Dissecting The Deep State

by Armando Simón (March 2025)

 

We’re fighting The Matrix big time here, but it’s got to be done. —Elon Musk

 

“The Deep State” was a term coined by Angelo Codevilla to specifically refer to an inner government cabal whose aim was to sabotage the Trump presidency and hopefully depose him, thereby circumventing the elections’ results and basically undermining the Constitution. It also refers to anonymous conspirators implementing government policies on their own and even sabotage orders from above that the cabal disagrees with.

Although the novelty of the term implies a new phenomenon, in reality it just gives a name to what has always been present, namely bureaucrats, either singly or with others, acting contrary to the government’s policy, usually by employing passive-aggressive tactics. Bureaucracies come into existence once any unit (society, business, military, university) reaches a certain size.

Nor should it be thought that this phenomenon is confined to the United States. We saw it in Britain where the bureaucrats dragged their feet for years in fully implementing Brexit, hoping the movement would run out of steam. Likewise in Japan: in the past, Japanese prime ministers have been famously frustrated in implementing policies because of the bureaucrats. Prior to the economic meltdown in Greece, desperately needed reforms were thwarted by the bureaucracy. Throughout the European Union, many persons are incensed over the Brussels bureaucracy’s policies that are affecting their lives.

 

Examples in the United States prior to Trump

There are instances which involve a bureaucrat, or a group of bureaucrats, who are convinced that their viewpoint is right and should be implemented, regardless of the people at the top, or, persons who feel very self-righteous and are convinced that the people at the top are doing something wrong which should stop, so they sabotage the government. In specific instances, it can be argued that the bureaucrats were right and in others not.

 

• During the Bay of Pigs, when Kennedy backstabbed the Cuban exiles by withholding the promised air support, a number of frustrated American pilots buzzed the Communist airplanes (without firing a shot, thereby strictly adhering to orders).
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• In the 1930s, Americans became besotted with the Chinese through Mahjong parties, Charlie Chan books and movies, and the maudlin novels of Pearl Buck. There was also a strong, erroneous belief that the Chinese were about to convert to Christianity. The United States was manipulated into World War II by a group of Harvard-educated bureaucrats who were determined to set foreign policy regarding Asia. Typically arrogant and ignorant about Asia, and cocooned in their good intentions, they covertly instituted an oil blockade of Japan contrary to the President’s orders and the Secretary of State, by simply distorting documents and written orders. They were certain such a stranglehold would make oil-starved Japan withdraw from its conquered Chinese territories since Japan got its oil from the US. It never occurred to them Japan would react differently. They were sure “moderates” would take over the country (does that sound familiar?); instead, the moderates were kicked out and the mad dogs took over, who then ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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• In 1972, a group of Cuban clowns, under orders of some White House officials, broke into the Watergate Office Building that housed the DNC in order to install wiretaps, but were caught. The media, which hated Richard Nixon as much as it today hates Donald Trump, carried out a constant barrage of propaganda, insinuating that Nixon had ordered the break in, which was untrue. The officials had been acting on their own.
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• In 1985, a liaison US officer and his NCO in East Germany made the decision to go toward a military shed off the beaten path, which they knew was off limit, to either photograph papers or break in with a crowbar (there are conflicting accounts). A sentry spotted them, and the officer was shot dead.
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• When Obama ran for president, he promised to shut down the prison in Guantanamo and when Trump ran for president, he promised to return the troops from Afghanistan. In both cases, the bureaucrats in the military and in the state department “explained” why something they did not want to happen should not happen and gave very good reasons and both presidents backed down.
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• In 1983, Ronald Reagan wrote a speech wherein he referred to the Soviet Union as The Evil Empire. Before he delivered it, he ran it by the White House staff who scratched out the term twice and Reagan reinserted it three times. When he delivered that famous speech, liberals in the media had a fit, but inside the Soviet Union, it was welcomed by the oppressed. The same happened in 1987 with his Berlin speech containing the famous challenge, “Tear down this wall!”

 

Examples elsewhere

• Across the pond, in 1972, British troops butchered unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland. A report put together by bureaucrats knowingly lied by stating the victims had been armed and shooting at the troops. The London government acted accordingly, the terrorist IRA gained multiple recruits, and decades of back and forth killings ensued. In 2010, the Saville report revealed the original report had been a fabrication. If the original report had reported the truth and the culprits faced justice, the resulting troubles and murders wouldn’t have occurred.
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• During the naval Battle of Copenhagen, the admiral signaled Lord Nelson suggesting the latter retreat. Nelson disobeyed by putting his telescope up to his dead eye and stated he could not see the signal. The British won the battle.
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• In the early 1960s, the Pope called for the Second Vatican Council to effect changes in the Church. The Curia tried to redirect focus by altering the program of topics up for discussion, but the efforts were futile.
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• When Imperial Japan invaded Thailand, the latter became the former’s puppet. The Thai government declared war on Britain and America, but the Thai ambassador refused to submit the declaration of war. As a result, America did not declare war on Thailand and afterwards the US refrained from treating it as a defeated enemy. So, one can argue that occasionally the Deep State delivers benefits.

