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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   30180 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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A motte for the term: The deep state

Without endorsing any particular theories here, perhaps the best way to think about the deep state is that it is simply parts of the government that have developed their own distinct political goals and capabilities, and are involved in the political process in ways that may or may not be visible, legal or proper. In some vague sense, a "deep state" may simply be a function of a government. Any government that remains stable for long enough will develop capabilities that do not require a given person at the top, since the leaders change over time. Those abilities will then be put to use in service of whatever political goals unite that part of government.

This becomes more open and more contentious in a democracy when parts of the government revolt against elected leaders.

I listen to talk radio. Some hosts are concerned about the deep state, but think that name is silly. They decided that something more like "permanent bureaucracy" is better.

There is a real large set of federal bureaucrats that don't care to comply with Republican executives. We should recognize them as a tiny class with outsized undemocratic influence. But maybe a name much less dramatic than "the deep state" would be better.

Honestly when I think of the "deep state" I just think of Yes, Minister.

There's no point in ruminating on the Deep State or what it means because it means whatever the person deploying the term to make a political point wants it to mean. Christopher Wray has been accused of being "deep state" almost since he replaced Comey as FBI director, despite the fact that he's not only a political appointees but one whom Trump appointed himself. Deep state is nothing more than a smear against anyone in government who does something Trump disagrees with.

As for the actual civil service, part of the problem is that they're subject to laws passed by Congress and aren't just subordinates of the current administration. Part of the reason Trump is so often accused of being a wannabe dictator is that he expects the apparatus of government to do his bidding regardless of whether there's any legal basis for it. If Joe Biden told the Social Security Administration to stop sending checks to certain counties for whatever reason, the SSA would be correct to ignore him. Trump's concerns weren't as blatant, but he willfully ignored the normal avenues by which executive action is taking, and ended up confusing and pissing off the people he was relying upon.

he's not only a political appointees but one whom Trump appointed himself

You're saying it like it should prove something. Trump is notorious for bad appointments, he appointed many people who either stabbed him in the back, or made policies that were entirely contrary to what he declared he wanted to do, or completely ignored him and did their own thing. He appointed Fauci, for example. He appointed Sessions. He appointed/selected Pence. He is not great at selecting people who will - not even do what he wants, in any meaning of the expression - but at least not behave like they are his sworn enemies.

Deep state is nothing more than a smear against anyone in government who does something Trump disagrees with.

That is completely false, deep state exists and it is a vast federal bureaucracy which will defend its enormous and largely unchecked powers by any means necessary. Including, for example, impeaching the President. And being appointed by Trump does not contradict being a member of this bureaucracy - Trump can't just appoint a random person to be the head of a department, he'd usually be offered a choice of potential candidates. If every single one of them is the product of the same bureaucracy, or will be obstructed by it to the point they can't do anything at their position - what can he do? Fire the whole federal office to the last chair warmer? Even he is not that bold.

As for the actual civil service, part of the problem is that they're subject to laws passed by Congress

Technically yes. Factually, the opposite - the Congress routinely passes laws which leaves huge rulemaking powers in the hands of the federal bureaucracy and they only limit it in the most vague way. Even when the Congress does say something specifically, they would attempt to ignore it, and must be sued to actually follow the law. And even after an adverse court decision, they would just turn around and try again - because there's no personal responsibility for virtually anything (immunity!) and the most you get if you win a case against the bureaucracy is that they don't succeed this particular time and maybe pay you something from the taxpayer money. The system itself is immune to any damage and can not be hurt - so there's no incentive for them to not to try and violate the law if it serves them.

Part of the reason Trump is so often accused of being a wannabe dictator

Just like literally every single other Republican candidate or President, to note

is that he expects the apparatus of government to do his bidding regardless of whether there's any legal basis for it

That's BS. He expects the apparatus - unreasonably, of course, because the apparatus reasonably considers him the mortal enemy and would sabotage his every move - to work with him, as the representative of the People, because they are supposed to be serving the People, and not instead to obstruct him on each turn. Of course, that could never happen, for the reasons I already stated.

If Joe Biden told the Social Security Administration to stop sending checks to certain counties for whatever reason

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-confirms-withholding-key-funds-schools-hunting-courses-shameful Random latest example. The federal government is using "stopping sending checks" as a tool to enforce compliance and force the dissenters to bend the knee ALL THE TIME. It's not some freak occurrence, it's literally their routine and favorite tool. Tons of regulations rest on it - if you don't comply with X, Y, Z, ..., you don't get federal money.

Trump's concerns weren't as blatant, but he willfully ignored the normal avenues by which executive action is taking

Wait, so you brought something Trump didn't do as an example of something for which he's a wannabe dictator? Of course. But the "normal avenues" is to work with the federal bureaucracy in ways that they built for working with them. Which would allow Trump to do exactly nothing because the federal bureaucracy has zero interest in helping Trump to do anything, and 100% interest in seeing him fail.

ended up confusing and pissing off the people he was relying upon.

As I said, he is pretty lousy at choosing people to rely on. Not that it's an easy task - given that any person associated with Trump would be subjected to eternal hate of the most powerful bureaucracy in the world, and the tribe controlling virtually the whole academy, law, entertainment, high-tech and significant part of the major business - and they don't pull punches. But seeing it objectively - the results weren't that good. It is his personal fault - but it does not change the nature of the enemy he attempted to confront.

You're saying it like it should prove something. Trump is notorious for bad appointments, he appointed many people who either stabbed him in the back, or made policies that were entirely contrary to what he declared he wanted to do, or completely ignored him and did their own thing.

It is at the very least suggestive of Trump's difficulties stemming from both personal incompetence and poor judgment with respect to selecting subordinates (or alternatively, his appointees were fine but Trump himself was deficient in his conduct - if everyone you meet is an asshole, etc...), not a far-reaching scheme by career civil servants or even passive resistance from federal employees.

Including, for example, impeaching the President.

Congress impeached Trump. Both times.

not a far-reaching scheme by career civil servants or even passive resistance from federal employees.

Except in reality it's both. Moreover, the latter reinforces the former - if you know you'll have to walk through fire once you take the job, the candidate pool will be 10% heroes and 90% short-term grifters who don't mind the noise because they are shameless and their grift would work whether they are hated or not. If whoever doing the selection is bad at separating one from the other and very susceptible to flattery, then the chance the grifter gets the job are very high. These are not opposed, but reinforcing factors.

