“You see, what we’re talkin’ about here is an organism that imitates other life-forms, and it imitates ’em perfectly. When this thing attacked our dogs it tried to digest them… absorb them, and in the process shape its own cells to imitate them.”[i]– Dr. Blair
“The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism and the militarization of foreign policy, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure that has given us the most unequal society in almost a century, and the political dysfunction that has paralyzed day-to-day governance and driven voters to embrace Trump.”[ii]– Mike Lofgren
Long before arguments about there being a deep state or shadow government, what I refer to as the permanent regime, were solely affiliated with Donald Trump and MAGA, especially as they relate to the claims that his 2016 election victory was the result of Russian collusion, and the subsequent investigation and media frenzy, there was a plethora of arguments arguing that the CIA and other institutions in the executive branch of the US federal government constitutes a deep state, or as they were initially called, a “state within a state”[iii] In 1961, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who at the time was an adviser to the Kennedy regime and would later go on to write extensively about the imperial presidency, wrote a memorandum to the president titled “CIA Reorganization”, in which he essentially argued that the CIA had become far too powerful and unaccountable, that it was a rogue actor.[iv] He wrote that it “possesses many of the characteristics of a state within a state,”, and that the difference between the state, as in the CIA and other executive agencies and the state as in the outward facing government is that one is elected whilst the other is not.[v] Thus, there is no civilian control over vast swathes of not only the government, but more importantly, on policy decisions and debates. The term deep state has gone from a serious, scholarly endeavor to a cartoonish, oafish narrative hijacked by Trump and his orbit of misfits and ghouls, like Laura Loomer, who routinely checks the backgrounds of Trump officials and, if they are found by her to be insufficiently loyal to him, demands that they be fired.[vi]
Trump and his political movement have undergone a transformation from professed swamp drainers to proud swamp creatures, while still trotting out the idea that he is still somehow a bulwark against the very forces that he has coopted into an increasingly freakish and paranoid cult of personality. The point of groups like DOGE was never to truly clear out the rot that had been festering in Washington for decades, it was to seek out and destroy groups that Elon Musk and his band of nitwits saw as wasteful not monetarily, but as wasting America’s resources on funding ‘woke’ nonsense, like transgender dance in Bangladesh and other programs primarily funded by USAID.[vii] There was not even a symbolic effort to audit the pentagon or the State Department, which have been financial black holes and have never passed a single audit, despite being legally obligated to since 1991.[viii] Further, insidious institutions like the CIA, which serves as a paramilitary organization of the permanent regime, not in the interests of the American people, were not even touched. If they were, it would be to root out wokeness or cut Diversity and Inclusion hiring practices, not to probe their black budget or investigate the cost of their activities over the course of their existence, not just presently. If DOGE took their mission seriously, the CIA would be totally abolished.
If the goal of Trump or DOGE was truly to eradicate government corruption and waste, which is itself a laughable goal in light of Trump’s obscene corruption and self-dealing, together with the ever ballooning deficit and defense budget, then the intelligence agencies, which Trump initially criticized when he first ran for president and influenced a decline in trust in among Republican voters, would have been targets ripe for investigation and cutting. Instead of being on the cutting room floor, the very deep state that Trump promised to destroy fought back and consumed him, remaking him in its image, much like The Thing. However, making such an argument and employing a narrative that pits a shadowy, cabal like faction against the demos has been made more difficult in the face of Trump’s nefarious use of the term. What Trump is referring to when he uses terms like deep state and swamp are evidently obstacles to his agenda and whims. This differs wildly from the traditional left-wing use of the term deep state, by thinkers like Peter Dale Scott, as they argue that there is a shadow government comprised chiefly of Wall Street, the intelligence community and the military-industrial complex, and that these forces steer US policy, unaltered by the democratic process.[ix] As Rebecca Gordon notes, when Trump says deep state, “Rather than referring to a “shadow or parallel system of government” operating outside official channels, for Trump the deep state is the government — or at least those parts of it that frustrate him in any way.”[x]
As outlined in documents like Project 2025, the goal of the second Trump regime is the replacement of the deep state with one that acts in his personal interest, not in the interest of ideas that transcend singular politicians or thinkers, which is what the deep state that precedes him acts on. As well as Trump’s evolution into what he claimed to want to destroy, there is the dilution of the term deep state and its uselessness as a serious term of political analysis, as it, much like the word terrorist, can mean whatever one needs it to mean at any time. Before Trump, it had a certain meaning, and in the aftermath of Trump, it has been imbued with new meaning. Rather than try to salvage the term, it is past time a new term replaced it in the lexicon of US policy analysis, as Anthony Dimaggio writes, deep state has become a “faddish framework for studying political power.”, and he affirms that “The concept has come to mean whatever people want it to mean, independent of any clear-headed analysis of the political power structure.”[xi] That is why I use the term permanent regime, not only is it not infected with association with Trump and MAGA, but it also better reflects the reality of the regime being referred to, as deep state, or even shadow government, implies that there is a cabal that is working behind the scenes like puppet masters. It invokes conspiracism, and this, combined with Trump’s conspiracist employment of it, has made it incredibly noxious and unserious.