 

The film/book Dr. Strangelove, incidentally, can be said to be about the Deep State. I used to think that a rogue general going nuclear was an unrealistic, bizarre idea. Not anymore.

 

The Deep State Resorts to Violence

This may sound jarring since outright violence goes against the bureaucrats’’ modus operandi of working in the shadows, not bringing attention to themselves, and being passive aggressive, but it has been known to happen.

 

• For example, a Greek bureaucrat who attempted to eliminate abuses was murdered by his subordinates.
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• Several Japanese politicians (Inukai Tsuyoshi, Saitō Makoto, Takahashi Korekiyo) were assassinated during the 1930s, including the “February 26 incident,” by different factions of the Japanese army or navy.
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• In America, there has been longstanding suspicion that JFK was murdered through the machinations of unspecified members of the Deep State, including LBJ. Regarding the latter suspect, the assassination took place in Texas, LBJ had a lot to gain from JFK’s death (whom he hated), and LBJ was no stranger to illegal activity. Something to think about.
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• And then there were the assassination attempts against Donald Trump, a man obsessively hated by the Deep State and many Democrats, including within the FBI, even before the present purge in uncovering corruption—which is why attempts to assassinate Trump were predicted long ago. The known details of the attempted assassinations by two leftists reek of the Deep State’ involvement. They just stand out. Just look at the picture of the captured would be assassin as he sits inside a police car. The man is grinning, making it a first for anyone who is arrested for possible murder. After the second attempt, Trump wisely hired professional, private bodyguards instead of relying on the bureaucracy.

 

The macabre follow up was an investigation by the very agency that was responsible for the attempts. Put another way, the Deep State tried to kill President Trump, then was asked to investigate the assassination attempt. In other words, a criminal was asked to provide evidence for his crime by people who knew he was the criminal but hoped that he would be honest in providing information against itself.

 

The Deep State Activities During Trump’s Ascendancy

The blitzkrieg being presently carried out by DOGE is uncovering shocking details, which have made Democrats hyperventilate and experience stress cardiomyopathy because they prefer the dark. The blitzkrieg is ongoing and has received well-deserved publicity (though, predictably, the media hivemind is not reporting the findings). Prior to DOGE, though, many outrages by the Deep State came to light, but I will cite only a handful.

 

• Perhaps nothing illustrates the self-assured arrogance of the leftist Deep State than Dr/Senator Rand Paul’s request for nonclassified documents on the origins of the covid pandemic. They sent him the requested 300-page document—completely redacted, a bureaucratic middle finger to Congress. FOIA requests by others have been routinely ignored.
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• The moment the Muller investigation ended, which leftists had hoped to use as an excuse to impeach Trump, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stepped forth with the supposedly shocking news that Trump had called Ukraine to find out if the Biden crime family had engaged in illegal activities there. This triviality was used as a cause of impeachment.
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• The IRS was used as a political weapon against conservatives. It targeted existing conservative nonprofit groups for audits and monitoring focusing on the demonized Tea Party and any organization that included the word “Patriots,” and other conservative groups seeking to qualify as tax-exempt organizations, as well as individuals who were deemed to be conservative.
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• The satirical website The People’s Cube was removed from the Department of Defense  due to “hate” and “racism” by a Deep State bureaucrat who objected to anti-Communist satires.
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• By contrast, totalitarian leftist groups have received lucrative handouts. $25 million in government grants to the radical leftist Make the Road New York; the NIH gave $200,000 in grants to studies promoting the transgender propaganda. A $138,000 grant to ask toddlers about their “internal gender identity.” The National Park Service gave the UC Berkeley $98,000 to honor the “legacy” of the terrorist group the Black Panthers. Leftist bureaucrats inside the State Department gave $450,000 for colleges to develop “intersectional programming.” The State Department awarded grants to British groups to combat “hate crimes;” in announcing this, the State Department praised the malignant George Soros and SPLC. The State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism gave someone, or some agency, in Kenya $592,500 to explore “gender identity.”

 

If you want to know how is it that leftists have so much power in our society it is this, because the Deep State is financing them through millions of taxpayer dollars. Every year.

Meanwhile, leftists like John Brennan are insisting that the Deep State protect ”OUR democracy.”

 

Conclusions

One can argue that the Deep State is nothing new. It exists because of the nature of bureaucracies. Due to the anonymity within bureaucracies, from the outside no one knows who exactly are the persons responsible for their macabre set of actions. They are unidentifiable. Invisible.

And they routinely engage in coverups.

The crucial difference now is that because of the epidemic of leftist totalitarianism, the Deep State is motivated by ideology and its arrogance is palpable. The obsession in promoting its ideology is out in the open, come hell or high water. The power and the size and the participants of the Deep State have become gargantuan and, because of its far reaching tentacles, inescapable.

In short, it has become a cancer.

Paging Dr. Musk. Paging Dr. Trump.

 

Table of Contents

 

Armando Simón is a retired psychologist and historian, author of The U, The Book of Many Books and When Evolution Stops.

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