Congress impeached Trump. Both times.

Yes, but the deep state prepared a basis for it. For the first one, mostly, the second one is such a clown show that it didn't even bother with preparing anything, it's purely "orange man hitler". But the first was the result of the alliance between the Dems in the Congress and the deep state, especially the security services and State Dept wings of it.

given that any person associated with Trump would be subjected to eternal hate of the most powerful bureaucracy in the world

I can't provide a source for this but iirc there was definitely talk behind closed doors of the kind of chilling effect that certain prosecutions had on team Trump. Shortly after someone signed up for the Trump government in a sincere attempt to help him achieve his goals, they would have been the subject of incredibly expensive to defend against prosecutions from a variety of different government sources.

In some vague sense, a "deep state" may simply be a function of a government.

Not before Garfield's assassination.

Maybe it's time to repeal the Civil Service Act. According to Wikipedia it was racist anyway:

The namesake of the Pendleton Act is George H. Pendleton, an Ohio Democratic U.S. senator who defended slavery in the 1850s and led the anti-war "Copperheads" in the American Civil War opposing President Abraham Lincoln. The passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act with the aid of "Half-Breed" Republicans furthered the aims of white supremacist Democrats to curtail patronage, which had been used by "Stalwart" Republicans to socially and economically benefit blacks.

Maybe it's time to repeal the Civil Service Act.

This would be ridiculous in a modern economy. The spoils system had already had its day in an era where swathes of the country had effectively no federal presence except postmasters and other assorted odds and sods like lighthouse- keepers. America already has a relatively high level of political input in the civil service; even if you buy into the whole 'deep state' thing I fail to see how making thousands upon thousands of offices sinecures for party hacks makes things much better.

Prior to the Civil Service Act the Deep State wouldn't have been tenable. Every time the executive branch changed hands nearly everyone lost their jobs. They had probably gotten those jobs through patronage, and their replacements would be patrons of the new guy.

This is why Garfield was killed. His assassin believed he was a big enough Garfield booster that he ought to have landed one of those patronage rewarding jobs. But, he didn't.

I didn't make any normative statements.

are involved in the political process in ways that may or may not be visible, legal or proper.

I feel like this summary is already overbroad in a way that makes it include both the motte and the bailey again.

Not visible? Of course, there a 3m federal employees and 20m state/local government employees, no one is going to be able to watch everything they all do every day. This seems obvious and value-neutral, definitely the motte of the term.

Not proper? Depends on who's definition of 'proper' you are using, and surely there are some improper things happening by any definition. Here people are going to disagree on how much it's happening and which things count based on their values and intuitions. May be motte or bailey depending on the details of the claim.

Not legal? Now this is definitely in the realm of accusations and condemnation, verging towards the conspiracy theory stuff that is the standard bailey for these discussions.

Basically, I think this definition falls prey to the 'jaywalking, littering, and murder' objection - people can be using this definition while talking about two radically different things (lack of visibility for good and proper actions vs. outright crimes of corruption) that imply radically different courses of action. So it's too broad to accomplish much and leads to people talking past each other.

The "deep state" is a motte-and-bailey where the motte is public choice theory and the bailey is that a cabal of civil servants controls the USG.

This seems true. Because I didn't recognize the term, here's how GPT-4 defines public choice theory.

"Public choice theory studies how government decisions are made and how they can be influenced by individual or group self-interest. It applies economics to political science to analyze government efficiency and policy outcomes."

In the context of your comment, I think it means that government bureaucrats make decisions based on their own ideology and self-interest, not that of the populace. This seems self-evidently true to me.

The problem, of course, is that the people who are attracted to the bureaucracy tend to exhibit traits that make them far more liberal than the general population. In any large bureaucracy, the deep state would always exist. But rarely before (in the United States) has it been so ideologically divergent from the average person.

My point being that when someone says "the deep state sabotage Donald Trump" or words to that effect, they probably do not simply mean "his executive policies got slow rolled because the civil servants in charge of executing them were liberals who didn't believe in the policies".

Regarding the partisan lean of government employees, I refer other comments in this thread. I don't think there is some intrinsic quality of government employment that makes it skew dramatically liberal (and indeed, certain types skew very conservative for pretty much the same reason in reverse).

I don't think there is some intrinsic quality of government employment that makes it skew dramatically liberal

I thought they overwhelmingly voted Democrat.

they probably do not simply mean "his executive policies got slow rolled because the civil servants in charge of executing them were liberals who didn't believe in the policies".

They probably mean something directionally parallel to this. The more radical ones would claim or at least imply literal conspiracies of this, while more moderates believe in emergent conspiracy ie "The Cathedral", while more moderate still mean literally what you said, with the additional comment that this alone is bad and the ability for unelected civil servants to undermine elected officials is bad and they have too much power.

I'm not entirely sure that the term "The Deep State" alone is a Motte and Bailey just because different people believe different things about how much power it has or should have. It's only when it's used to equivocate between explicit conspiracy and emergent biases that it takes on that role. Maybe it would be more principled for the moderates to use a different term to refer to the biases. But if the actual outcome on politics is identical to the supposed conspiracy the more radicals believe in then I'm not sure the distinction is all that important.

It’s not hard for me to believe that people who think the best government is local do not choose to work for the federal government. Besides, Washington DC votes 95% democrat. Conservatives will self select out of living in a one party town run by their out group. I thought moving the BLM to Grand Junction was excellent policy in this regard. Why in the world should the BLM, which controls 50% of the land out west, be run by Washington bureaucrats as an absentee landlord totally divorced from the land itself?

More generally, what is the meaning of Democracy when some of the people are highly underrepresented in positions of governance? I very much doubt Democrats would be OK with the federal government being located in rural Texas.

It took me a second to realize you weren't talking about black lives mattee

Conservatives will self select out of living in a one party town run by their out group.

Capital area Federal employees mostly live in NoVa, and besides which, most Federal employees work elsewhere. The Capital area has a disproportionate share of fed workers, but that's neither particular surprising nor inappropriate (these agencies' leaders are supposed to be available to meet with political leadership and even occasionally each other).

More generally, what is the meaning of Democracy when some of the people are highly underrepresented in positions of governance?

