“Deep State” Conspiracy Theories Undermine Our Economy and Our Modern Way of Life

Of all the dire possibilities of a second Trump administration looming on the horizon — including mass deportations, the Nazi-esque persecution of political enemies, the complete denial of climate change and the lethal coddling of polluters and their pollution — the GOP’s demonizing of the federal bureaucracy has the most wide-ranging and sinister implications, especially for the U.S. economy. 

The “demon” in question is the so called “deep state,” the fiction of a shadowy conspiracy of civil servants who run things behind the scenes in Washington. They’re portrayed as evil masterminds conspiring to spoil profit-making at every turn. In the ‘60s, the “deep state” was a term used by commentators and propagandists to refer to a cabal of clandestine FBI and CIA agents provocateurs who were thought to have infiltrated government so thoroughly that they worked their will beyond the law.

More recently in the hands of Trumpian operatives, the term “deep state,” with all its ominous insinuations, refers to the federal bureaucracy in general, all two million civilian federal employees, including around 4,000 political appointees, and the laws and projects they implement. Steve Bannon, Trump’s poisonous political guru, makes no bones about calling it the “administrative state,” and lobbies with wild intensity for its “deconstruction.” Both Trump and Bannon consider the federal bureaucracy a cancerous enemy within. Next week’s election will tell us if more Americans see government in a different and more positive way, one that doesn’t require a religious conversion to a Trumpian world view.

In New Mexico, 28,900 civilian federal employees not only contribute to the safety and quality of life of everyone, they add their full and reliable spending power to the state’s economy.

The federal government is a major and sometimes dominant economic player in every state in the union. In New Mexico, it is the second largest employer, behind state government. To attack federal jobs, agencies, institutions, and programs as an “enemy within” is to threaten the economic well-being of all of us.

Not only do federal employees in New Mexico spend their wages in New Mexico, the fiscal impact of the entire federal establishment in our state amounts to almost $7,000 per person per year. In a poor state like ours where so many families struggle for every penny, federal money and the projects it funds are often a matter of life and death.

UCLA Law School professor John D. Michaels argues in his book, “Constitutional Coup,” that far from being a shadowy, privileged and hidden force serving invisible masters, the federal bureaucracy is transparent, accessible and decidedly non-elitist with its employees representing the entire range of socio-economic backgrounds in our country. More importantly, the federal establishment is an essential part of our constitutionally mandated system of checks and balances, Michaels says, and often serves as a final check on unbridled presidential power.

In the last two years alone, the American Rescue Plan Act, implemented by federal employees, brought $3.31 billion into New Mexico’s economy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which mandates the construction and repair of roads, dams, bridges, broadband facilities and more, brought $3.8 billion into our impoverished state. Without the federal establishment, New Mexico would be a broken down wreck, when it comes to the necessities of modern life.

It seems preposterous on the face of it to have to defend the validity and usefulness of the federal government in the life of the American people. The malicious buffoonery of “deep state” government haters leaves us no choice. It’s not hard to imagine what it would be like in the rural West without the bureaus, services and surveys of the Department of Interior and its 70,000 employees and their salaries, its 280,000 volunteers, and 2,400 “operating locations” nationwide, including the Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

In the West, the Bureau of Reclamation is the key player in water management and distribution, overseeing or managing most dams and waterways, including some 300 or more dams in New Mexico, and thousands of dams in Colorado, Wyoming, California, Utah and Arizona. When it comes to the Colorado River, Reclamation is the agency that protects the collection and delivery of water to 40 million people in seven states. In New Mexico, the U.S. Geological Survey plays the utterly crucial role of analyzing groundwater volume and potability, water that more than 90 percent of the state’s people depend on.

As much as anything else, next week’s presidential election is about defeating “deep state” conspiracy theorists of the Trumpian mindset so they can’t harass, threaten and politicize the federal institutions we all rely on. Where would we be in times of emergency and natural disaster without the federal government? How could we go about our daily lives without the federal government safeguarding our natural resources, our health and the cleanliness of our food, air and water, the viability of our system of transportation and the humane conditions of our work environments.  It’s not an exaggeration to say that this election is about preserving the fundamental structures of progress and modernity that define the good life of American culture as we have come to know it.

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it