What is the Deep State? The Swamp is the Deep State. Drain the Swamp!
The following is from Wikipedia and cleaned up of liberal slant …
The concept of a deep state suggests that there exists a coordinated effort by career government employees and others to influence state policy without regard for democratically elected leadership. The term, which was originally used to refer to sophisticated shadow governments in countries like Turkey and post-Soviet Russia, has also been used in American political science to refer to entrenched government institutions wielding power, without necessarily implying a conspiracy.
Definition in political science
Deep state has been defined in 2014 by Mike Lofgren, a former Republican U.S. congressional aide, as “a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.”
In The Concealment of the State, professor Jason Royce Lindsey argues that even absent a conspiratorial agenda, the term deep state is useful for understanding aspects of the national security establishment in developed countries, with emphasis on the United States. Lindsey writes that the deep state draws power from the national security and intelligence communities, a realm where secrecy is a source of power.
Use of the term during the Trump administration
Donald Trump supporters have used the term to refer to intelligence officers and executive branch officials guiding policy through leaking or other internal means. The term’s conspiratorial undertone has made it popular on conservative news outlets sympathetic to the Trump administration, including Breitbart News, but it has been discussed widely across the media spectrum.
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, have both raised concerns about a deep state which they believe is interfering with the president’s agenda. Some Trump allies and media outlets have claimed, that former president Barack Obama is coordinating a deep state resistance to Trump. The growth of this narrative within the White House has been linked to Trump’s allegation that Obama wiretapped his telephone during the 2016 Presidential campaign.
James Comey recently made it clear that he has been a deep state operative leaking information concerning President Trump.