What does 'underrepresented' mean? Conservatives are underrepresented in the civil service; Liberals are underrepresented in law enforcement; Hispanics are underrepresented in the House; Californians are underrepresented in the Senate; Protestants are underrepresented on the Supreme Court.

To make this more explicit: this seems like special pleading for the representation of conservative interests.

A government of, by, and for the people is a good standard by me, no special pleading necessary. Strongly disproportionate representation in the government itself (of unelected officials) runs afoul. The composition of our civil servants isn’t encoded into the constitution, or quite possibly anything, and it can easily be changed. This is in essence the same argument, as you wrote, that Democrats make for the police. They say the police aren’t members of our community, geographically or otherwise, they don’t have our values and therefore don’t serve the community. Those concerns are valid however we address them. I would do so for both the police and our federal bureaucracy.

I think the accumulation in DC does make government employees skew more liberal, though.

What do you suppose is an unreasonable theory of "deep state" that people actually believe in?

I'd think that 'The deep state stole the 2020 election for Biden' is a good place to start the discussion.

Or “the deep state is the reason Trump didn’t accomplish _____.” I was at a gun show this weekend and heard that more or less verbatim from the next aisle over.

Depending on the part removed by the underscore that could actually be totally reasonable and plausible. There were multiple instances where Trump said he wanted to do something and then the machinery of government made sure that could not or did not happen.

Usually, though, this ends up being that he was talked out of it by his own advisors, not that some life-tenure civil servant had anything to do with it.

More comments

I'll happily defend what you think is the bailey as my motte. I used to subscribe to "structural" theories providing mundane explanation for dysfunctional behaviors of institutions, and dismiss "conspiracy" theories, but the last few years have utterly discredited the former, and I haven't actually heard a good argument to dismiss the latter.

Personally I started believing conspiracy theories when I found out that the US government actually knew that Iraq didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, and then my belief was further reinforced with the William Binney leaks which effectively confirmed that all the conspiracy theories regarding government monitoring were 100% true.

The good argument against it is that it would be something that would likely produce tons of evidence of it's existence, and we have no such evidence, despite tons and tons of scrutiny on the matter? Which is pretty much the standard argument against most conspiracy theories.

Unless you do have evidence you want to cite, in which case, we'll probably disagree on what 'cabal' and 'controls' means. Obviously people have influence over things, and obviously when there's only two political parties some of those people will be political allies with each other, but I think 'cabal' and 'control' are both big stretches for the things that are already part of the public record.

The good argument against it is that it would be something that would likely produce tons of evidence of it's existence

Sure.

and we have no such evidence

Now that's weird, because almost every President has constantly been complaining about exactly this problem to degrees that are extremely well documented. Some even had to build parallel organizations just to allow themselves to pursue an agenda the administration didn't like.

It seems zany to say that there is no evidence of the deep state in a world where we know for a fact the CIA almost succeeded to force Kennedy into a war with Cuba he never wanted. Where Trump had generals disobey his direct, legal and specific orders with zero consequence, and where Eisenhower plainly stated that there was the makings of such a thing and we should be careful not to let it happen.

I won't mention every program that congress and the executive only learn about way after the fact, the list is too long, though honorable mention to the current UAP craziness and the Pentagon's creative accounting that has billions of dollars magically pop in and out of existence on the regular. But the evidence that the administrative state lives its own life unburdened by control from democratic institutions is anything but nonexistent.

Yup, as I predicted, I'm happy characterizing all that as 'various people and organizations having lots of influence over various things', I think calling that 'a cabal controlling the government' is misleading.

But w/e, if we agree on empirical reality and disagree on semantics, that's not always an unimportant distinction, but it's almost always a boring one.

I denounce this distinction as without difference.

Cabals are groups of people having influence. If you wish to place the difference at coordination, we also have clear evidence the factions inside the administration are coordinating. Read for instance the twitter files for a recent example.

It seems to me that you have simply decided to define conspiracy as something impossible and that any sufficiently proven coordinated covert action just gets to be outside the definition because it's no longer impossible.

This isn't a useful way of looking at world. Working oneself backwards from dogma such as "conspiracies never happen" is a strictly worse model than discarding axiomatic categories of things that never happen and conceding that conspiracies are a thing that does happen sometimes. If only because it requires less complexity.

There may well be some number of individual cabals, they may well be influencing some number of things. Conspiracies absolutely exist; as you say we have evidence of many of them, and I happily acknowledge those.

But this is again a motte and bailey thing. Or a thing about being so casual with your language that what you communicate is qualitatively different from what you meant.

'Sometimes some cabals exist in the government and influence some things' is pretty much true.

'The Deep State is a secret cabal that controls the government' is not that.

It implies there's one single unified long-term-stable cabal, not lots of disparate and completely unrelated individual ones that spring up and fall apart in response to specific issues and opportunities.

It implies that this singular eternal cabal controls the entire government, that everything the government does is a reflection of their will and nothing else matters ('controls' is a much stronger claim than 'influences', what else could that word choice mean?).

And these claims are not just slightly different from each other, they produce massively different empirical predictions. Like, if there's a single cabal that controls everything about the government, then it should always have consistent goals in everything it does, it shouldn't break down along artisan lines, there should never be different internal factions bickering and working against each other, who you elect as representatives should never have ab effect on what the government is doing, etc. None of these things are actually true.

To me it just sounds like a straw man. Every human organization, including a conspiracy, has factions and internal politics. And all the factions of permanents government are not shy about acting in their common interests and coordinate.

To take a normal feature of any group and say that because this group has it, it's not real means that you are assuming your conclusion.

I repeat myself but to you a conspiracy is not a real object and any real large scale collusion can't be a conspiracy because it must somehow imply unreal features like perfect cooperation between all agents.

If you're not willing to call the bolcheviks a conspiracy against the provisional government, you don't have a serious definition of conspiracy.

More comments

The good argument against it is that it would be something that would likely produce tons of evidence of it's existence, and we have no such evidence, despite tons and tons of scrutiny on the matter?

That's not a good argument, that's a terrible argument!

First of all, you surely heard of survivorship bias, well there's also it's opposite. Just because you shot down all those airplanes doesn't mean there aren't some that evaded your fire. There might even be stealth airplanes you never saw coming.

Secondly, there are conspiracy theories that did end up getting backed by evidence - see Epstein's Island and his prostitution ponzi scheme.

