State" that's out to sabotage Donald Trump. He thinks the whole idea of a Deep State is a lurid fantasy that gets people's hackles up but has no basis in reality.
So he claims today in an op-ed for the Worst Web Site in the World that the whole thing is a figment of Steve Bannon's imagination.
Quick quiz: Q. What's an even more shameless appeal to people's lurid fantasies than talk of a Deep State? A. Invoking the terrifying spectre of Steve Bannon.
Schulman declares himself offended by the idea that some sinister Deep State is acting sercretly in the shadows to sabotage the new president. And in a thoroughly predictable attempt to discredit the notion, he does what defenders of the status quo usually do: He takes the idea to a ridiculous extreme and then attacks the extreme.
Real: Unaccountable bureaucrats with civil service protection are resisting Trump's policy agenda and trying to undermine the president via anonymous leaks to a news media only too happy to take and run with them.
Not real: Shadowy, sinister James Bond types are lurking in the dark shadows, perpetrating shocking acts of subterfuge in the service of mysterious puppet-masters in the secret halls of power.
If you're Loren DeJonge Schulman, which one do you attack as implausible and ridiculous? The latter, of course, because it sounds like the sort of thing irrational, paranoid lunatics would believe. So if you haven't given much thought to the whole idea of a Deep State, good. Mr. Schulman hopes to define the idea for you, and convince you of how silly it is, before anyone explains the real Deep State is the one described in the former scenario.
Which, by the way, Schulman wittingly or unwittingly confirms is doing exactly what people like us have been saying it's doing:
Let’s start with standard insinuations of the phrase. There are more than 2 million civilian executive branch employees (not counting the U.S. military or portions of the intelligence community, which does not fully report employment numbers). At least half of that number work in an agency related to national security, broadly defined. When combined with the million-plus uniformed military and support system of contractors, this is an unwieldy group. A mix of hard-working patriots, clock-punchers, technocrats, veterans and scammers, these folks swear the same oath to defend the Constitution.
Hollywood bears much of the blame in portraying this group as some combination of Rambo, the All-Seeing Eye of Mordor and the cast of Homeland—an omniscient guerrilla force unaccountable to any authority. Reality is less made for the big screen; if, say, Zero Dark Thirty had been true to life, it likely would have been a single shot of 100 hours of lawyers’ meetings. The national security bureaucracy does wield awe-inspiring capabilities that could be disastrous if abused; months sitting through the Obama administration’s surveillance policy review made that clear. But while civil servants and military personnel do pledge to defend the Constitution, it is not only the goodness of their hearts but a complex web of legal, congressional, bureaucratic and political oversight that guards against such risks. These checks are met with both grumbles and keen awareness of how they set the U.S. rule of law apart from, say, Russia. These systems are not foolproof, and could undoubtedly be improved. The flaws of the administrative state—ranging from redundancy and waste to self-interested bloat to inability to innovate to scandalous incidents of corruption—have been well documented, its day-to-day successes far less so. But find me an alternative to the national security bureaucracy, or find me a functioning state without one.
To Steve Bannon and his colleagues in the White House, the Deep State is an adversary to be destroyed. In recent remarks, the president’s chief strategist called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” According to the Washington Post, he’s been whispering in President Trump’s ear about the Deep State’s alleged campaign to ruin him. And, truth be told, charged with leaking for its own purposes, thwarting Trump’s policy priorities and ousting his appointees, this Deep State sure looks quite guilty in the context of a chaotic first six weeks in office.
All right, so let's hold it right there. Are these people - some of whom Schulman himself describes as "scammers" - leaking for their own purposes, thwarting Trump's policies and ousting his appointees? Schulman acknowledges they are "charged" with doing these things. Does he believe they are not?
His next three paragraphs certainly seem to suggest he knows they're doing it, and not only that, but unless Trump gets them under control, it could effectively end his presidency:
But it’s far easier to blame shadowy bureaucrats than to take responsibility for your own failures. The president’s executive order on terrorism didn’t fail because the Deep State sabotaged it; it failed because an insular White House did not seek or heed its advice. Leaks did not bring down former national security adviser Michael Flynn; his deception of Vice President Mike Pence did. Though it is impossible to know, much of the exposure of White House infighting that so angers Trump seems far more likely to be coming from his senior aides than from low-level bureaucrats.
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There is no Deep State, but the leaks are real.
None of which is to say that Bannon’s view of the world is completely baseless. Bureaucracies have institutional interests they are loath to let go of, and are plagued by an inertia resistant to disruption. This is common to all large organizations, not a flaw unique to the U.S. system of government. But Trump has a tool to manage this dynamic that he has inexplicably chosen not to wield: placement of around 4,000 political appointees throughout the bureaucracy. Inserting his personal emissaries throughout the Deep State would give him far more political control over the civil servants he perceives to be rebelling, and at the same time give his team better access to their expertise. But not a single one has been confirmed below Cabinet level.
And here’s where Bannon’s blame game breaks down: Past presidents have learned there are limits to what a pen and a phone (or a tweet) can implement without calling on the resources of the administrative state. This is not a threat but a fact. Their oath is to the Constitution, not the president, but they are effectively there to make him look good. And he has no alternative: There is no substitute state to defeat ISIS, renegotiate trade deals, build walls, round up illegal immigrants or catch terrorists if Trump works to dismantle the national security bureaucracy. Making the Deep State an enemy will cripple his administration.
So let me see if I have this straight. There is no Deep State, but the leaks are real. They just aren't the real problem. The Deep State is a figment of Bannon's imagination, and yet Bannon's view of the world is not completely baseless, and there is indeed a bureaucracy that is loath to let go of its own institutional interests, and "plagued by an inertia resistant to disruption." Trump should insert his personal emissaries throughout the Deep State - the one that doesn't exist, mind you - because that would give him more political control over it. Even though it doesn't exist.
And the Deep State will cripple Trump's administration of Trump makes an enemy of it, which is quite a trick for something that doesn't exist.
The real Deep State is exactly the one Schulman describes in these passages, and he acknowledges that it's doing exactly what we've been saying it's doing. The only difference between us and Schulman is that he doesn't want you to take the problem seriously, so he's trying to repackage the Deep State argument in ridiculous, paranoid-sounding terms so you'll dismiss it as the ravings of lunatics. Like Steve Bannon.
If you read the headline the Worst Web Site in the World put on Schulman's piece, you'll think it's crazy to believe there is anyone in the government trying to sabotage the president. If you actually read Schulman's piece in full, you'll not only learn this is absolutely going on, but you'll be given details of how it works.
Mr. Schulman would have you believe that any such dynamic is Trump's fault, of course. He considers it normal that the administrative state resists a new president who seeks to disrupt the status quo. And indeed, it is normal. That's the problem. It's why Republican presidents typically back down from real institutional change, because they don't believe they can win a fight with the administrative state, which I will go ahead and call the Deep State because Schulman himself does so repeatedly throughout the piece he wrote for the purpose of insisting the Deep State does not exist.
In the course of ridiculing the extreme he invented, Schulman gave up the game about the real Deep State and its real efforts to undermine President Trump.
You won't hear much about this because the entire Beltway establishment thinks these people are heroes. But as Trump so often reminds us, he's the one who won 306 electoral votes, and he - not they - is the one who was empowered by the people of this country with the right to set policy for the executive branch of the government. The Deep State bureaucrats seeking to undermine him may be heroes to Beltway contemporaries like Mr. Schulman, but they are enemies of the people and of the Constitution.
It's about time we had a president who is prepared to call them out as such.
