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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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