Unless you do have evidence you want to cite, in which case, we'll probably disagree on what 'cabal' and 'controls' means.

Indeed, that has been my experience. You can drop the craziest idea like "the global elites are deliberately coordinating to spread LGBT ideology around the world", and everybody calls it a conspiracy theory and demands evidence. When you provide evidence, it magically doesn't count, because you have evidence.

Obviously people have influence over things.

This refutes the idea that the Deep State boils down to public choice theory.

but I think 'cabal' and 'control' are both big stretches for the things that are already part of the public record.

Well, you can just not use these words when you're criticizing conspiracy theorists.

When you provide evidence, it magically doesn't count, because you have evidence.

Yes, the "deep" modifier of "the deep state" suggests such layered institutional presence that "the deep state" controls what counts as "evidence," making it therefore impossible to prove its existence within deep state-controlled venues.

That's not true. "Deep" suggests a parallel power structure within the official government one, as in: "a state within a state".

Also, I was talking about all conspiracy theories, not just this one.

And you can't say "if it's true there would be evidence" and "if there's evidence, it's not true". The latter is nonsensical on it's own terms, but together it's just a plain contradiction.

Editing this out because I missed the last portion of your sentence somehow, and that means my objection is meaningless. Preserving it as a quote in case someone is working on a reply already.

Uh, no? As someone who uses the term deep state and has a rough idea of what I'm talking about when I do, there are mountains and mountains of evidence that this deep state exists. They have a level of influence over the media and society but their power isn't total. If you want an example of something that I'd view as direct action by the deep state, look at the Hunter Biden laptop letter that was signed by various members of the intelligence community. We now know that the people who signed that letter were actively lying and knew they were lying in order to shift an election, but what matters is that there is direct and primary evidence that the deep state is both real and using their influence to shift public opinion. There's been polls and research done which suggests that if the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn't suppressed it would have changed the outcome of the election.

That's a clear example of the deep state in action - they aren't the Learned Elders of Zion or the Stonecutters meeting in shady rooms, they are another power bloc competing for influence in the government. They have a lot of power in some respects but substantially less in others... but they really don't have the ability to decide what counts as evidence outside incredibly specific circumstances (FISA courts etc).

I think nothing demonstrates this better than the case of Alexander Vindman. Let's assume his whistleblowing was not a premeditated impeachment trap for Trump as I don't think there was any evidence to that. His whistleblowing was based on that public servant's impression that the POTUS was undermining US Foreign Policy, which when you think about it with in mind who is supposed to set US Foreign Policy, is a really odd thing to say.

I don't think it's accurate to call Vindman a whistleblower given that his "whistleblowing" was nothing other than testifying in response to a congressional subpoena. It would be one thing if he leaked the call to the media shortly after it happened, but it isn't reasonable to expect every Federal employee to fall on their sword for whoever is in power.

Ding ding ding.

If you think that the President is, e.g. the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, then literally any action he takes in that capacity when commanding a particular military action should, by definition, be obeyed without question, and refusal should be some form of treason or, bare minimum, dereliction of duty.

So when you have military personnel ignoring orders or claiming he's unfit to command, that's literally upending the actual chain of command as delineated in the basic structure of government.

A General making decisions that contradict those handed down from the Executive is evidence of exactly the sort of 'deep state' conspiracy that suggests that the President and Congress aren't actually the ones with the authority over the government.

Obviously the ur-example of this would be the military couping the President on flimsy grounds, but that's never really been the claim. The claim is that a coup is unneeded because the power isn't actually there in the first place, there's no need to take out the President when you can just ignore him.

If you think that the President is, e.g. the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, then literally any action he takes in that capacity when commanding a particular military action should, by definition, be obeyed without question, and refusal should be some form of treason or, bare minimum, dereliction of duty.

This is completely wrong.

"Disobeying the President is treason" implies that the President is the United States. This is the very reason why many believe that Trump (and certain would-be Imperial Presidents before him) broke American norms, because the loyalty is supposed to be to the office of the President, not the man.

Of course military officers (and federal civilians, though the rules aren't quite the same for them - the worst you can do to them for insubordination is fire them) are obligated to obey lawful orders. Key word: lawful. You seem to also be claiming that a Presidential order is by definition lawful, when in fact anyone would be obligated to disobey an unlawful order.

Now of course there's the sticky problem of a subordinate claiming an order from the President was unlawful when the President doesn't think it was. That might only be decidable by the Supreme Court. You'd better be pretty damn sure you want to die on that hill if you disobey a direct order. But a President can't just order his generals to invade anyone or launch missiles anywhere he likes and expect those orders to be obeyed without question.

You know, I used deliberate phrasing to make my point:

and refusal should be some form of treason or, bare minimum, dereliction of duty.

and

the ur-example of this would be the military couping the President on flimsy grounds,

Almost like there's a spectrum for the varying levels of disobedience/insubordination.

"Disobeying the President is treason" implies that the President is the United States. This is the very reason why many believe that Trump (and certain would-be Imperial Presidents before him) broke American norms, because the loyalty is supposed to be to the office of the President, not the man.

Yes, if the President ordered generals to launch a nuke against the U.S. civilian population without some obvious need for it to defend the nation, then you're probably right.

But I assume you'd agree that if the President ordered a General to, e.g. withdraw troops from a foreign country with all haste (i.e. Afghanistan) and that General, rather than obey, decided to send troops to surround the White House in order to prevent any further action...

THAT'D BE A LITTLE TREASONOUS, no?

Just as an example of a clearly lawful order and a clearly unjustifiable resistance.

Now of course there's the sticky problem of a subordinate claiming an order from the President was unlawful when the President doesn't think it was. That might only be decidable by the Supreme Court

Sure. But the military chain of command isn't going to wait on a Supreme Court ruling to take some action.

Add on the fact that the Executive tends to have full authority remove officers and appointed officials at will, and what will likely happen is he can simply fire the ones who are causing him trouble until he finds ones that will meet his standards.

But a President can't just order his generals to invade anyone or launch missiles anywhere he likes and expect those orders to be obeyed without question.

Yes but there's a whole massive world of theoretical orders that are supposed to be followed, and there is nobody higher in the chain of command to run them by. So refusal to follow the order will have to, in this case, be based on something outside of the 'authority' of the authority vested in the office.