In contrast, permanent regime implies no such conspiracism. Permanence better reflects how the illiberal liberal class and their ideology has become entrenched and embedded in how the Washington establishment thinks and operates. While deep state invokes thoughts of hooded figures pulling strings, permanent regime suggests that there is an eternal faction that oversees policy making who remain intact no matter the results of elections. This faction has a specific worldview that they have long imposed on the international arena, referred to within this faction as American hegemony, or by the oxymoronic moniker ‘liberal hegemony’. The goal of using a term that does not instinctively invoke conspiracism is not intended to totally remove the idea that there are shadowy forces influencing policy, nor is it meant to offer a politically neutral term. Neutrality in this realm of political analysis is impossible because even the claim of neutrality, commonly proclaimed by those who espouse orthodox views on US foreign policy, like the Council on Foreign Relations, who claim that they do not take policy positions on matters, yet they employ an army of illiberal liberal goons and they rarely, if ever, stray from the establishment line on all matters of foreign policy, is itself a politically charged claim. Just as George Orwell argues that to say art is not political is itself a political position, to say that politics, especially the politics or power and of a specific power, can be nonpolitical or objective is itself political, often touted by the likes of CFR, Brookings Institute, and Carnegie Endowment for Peace.[xii]
As I mentioned in my last essay on Taiwan and the presumption that anyone who has a view on Taiwan that is oppositional to those who argue that it should be defended are advocates for its “abandonment” or desertion, those who see themselves as providing objective analysis from the outside looking in are often unwittingly reinforcing orthodoxy, in that case the long-standing view on Taiwan.
Ryan Gingeras, who has studied and written about the idea of the deep state, from its origins in Turkey to its use in American politics, especially in the age of Trump, argues in an essay that while distrust of the government can be useful and can lead to significant revelations, like conspiracies regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy resulting in Congress to starting new investigations into it, from which astounding revelations about domestic surveillance by the CIA and links between the government and the mafia came to light.[xiii] However, Gingeras writes that “Whether such disclosures constitute evidence of sustained political cabals or shadow governments is often where discussions of the deep state become problematic.”[xiv] Though he is right to point out that there being evidence of a coverup or covert operation in relation to a particular case is not by itself proof that there is a cabal that is orchestrating a mass conspiracy, even if it can be linked to other revelations, the notion that certain plots or actions are done in isolation or that there is no overarching motivation or ideology driving such action is incorrect, as it is the same ideology, Western supremacy, that is behind the many actions taken by the US during the Cold War and beyond. Gingeras further writes that, “To suppose that a deep state constitutes a permanent fixture within states can lead one to construe it as an actual organization with a consistent cast of individuals who meet and plot over long periods of time.”, and he argues that it is questionable that such a parallel state, or a state within a state, exists.[xv] However, it does not have to be a secret society or organization that routinely meets to discuss and hatch maniacal plots to retain their rule over the world, though institutions like the World Economic Forum could be seen as such a group, nor does it have to be generational, familial or dynastic. It is instead a group formed around a guiding ideology and the worldview that this entails. Thus, the permanent fixture is not a fixed group of individuals, but rather, it is a rotating cast of people all bound to the same ideology. It is the set of ideas that they adhere to and impose that are permanent, not a personality or tribe.
From this, we can see how Trump’s political movement, which is based on loyalty to a man, not adherence to an ideology, is not a subversion of the permanent regime but a switch of the driving force, from a cult of ideology to one of personality. The illiberal liberal class’s scorn for the term deep state may be rooted in its association with Trump, but their reaction to what he illuminated and criticized in his 2016 campaign and in his first presidency, like in the open letter signed by a plethora of Republicans that denounced Trump, proves that their hatred for Trump is not out of fealty to democracy or liberty, but for his demeanor and how he clumsily and nastily oversees the US empire and does the bidding of the permanent regime. The illiberal liberal class wants to go back to the way the permanent regime used to function, not to any fantasyland where the US was anything but a ruthless empire.
[i] The Thing, Horror, directed by John Carpenter (Universal Pictures, 1982), 109 Minutes.
[ii] Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government (Penguin Books, 2016).
[iii] Peter Kornbluh and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi, “CIA Covert Ops: Kennedy Assassination Records Lift Veil of Secrecy,” National Security Archive, March 19, 2025, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/2025-03-19/cia-covert-ops-kennedy-assassination-records-lift-veil-secrecy.
[iv] Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “Schlesinger, Arthur M., 1961: May-June | JFK Library,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, 1961, https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkpof-065-008; Peter Kornbluh, “JFK Wanted to Splinter CIA ‘into a Thousand Pieces.’ Why Didn’t He?” accessed September 15, 2026, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/jfk-files-cia/.
