I'm alarmed by the apparent lack of an actual deep state
Yes I know the "deep state" is just a phrase that means different things to different people. But Trump is completely out of control and undermining the very fabric of American society and world politics. Siding with Russia, undermining long time relationships with close allies, threatening invading Canada and other countries, calling himself a King. His next step seems to be dismantling the military industrial complex (drastically cutting military spending, reducing American power worldwide).
Isn't there supposed to be some people who are sort of secretly in charge and prevent a single traitorous idiot from destroying the world order, whatever that is? "The Invisible Government"?. Don't most of us sort of believe that JFK was removed by internal actors for much less?
What is really going on here? Is a large amount of the US government completely captured by Russia? Or is it exactly what it seems to be - nobody expected a handful of rich corrupt idiots to just take over and the handful of people who could stop it are just letting it happen. I mean, I can see how it was a serious of unfortunate events, mostly caused by the corruption in the Republican party which allowed a seditionist to get away with trying to overthrow the government and Biden's DOJ just sleeping for about 3 years. But along the way you'd think there would be better checks against all of this.
Last time around Trump brought in people with experience who advised him to hire somewhat experienced people. Those people acted like a firewall between the truly insane things Trump wanted. He learned a valuable lesson there, and now he only has absolutely hard core loyalists in every position of power.
Even Mike Pence, who is a stain on humanity, wouldn’t go along with the insurrection. You can bet Vance will do anything Trump says when this next election comes around though.
A major difference this time is the competent people came to him and are using him to execute their garbage while he also flails around incompetently mangling anything he can touch.
Similar to how there isn't a deep state, there isn't a single cohesive plan being carried out by the current US government, but there are some major plots being moved.
There isn't one single unified plan, but Project 2025 does accurately layout most of what's happening right now, unsurprisingly. Even DOGE fits within the original framework.
btw I'm well aware of all the different levels of visible guardrails that have been bypassed in recent history.
In the government
Outside of the government
But I thought there were additional invisible guardrails. These seem absent.
Most of the "responsible adults" have either been excised, are being excised, or resigned from the conflict entirely (e.g., Paul Ryan, etc., not that I liked him but he at least was a representative and not a pawn).
Most of those who remain are sycophants.
They can and have fired people responsible for nuclear weapon safety and bird flu management. And then they realize they'd made a mistake.
So, yes, there are no adults in the room to steer decisions away from madness.
We're in trouble.
The only deep state I'm aware of is really just the inertia or momentum of a large, distributed, and unwieldily bureaucracy. I very much doubt any substantial portion of government is beholden to foreign powers. On the contrary, most are either just trying to make a living, or rationally interpret and implement lawful orders. If there are any pockets of actual malice or plotting, it is just that; pockets in a vast assemblage of career public servants.
Yes, after he'd been president for two years. It's only been a month for Trump even though it feels like two years.
Let me clarify that I don't think the CIA is gonna be assassinating Trump, but there also hasn't really been any time for any sort of shadow cabal to arrange for such a thing. And besides, is there any indication that what Trump's doing wouldn't be to their benefit?
The CIA, whatever you think of their methods, is dead set on advancing the cause of American hegemony. Trump is fucking that up for at least a generation if not permanently.
I think the closest analogue to a Deep State would be intelligence services which are so clearly deep into the operation of a specific nation that they superceed anything. Contrary to popular belief, I do not believe this is the CIA. Then again, I guess we don't really know.
The only example I could think about is maybe the East German Stasi. But I think a genuine example would be Pakistan's ISI.
If it exists at all, it lies within the Pentagon, Department of Defense, and a number of military playgrounds way out west where gargantuan industrial facilities bearing names like Lockheed lurk among the volcano fields and bomb test craters. So far, Trump has not taken his audit into these areas, he's blustering his way up to them. He's hitting soft targets like the IRS that will make him popular and put democrats in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the IRS to the public. When he starts auditing the Pentagon things might get interesting.
I think what's really going on here is pretty straightforward. Trump's strategy is 'cut everything and see who screams'. Anything that was fraud or covert or just moronic (like most of it so far) won't have anyone coming forward to fight to get that money reinstated. The corruption can't make a protest without outing itself and its participants, so it gets cut... and probably investigated later on by the DOJ and FBI.
As for the rest, he's forcing any spending agencies to justify their funding legally with the courts through a judge who reviews and upholds or denies Congress' mandate to spend it. Same with all the employee terminations - prove it's illegal and you can come back to work, meanwhile we audit. It's a total dick move, but if you want to audit the entire fed in under two years, it's a practical way to get that done. Meanwhile DOGE runs the numbers, makes the reports, and upgrades everything it rampages through from the late 1950s mindset to modern methodology.
If the shadow state exists and it decides it wants Trump off the board, Air Force One will crash on takeoff due to an unspecified engine failure. That's their usual method these days, assassins are too messy and unreliable, while aircraft have such a terrible safety record. :p
I don't think that this is an accurate characterization.
This is not a practical way to "audit" a system. The entire premise is ridiculous because the US government already releases public audits that are produced by an independent, non-partisan organization. Every dollar is already perfectly accounted for, and it's up to Congress to audit and apportion funds.
The only reason they're doing this is to smash existing systems and create power vacuums they can fill with their corrupt buddies like they're already doing. Who would you trust more to do an audit of NASA: Elon Musk and his SpaceX buddies or a career public servant that's paid to fight corruption?
Ancient systems can be a problem, but it's a mistake to replace a working system just because it's old. It's ridiculous to fire nuclear and aviation safety experts with decades of experience and replace them with college graduates who can "upgrade" and "modernize" to whatever the flavor of the month is. There are already active plans to modernize systems like the IRS creating free direct file programs, but those kinds of good programs are getting sidelined for corrupt business interests! Every corrupt business executive is scrambling to sell their "modern" solutions to the Trump administration, and some people are sadly eating up the propaganda.
It sounds like you are saying the cuts Trump/Musk is making are turning out to be justified?
I didn’t take it to mean that, more that it is a crude “solution” to a problem of waste, fraud, and abuse (when viewed through a hard-right lens). Do the scream test, whoever screams may get their funding back if it isn’t “woke”, whoever stays quiet was probably pulling fraud (or they just didn’t want to get on Trump’s bad side, in which case Trump will view them as weak).
I took that to mean that Trump was uncovering mostly “moronic” spending.
When you do this to VA hospitals, people die.
When you do it to national Parks, irreparable damage can be done.
DOGE lacks both the competence and genuine desire to accomplish this. Unless by modern methodology you mean "broken".