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-ii/clauses/345#commander-in-chief-clause-ramsey-and-vladeck

In sum, the Commander in Chief Clause gives the President the exclusive power to command the military in operations approved by Congress; it probably gives the President substantial independent power to direct military operations so long has the President does not infringe exclusive powers of Congress or other provisions of the Constitution; and it may (but may not) limit Congress’ power to pass statutes directing or prohibiting particular military activities.

You know, I used deliberate phrasing to make my point:

Yes, but treason isn't even on the spectrum.

But I assume you'd agree that if the President ordered a General to, e.g. withdraw troops from a foreign country with all haste (i.e. Afghanistan) and that General, rather than obey, decided to send troops to surround the White House in order to prevent any further action...

Yes, that would be treason, but disobeying or slow-rolling an order would be the smallest part of that.

The article you linked to doesn't cite any instances of any generals disobeying orders. It lists three names—Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly—none of whom were active military at the time and only one of whom, Mattis, was in any position to carry out orders; McMaster and Kelly's positions were purely advisory. Now, Mattis did ignore Trump's orders on a number of occasions, but as a civilian he isn't subject to military law regarding insubordination. As a political appointee, if he refuses an order Trump's remedy is to fire him, which he declined to do.

As to whether it's treason, luckily, the constitution is pretty clear on this:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Simply disregarding an order can hardly be described as levying war against the country, and it's not clear which enemies Mattis would have been giving aid or comfort to. Furthermore, the language of the clause implies that an overt act is required, not simply failure to act. Indeed, there are only a few instances in criminal law where one can be liable for failure to act, so the general presumption is that the law requires an overt act unless otherwise specified.

More importantly, I don't see how this really applies to discussion about a so-called Deep State. These were all people Trump picked himself to serve in high-level advisory positions. They weren't military lifers he was stuck with and couldn't fire. This whole situation, if nothing else, is emblematic of Trump's lack of fitness for the office. He said in 2016 that his lack of experience wouldn't be an issue because he would find the "best people" to advise him. Then he didn't like what the best people had to say, so he got rid of them and replaced them with other people whom he didn't want to listen to, either. If your own hand-selected panel of experts tells you something is a bad idea, and this happens multiple times, maybe the problem isn't with the experts.

The point is that if your Country's founding document, deriving it's authority from consent of the governed (or whatever you're going with), vests the portion of that authority regarding military command in a particular person who holds a particular office, you expect that person to have the broadest, highest possible control over the military chain of command. His authority isn't total, but is pretty much total within the world of lawful orders he could theoretically issue.

The grounds for disobeying the President's order, then, will have to come from a justification outside of that authority, since there's literally nobody higher up the chain of command to countermand the order.

So the point would be that undermining the authority of the Commander in Chief is evidence that the authority is not in fact vested where it 'ought' to be.

As I stated very clearly:

The claim is that a coup is unneeded because the power isn't actually there in the first place

If military officers feel safe disobeying presidential orders that would, under most reasonable interpretations, be lawful and authorized, then this simply demonstrates that the "Commander in Chief" role is not in fact resting with the office of the President.

Which is to say that if electing a President doesn't actually vest that person with all the rights, duties, and authority that the office is supposed to have, we should begin to question where all that authority has gone.

And in this case, there were rumblings of needing to simply disregard Trump's orders BEFORE HE WAS EVEN ELECTED:

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/constitution-check-could-the-military-disobey-orders-issued-by-a-president-

and here is the conclusion regarding Constitutionality of disobedience, which I largely endorse:

Though the general added that he was not talking about a coup by the military, his remarks had the rather scary sound of just such a maneuver. It was chilling precisely for constitutional reasons: it is not the function of the military to make a decision that the policy choices of civilian government leaders are outrageous, or even that they violate norms of international law. That is not a military function. It is simply well outside of any norm of constitutional understanding to pretend either that the military is capable of making legal judgments, or that it has been set up to be a player in checks-and-balances.

So the 'Deep State', in this context, is the parts of our governmental structure that surreptitiously override the civilian control of the military whenever it runs counter to those interests they deem more important.

The administrative state when it was thought up, had these people be mindless cogs that would pass and process information to the next level until clear orders were drafted and sent for whoever actually ultimately executes them. But consolidation of roles, education and computers now has many of these people aware of the picture they are painting and opinionated with regards to the orders and the people who gave them. Even in cases where they nominally don't have any discretionary power, they can selectively apply rigor, sabotage their own work, know who to inform or not inform of a situation, etc... to give themselves some margin of discretionary power.

And recently they seem to relish how much power leaking to the press gives them.

The administrative state was always like this, though. It's nothing new and it doesn't seem to be particularly bad in modern America or the West more generally. You had all these problems and worse in Imperial China or Rome. You had these problems in the supposedly absolutist Bourbon dynasty that had to call on the Estates General to try to get around the recalcitrant regional Parlements.

Even in cases where they nominally don't have any discretionary power

This may be the platonic ideal of what this sort of role should entail, but I don't know that, even if desirable, this sort of job is actually possible. Outside of maybe the most rote service and industrial jobs (and honestly, even then), nobody leaves their personal values and opinions completely at the door.

The civil service jobs we're talking about are often given regulatory authority explicitly by Congress. One could argue that they delegate too much (and courts have agreed occasionally), but the system does allow for much faster pivots than passing bills through Congress would allow. Congress says "The Department of Transportation shall promulgate regulations to improve motor vehicle safety," and after the gears of civil service churn a while get tomes of rules about mirrors, lighting, and crash-safety standards.

But our vehicle regulations aren't written in a vacuum: the YIMBY transit crowd frequently observe that pedestrian safety is basically ignored (this is, slowly, starting to change, it seems) compared to the EU. It seems likely to me that this exists because the bureaucrats charged with writing the standards happily drive their pickup trucks to the office and don't see many pedestrians day-to-day.

Is this the Deep State? By some definitions yes, but this particular example probably isn't hugely political, not do I immediately assume malice. Yes, this sort of thing also exists in politically charged decisions, but I'm not sure it's deliberately by design, or even necessarily avoidable.

It seems likely to me that this exists because the bureaucrats charged with writing the standards happily drive their pickup trucks to the office and don't see many pedestrians day-to-day.

