What does Deep State mean?

Deep State 

What does Deep State mean?

Where does Deep State come from? 

The Deep State is believed to be a clandestine network entrenched inside the government, bureaucracy, intelligence agencies, and other governmental entities. The Deep State supposedly controls state policy behind the scenes, while the democratically elected process and elected officials are merely figureheads

The origins of the term Deep State are from the secretive Turkish network known as derin devlet. This group was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with the purpose of undertaking clandestine acts to preserve the current governmental structure. These acts included coups and private assassinations of figures who were seen as hostile to the establishment; they were particularly targeted toward the press, communists, Kurds, and other dissenters.

Deep State has since come to mean any unelected “shadow government” operating behind the scenes of a democracy. If true, this would mean that the democratic process is a façade. Deep State has traditionally been used by the United States press in reference to the governments of countries like Russia and Turkey, but starting in the 2010s, it has increasingly been used to describe the United States government by those who favor conspiracy theories.

There are widely differing theories about what the Deep State’s purpose is, if it does exist. Libertarian Ron Paul, who ran as a Republican candidate for US President in 2008 and 2012, has stated his belief in a Deep State whose primary agenda is continuing a neoconservative foreign policy, continuing the Middle East-focused focused policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. This theory gained more support in 2013, when Edward Snowden released evidence that the US had been conducting massive surveillance upon its citizens.

However, since then, the Trump administration has altered the popular meaning of Deep State, similar to the administration’s appropriation of the term fake news—a term which originally referred to unsourced clickbait news from unverified outlets—as any news printed by legitimate press outlets that reflects badly upon the President or his administration. While prior arguments about a US Deep State were related to Bush-era policies, the Trump administration claims that their goals are being held back by a Deep State composed of former Obama-era allies, who are supposedly trying to sabotage the new administration. Opponents argue that because the Trump administration ran its campaign on an anti-government platform, and they now are the government, they are simply hijacking the Deep State concept as a straw man in which to blame their defeated initiatives, reports of internal chaos, and frequent information leaks.

With affection,

Ruben