Making sense of the Trump presidency will be challenging. It’s a new environment with all preconceived notions of the American political system vanishing.
Up is down and down is up.
For example, liberals, who traditionally viewed the CIA as a rogue, lawless institution, now point to CIA reports of Russian influence in the recent presidential election as perfectly credible. Meanwhile, Trump immediately signs an executive order canceling the TPP, Obama’s signature trade pact that was opposed by Bernie Sanders and the left. Adding to the intrigue, Republicans in congress are chary of Trump, much preferring Mike Pence, the more traditional Republican, Vice-President.
How is one supposed to make sense of this chaotic political dynamic?
My method is simple–follow the deep state.
The knowledge of an American deep state has existed since C. Wright Mills wrote, The Power Elite, in 1956. Mills describes the deep state as a “triangle of power, linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions. …There is a political economy numerously linked with military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today.”
This theory has recently been updated with the publication of Mike Lofgren’s Deep State, which he describes as, “the unelected networks of elite private sector power (chiefly Wall Street, the military industrial complex, Silicon Valley, and their allies atop the national government’s key state-capitalist and related repressive and imperial governmental institutions (including the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Reserve) that rule the nation.”
The deep state power structure exists as a vast network of elite institutions. You might recognize one or two.
Examining the recent election in light of this power relationship we can see that Trump and Clinton represented different factions of the deep state. During the election the power elite became bitterly divided, with the majority supporting Hilary Clinton, the candidate pre-selected by the political and corporate factions, while the military faction rallied around their choice of Donald Trump.
The energy sector also seems poised to gain under the Trump administration with the nomination of Exxon’s CEO, Rex Tillerson, as Secretary of State. It appears that
However, what Trump doesn’t seem to have grasped is that the deep state operatives of finance and intelligence will not likely permit him to enjoy functional power while he tries to seriously enact a “populist,” “protectionist,” and “isolationist” America-First agenda. After all, the deep state controls a worldwide capitalist empire and favors a globalist agenda where the American people are just one more pool of labor to exploit.
Trump’s mercurial speech, tweets and actions have set off alarms. What the deep state desires most of all is stability and continuity. This reality is what made Obama the ultimate deep state president, and Trump the ultimate loose-cannon. After the disaster of Bush, Obama’s great strength was that he was the perfect figurehead; a suave public relations president who represented our oligarchy with a façade of democratic and constitutional process. Now, to the deep state’s horror, Trump has ripped the facade away from the myth of American exceptionalism, where the United States is the world’s great beacon of democracy, human rights, justice, and freedom.
We are in dangerous times, with Trump yet to fully consolidate his power.
The deep state remains in conflict, with a serious crisis imminent. Indeed, there is strong evidence that the neoconservatives, and the national intelligence faction of the deep state have decided to wage a “color revolution” against President Trump.
2017 is shaping up to be our very own year of living dangerously.
camelotkidd 