P.J. O'Rourke's account of visiting the DoT head office in DC (in Parliament of Whores) is hilarious for this reason - he goes in to the building expecting to find it full of the kind of car-hating eco-weenies that the average American conservative would expect to find in the Civil Service and is somewhat horrified to discover that it is full of car guys who religiously read his car journalism (which, despite his reputation as a political satirist, was probably his main source of income as a freelance writer in the 1980's). So the chapter turns into a sympathetic account of how people who mostly share PJ's attitude to cars end up feeling forced to order a recall of the Audi 5000 in response to senile drivers pressing the accelerator when they mean to press the brake.

In so far as Parliament of Whores has a story arc, it is PJ shifting from the view you would expect of a 1960's-communist-turned-libertarian (that Big Government is a hostile occupying force that Americans need to defeat) to seeing Big Government of something that Americans do to themselves as a result of the ignorance and apathy of the median voter and the fecklessness of the Congressmen they elect.

My friends in the military will talk, disparagingly, of we-be's: we be here when you got here, we be here when you gone. They're the civil servants that just loiter in a position or a department for years and know how to slow-roll or be maliciously compliant with any policy change they don't like (or that threatens their own job security). Since firing a civil servant in the federal government requires the same amount of work as a full time job (at least the way the people I know describe it) a we-be is nearly immune to anything beyond a slap on the wrist. The we-be's then shape policy and culture to suit their own ends rather than the ends of the organization / society they're allegedly in service to.

Edit: typos

The we-be's then shape policy and culture to suit their own ends rather than the ends of the organization / society they're allegedly in service to.

I think the crux between this and the 'deep state' narrative is whether they do that in a coordinated and goal oriented way that leads to large impacts on the final output of the system, or if they each do it randomly based on their individual whims in a way that mostly adds noise and friction and inertia?

The former is what it feels like people are saying when they talk about 'the deep state did X', the latter is more just 'bureaucratic gridlock' and sounds like what I would expect from the poeple you're describing.

Can't it be both? It's not that there's some Comintern issuing instructions and directing people. But they're also not totally atomized - they share a broad ideology that shapes their motives and judgment

It certainly could be in between, but...

they share a broad ideology that shapes their motives and judgment

Do they?

Surely some of those individual people are democrats, and some are republicans, and some are libertarians, do all of them actually share a broad ideology with each other? Some of them are in the military and some are in the education department and some are in the parks department, do they all share a broad ideology with each other?

That's sort of my point, I'm sure it's true that you could name like 5 or 10 ideologies that large portions of them share and which are specific enough to vaguely predict the actions of the portion under that ideology. But 'the deep state' is used as a unitary term, and I don't think there's any single ideology that unifies their efforts in any way.

Is there a rubber room for we-bes? Probably the most elegant solution.

This in itself is a problem, because it saps resources that could be better used elsewhere. Based on what I've been told by friends who worked in various positions in the Trump administration, some departments were never able to operate above about 50% capacity because half their employees were actively sabotaging their efforts and had to be given bullshit makework projects to keep them busy. There are fundamentally fewer resources available to politicians who want to shrink the administrative state because their own employees can't be trusted. And so the one-way ratchet continues unabated.

Which agencies were these and what were the responsibilities of those who weren't doing their jobs?

I don't want to get too specific, but my anecdotes are from Education, Interior, and Transportation. They would do what they could to give those people administrative or otherwise apolitical tasks. It was a lot of people sitting around with 20 hours a week worth of stuff to do, with the ideologically sympathetic employees having to put in extra time to make up for the lack of support on substantive matters.

I'm more interested in what the policy prescriptions were that these people found so odious.

The solution is to go external for the ressources. Reagan replaced the air traffic controllers, but recent events show that even getting the military to replace civil servants is not likely to be an improvement, as resistance to the Trump administration's goals also came from within the military. Contractors would be the solution, but the reaction from the administrative state would be intense as that would rightly be seen as an existential threat. So whatever administration puts it in motion is likely to be in for an even rougher time than Trump's was.

Sounds like you would need to not only fire everybody, but also move the capitol so you are hiring from a completely different workforce. Somewhere like Wichita Falls, Texas might work.

That seems infeasible. Wikipedia says that it took the FAA 10 years after the PATCO strike for staffing to fully return to normal, and that was only about 10,000 employees. The DoD employees 16,500 employees in D.C. alone, and 738,000 civilians worldwide; also, see how many quality applicants you get wanting to live and work in Wichita Falls.

Conservatives are trapped in a cycle. The more ‘free market’ a society is, the more money is central to status, the more opportunity the private sector offers smart capitalists over the public sector, the more leftist the civil service will be.

The civil service and academia in WEIRD countries trend inexorably to the left. Even if guaranteed not to be cancelled, few smart and ambitious young rightists would want to join the academy or spend 40 years in the education department. In America this problem is even more significant for cultural reasons.The ‘rugged individualism’, the ‘wild west’ spirit, the settler mentality, homestead aesthetic, whatever you want to call it - conservative US culture is anathema to working for the state except in the police or military, or possibly in some cases as a tough on crime DA or in the judiciary (in the latter case only to stop the left and be tough on crime though).

To be very smart and become a civil servant in the US, you essentially need to be either hereditarily very rich (a small minority of people who mostly do other things), or you need to believe that participating in the ‘capitalist economy’ is somewhat unethical, grubby, dirty, immoral. Not that you need to be some kind of staunch Marxist, but you usually need to be the kind of person who thinks that “billionaires are immoral” or whatever. Almost all these people are progressives, because smart, well educated PMC conservatives and libertarians go into the private sector.

In parts of Europe there once existed a patrician/noble conservative class who considered commerce to be 'common', but these never really existed in great numbers in the US and have mostly died out in Europe anyway.

The best thing the right could do would be to replace the civil service with McKinsey or Bain. Not because those organizations aren’t riddled with DEI and ESG (they obviously are), but because ultimately they are governed by and respond to financial incentives. They have clear hierarchies. People can be fired easily. Partners, above all else, want to make money. And so they’ll respond to instructions, even if they consider them vulgar.

I think the clear answer is simply to convert every single government position from civil service to political appointee. This gives presidents and victorious politicians at all levels a clear way to reward their supporters, and ensures the alignment of everyone from dog-catcher through park ranger through under-sub-secretary's assistant for automotive regulation are on board with the agenda.