[v] Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “Schlesinger, Arthur M., 1961.”
[vi] Patrick Reis, “Laura Loomer Convinced Trump to Fire the Head of the NSA | Vox,” Vox, April 5, 2025, https://www.vox.com/the-logoff-newsletter-trump/407344/laura-loomer-trump-nsa-director; Antonia Hitchens, “Laura Loomer’s Endless Payback | The New Yorker,” The New Yorker, November 10, 2025, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/17/laura-loomers-endless-payback; Maggie Haberman et al., “After Meeting With Laura Loomer, Trump Fires National Security Council Officials – The New York Times,” accessed January 22, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/us/politics/trump-meeting-laura-loomer.html.
[vii] Wyatt Reed, Why Did Republicans Fund ‘Transgender Dance’ in Bangladesh? – The Grayzone, February 8, 2025, https://thegrayzone.com/2025/02/07/republicans-transgender-dance-bangladesh/.
[viii] Armed Services Committee, “H.R.4739 – 101st Congress (1989-1990): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991,” legislation, November 5, 1990, 1990-05-08, https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/house-bill/4739.
[ix] Robert Scheer, The Pornography Of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America (Grand Central Publishing, 2009); Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (University of California Press, 2007); Aaron Good, American Exception: Empire and the Deep State (Skyhorse Publishing, 2022); Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.
[x] Rebecca Gordon, “Trump Has No Idea What ‘Deep State’ Really Means,” Truthdig, January 14, 2020, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-has-no-idea-what-deep-state-really-means/.
[xi] Anthony DiMaggio, “Ditching the ‘Deep State’: The Rise of a New Conspiracy Theory in American Politics,” CounterPunch.Org, March 24, 2017, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/ditching-the-deep-state-the-rise-of-a-new-conspiracy-theory-in-american-politics/.
[xii] George Orwell, All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays, 1st ed, with Keith Gessen (HarperCollins Publishers, 2009).
[xiii] Ryan Gingeras, “How the Deep State Came to America: A History,” War on the Rocks, February 4, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/how-the-deep-state-came-to-america-a-history/.
[xiv] Gingeras, “How the Deep State Came to America.”
[xv] Gingeras, “How the Deep State Came to America.”
References
Aaron Good. American Exception: Empire and the Deep State. Skyhorse Publishing, 2022.
Armed Services Committee. “H.R.4739 – 101st Congress (1989-1990): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991.” Legislation. November 5, 1990. 1990-05-08. https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/house-bill/4739.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. “Schlesinger, Arthur M., 1961: May-June | JFK Library.” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, 1961. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkpof-065-008.
DiMaggio, Anthony. “Ditching the ‘Deep State’: The Rise of a New Conspiracy Theory in American Politics.” CounterPunch.Org, March 24, 2017. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/ditching-the-deep-state-the-rise-of-a-new-conspiracy-theory-in-american-politics/.
Gingeras, Ryan. “How the Deep State Came to America: A History.” War on the Rocks, February 4, 2019. https://warontherocks.com/how-the-deep-state-came-to-america-a-history/.
Hitchens, Antonia. “Laura Loomer’s Endless Payback | The New Yorker.” The New Yorker, November 10, 2025. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/17/laura-loomers-endless-payback.
John Carpenter, dir. The Thing. Horror. Universal Pictures, 1982. 109 Minutes.
Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, and Ken Basinger. “After Meeting With Laura Loomer, Trump Fires National Security Council Officials – The New York Times.” Accessed January 22, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/us/politics/trump-meeting-laura-loomer.html.
Mike Lofgren. The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government. Penguin Books, 2016.
Orwell, George. All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays. 1st ed. With Keith Gessen. HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.
Patrick Reis. “Laura Loomer Convinced Trump to Fire the Head of the NSA | Vox.” Vox, April 5, 2025. https://www.vox.com/the-logoff-newsletter-trump/407344/laura-loomer-trump-nsa-director.
Peter Dale Scott. The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. Universit of California Press, 2007.
Peter Kornbluh. “JFK Wanted to Splinter CIA ‘into a Thousand Pieces.’ Why Didn’t He?” Accessed September 15, 2026. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/jfk-files-cia/.
Peter Kornbluh and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. “CIA Covert Ops: Kennedy Assassination Records Lift Veil of Secrecy.” National Security Archive, March 19, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/2025-03-19/cia-covert-ops-kennedy-assassination-records-lift-veil-secrecy.
Rebecca Gordon. “Trump Has No Idea What ‘Deep State’ Really Means.” Truthdig, January 14, 2020. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-has-no-idea-what-deep-state-really-means/.
Reed, Wyatt. Why Did Republicans Fund ‘Transgender Dance’ in Bangladesh? – The Grayzone. February 8, 2025. https://thegrayzone.com/2025/02/07/republicans-transgender-dance-bangladesh/.
Robert Scheer. The Pornography Of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America. Grand Central Publishing, 2009.
Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes 
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