So you’re proposing recreating the mid-century Chicago political machine, but on a national level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_politics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_machine

There…are a few issues with that concept.

But the issues we have with the deep state are huge as well. Essentially, they’re almost completely unaccountable to anyone, nothing they do can be effectively controlled by the regime (the official government) and this creates a situation where the regime has little control over anything that the deep state does.

Just for a quick example, Affirmative Action is officially illegal in California. The public university system simply fig-leafs compliance and does Affirmative Action anyway. They just do so by using other things that just so happen to be good markers for race. If you’re a minority, you’ll get a boost (unless you’re Asian) despite the fact that this is illegal. The same thing is going to happen on the federal level where AA is officially over, but since we’re using proxy methods of finding and boosting the scores of minorities. Even somewhat with COVID, it was clear that the health departments were not under the control of any elected official. The elected officials wanted it over, and the deep state said no.

This creates a situation where the government is officially supposed to serve the public, but those who determine what the state does aren’t accountable to that portion of the government that the public has a say in.

A lot of Federal agencies aren't supposed to be accountable to the regime. This is by design. Something like the Clean Air Act isn't supposed to change based on who's in office, and the fact that it requires an independent agency to hammer out details and enforce the law doesn't change that. The president may have certain powers relating to the agency, but these are purely administrative in nature. The constitution isn't set up so that the president gets to dictate domestic policy. And while it may seem like they're unaccountable, this isn't the case at all. They're creatures of legislation, and legislation can take whatever powers they have away, or change the law to undo rulemaking decisions it doesn't like. Not to mention the complicated rulemaking procedures they have to follow. People often argue that since the legislative branch is dysfunctional this isn't really a great check on power, and while I agree, I think the solution is to end the dysfunction, not to concentrate power further. After all, we could take this argument a step further and eliminate congress entirely and let the president make up laws at his leisure. But I don't think anyone wants that.

The irony is a big thing that could end the dysfunction is to end the filibuster, and actually pass legislation.

Now yes, this would lead to some things this forum would not like passed. Also, it wouldn't lead to say the Civil Rights Act getting overturned, because it turns out a Senator who can get elected in say, Georgia or Arizona probably doesn't want to actually do that, or fill in whatever other right-wing promise numerous swing state Senator's have made, but would never actually vote for, because they like their job.

Ironically, the filibuster currently gives the Right an overstated case of their actual political strength, because if you're a Republican Senator in a swing state, you can agree to all sorts of things in a primary, knowing voters don't really care until you actually vote for something/it gets put into law (ie. the Dobbs effect), and they know you need 60 votes to pass anything not directly related to spending.

I say this thing to my left-wing friends as well, as a dirty left-wing social democrat SJW - your issue isn't the system. Your issue is that nobody actually agrees with you because life in America is actually pretty damn good for the vast majority of people, and well yeah, they may complain about [random right-friendly or left-friendly issue], but they're not going to vote for somebody who wants to overturn the whole damn thing. Now, I know, "but a small minority of woke people control society."

Not really true, but also, most people may think going to a DEI training (even though, again, your company having a DEI training is kind of a tell on your educated background) may be a bit over the top, but they also don't think the world is ending as a result of a couple hour training they go too once or twice a year. So, when you act like it is, most normies go, "you're a weirdo, and if the choice is you or the nice lady in charge of DEI training, I'll go with her."

No, I'm proposing a spoils system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

Machine politics are fine and dandy as well though. Ethnic voting blocs are sensible.

It's also a guaranteed way to make the functioning of government much shittier than the already shitty state it's in. It would also destroy state governments because to ensure people who knew what they were doing (and who were aligned with the president) were in the civil service during a rotation every 4 or 8 years, victorious presidents would have to raid ideologically-aligned statehouses across the country for anyone who knew what they were doing. Every tier of government would get much worse. If political appointees are what's desired, just paying consultants or external lawyers (perhaps ideologically aligned ones) to run government is more efficient.

It's also a guaranteed way to make the functioning of government much shittier than the already shitty state it's in.

That accepts the premise that the civil service is actually meritocratic and competent. It is not.

It would also destroy state governments because to ensure people who knew what they were doing (and who were aligned with the president) were in the civil service during a rotation every 4 or 8 years, victorious presidents would have to raid ideologically-aligned statehouses across the country for anyone who knew what they were doing.

That would be a problem the first time, and not at all the second time.

I don't believe for a second that the quality of governance would get measurably worse... what WOULD happen, though, is that the academic-PMC complex would rapidly start churning out social science "studies" showing that it had gotten measurably worse.

And why should they get worse? No one has explained why replacing an incompetent bureaucracy should make things worse.

Is the bureaucracy uniformly incompetent? How, then, are complex financial crimes prosecuted? Why are the rivers and skies not dark brown with pollution? Why do new things in highly regulated areas like fintech startups or a government cloud exist at all, and succeed?

There are many thresholds of competence, and a government uniformly much less competent than our current one is entirely possible.

Places where it currently exists are generally shitholes for reasons unrelated to that.

The US was not a shithole when we had this system, and there's no reason to expect it to become one if we transition to such a system.

What absolutely WILL happen should we attempt this is the media and administrative employees just turned out working hard to portray it as a worsening.

Sure, I know people like you who work civil service jobs for the 10am-4.30pm lifestyle, guaranteed employment for life, benefits etc.. But the people who make it to the top of the civil service, the ambitious types, tend to be much more careerist, adept at internal politics, and work hard (if not at their jobs, then at networking). They're not the guys who sit in a mid-level position running out the clock on their career so they can play golf on friday afternoons or write novels in their spare time.

I intended to bring this up the next time someone bemoaned progressive (or really just left-leaning) institutional capture, but I'm lazy so luckily you beat me to the punch. Conservatives have complaining about how left-wing academia has become at least since I was in college 20 years ago, but there's been little introspection about why this is the case; indeed, much of their other rhetoric actually undermined any chance of them having any influence at all. All we heard was that studying English and history and any other humanity or social science was useless for anything except academia, and it was pointless to spend a decade pursuing a PhD just so you could compete in a hyper-competitive lottery where the prize was a low-paying job at small school in the middle of nowhere. Much better to major in business or accounting or a hard science and make real money in the real world. And by hard science I mean major in cell and molecular biology so you can work in the pharmaceutical industry, not, like my ex-girlfriend, get a doctorate in cell and molecular biology from an unprestrgious school and focus your research on hearing in whales.

Government jobs are a little bit different since they're much easier to get. They pay less than comparable private sector jobs, but they usually have good benefits and aren't susceptible to recessions or corporate downsizing. But they aren't the place for over-ambitous young go-getters to make names for themselves. Pay is strictly regimented and promotions are slow to come by. Performance bonuses are all but non-existent. And even if you make it into senior administration you're salary will be capped at about 250k a year, you'll have to live in Washington, and you'll be permanently locked out of executive-level positions that go to political appointees. Unless, of course, you have the necessary connections and don't mind losing your job with the next administration or whenever the current one is looking for a scapegoat.

And then there's the added complication that conservatives have traditionally railed against bureaucracy as emblematic of government bloat and unnecessary spending. You look at the cube next to you at a guy who's been phoning it in for the past 20 years but who makes more than you due to seniority rules and can't be fired, and whose job it is to administer programs you think are a waste of money. Why would any conservative want to be part of this when they can make more money doing essentially the same thing at 3M, or US Steel?

All we heard was that studying English and history and any other humanity or social science was useless for anything except academia, and it was pointless to spend a decade pursuing a PhD just so you could compete in a hyper-competitive lottery where the prize was a low-paying job at small school in the middle of nowhere. Much better to major in business or accounting or a hard science and make real money in the real world.

Blue tribers(and let’s be real, this is a red/blue division more than a conservative/liberal one) say the same thing, they just don’t expect impressionable youth to listen to them.

Eh, it's more a combo that "blue tribers" are more willing to not have financially successful lives to get what they want. Like, there are a ton of creative people who won't even get all that rich, but will effect far more lives than the median franchise restaurant owner who got an MBA.

As I've said before, for all the blame on teachers or professors, the actual reason why the median 17-year old in rural Nebraska is likely far more liberal than they were in 1995 is they have access to the Internet and can watch videos of non-white people, LGBT people, and even people from other countries have normal lives, and be into normal things.

Like, some trans beauty blogger who has a few million subscribers on YT or whatever probably moves the needle on those kind of issues more than any kind of official lesson plan Red Tribers can try to ban via taking over school boards.

the actual reason why the median 17-year old in rural Nebraska is likely far more liberal than they were in 1995 is they have access to the Internet and can watch videos of non-white people, LGBT people, and even people from other countries have normal lives, and be into normal things.

The internet might play a role, but it's definitely not what you describe here. Before widespread censorship done by Big Tech, all the progressives were terrified of the "Alt-Right pipeline", "alt-right" back then meaning "not agreeing with progressivism". It is only through controlling access to information that this "liberal" ideology can spread.

Yeah, those people were dumb. There was no great movement toward the Right of the youth during this time, as you can see by looking at actual voting results.

Even recently, there is a big story about the rightward movement among teen boys, and if you actually look into the numbers, it's barely outside of the margin of error and more importantly, no evidence of long-term change. Plus, it shows, as you'd expect, that most teens don't have an ideology at all. But even back then, the "alt-right pipeline" was a relatively minor part of Youtube, and yes, people freaked out about it incorrectly. Gamergate didn't cause Trump to win - higher turnout among low-salience middle-aged voters in the Midwest gave Trump the win.

I get it - just like my more left-wing friends think if they can just make the right arguments, everybody will be a socialist, you guys think it'd be a generation of edgy right-wingers if not for Youtube "controlling access to information."

But, most people are normies who don't want to be mean to people they get to know. Whether it's the nice Trump-voting waitress at their local Applebee's or the trans kid across the street.

Yeah, those people were dumb. There was no great movement toward the Right of the youth during this time, as you can see by looking at actual voting results.

Yeah, almost like censorship worked exactly like intended.

I get it - just like my more left-wing friends think if they can just make the right arguments, everybody will be a socialist, you guys think it'd be a generation of edgy right-wingers if not for Youtube "controlling access to information."

I mean, if controlling access to information is irrelevant, why don't you guys just stop? No skin off your nose, right? I'm happy to lose the game if the rules are fair.

But, most people are normies who don't want to be mean to people they get to know. Whether it's the nice Trump-voting waitress at their local Applebee's or the trans kid across the street.

Yeah, but voting for Trump, or not believing that trans women are actually women (to say nothing of opposing the more egregious issues in the trans meme-space) is not "being mean". You have to be actively convinced otherwise.

There are hundreds of applications per tenure track position - departments do not and will not hire out conservatives. Adjuncts are in no position to demand reform and this wouldn’t be it, anyway. The problem goes back to grad school and allowed research topics/positions…

The problem is worsening. We see increasing adoption of actual litmus tests (mandatory diversity statements) in which conservative positions are considered tantamount to hate speech.

How exactly would you have conservatives engage or reform this system?

My argument isn't that the system is easily capable of reform now, but that it got the way it did due to decades of conservatives ignoring it. Tenure track positions were always competitive, but you can't spend decades telling your kids to avoid academic pursuits and then act surprised when academia is full of you political adversaries, who didn't face the same pressure. One interesting development is that schools have become so reliant on adjuncts that there's actually a shortage of professors right now. Schools are loathe to give tenure when they can get away with it, and there used to be no shortage of PhDs willing to take low-paying positions to keep their resumes up to date. They didn't seem to realize that this was a temporary situation. When I was in college, most adjuncts were people who worked regular jobs in the community who wanted to teach and would take a small fee to teach one night class a semester in some niche topic that wouldn't get covered normally, usually an elective. Then the post-COVID labor shortage came and all the aspiring professors got good jobs in the private sector, and no one is willing to live on scraps anymore.

All we heard was that studying English and history and any other humanity or social science was useless for anything except academia, and it was pointless to spend a decade pursuing a PhD just so you could compete in a hyper-competitive lottery where the prize was a low-paying job at small school in the middle of nowhere. Much better to major in business or accounting or a hard science and make real money in the real world.

Yes you can't spend the entire time saying that nobody smart would ever get a humanities degree, and advise any young person you know against it, and then complain that no humanities academics are conservatives.

I think he forgot to write the part where he argues that despite all these good reasons not to go into these fields, and despite them not holding any prestige for that power, they hold real power, being an increasingly self-aware part of the chain that every executive decision has to go through to get actually executed.

Or just "the civil service".

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