The ‘Deep State’ Is Far Deeper Than Anyone Imagined

Another week and another first for Donald J. Trump. No doubt, this is one he would be willing to pass on — the first criminal trial of a former president. But like all things in Trump world, it reveals more about his enemies than it does the 45th president.

For decades, pollsters have been telling us the electorate yearned for a third way, a nonpartisan who wasn’t wedded to either party and would represent the vast middle. Along comes the brash, imperfect real estate developer who had worked with both sides of the aisle in “the art of a deal.” The media elite loved it, especially the most salacious exploits of the prowling Manhattan mogul.

That is right up until presidential candidate Trump embraced a reformulated version of America First that turned out to be a direct threat to those global media empires. You know, the ones who profitably ran all those Big Pharma ads while “reporting’” on COVID. It wasn’t long before the crude tapes and “hush money” stories started rolling in.

Indeed, Trump’s real sin was his desire to return to the economic and foreign policy nationalism that had been summarily quashed by globalists in both parties. And it was a grave enough transgression to warrant his destruction by any means necessary.

Yet the unhinged, shrill attacks combined with the shredding of a president’s constitutional protections — whether his right to free speech, due process or private property — has revealed a number of disturbing truths about the American political system that are no longer so easily hidden.

This is Trump’s real legacy.

• The Republican party is not a political movement — it is a club that exists for the reelection of its members. America’s institutions are falling apart (from the border to the classroom to the boardroom) while inflation is hollowing out the middle class. But the top of the GOP’s agenda is adding another $100 billion in foreign aid to a $34 trillion national debt. It’s a stark reversal from the old right, whether Eisenhower in Korea; Nixon in Vietnam or Reagan in Lebanon — they all knew how to cut their losses. House Speaker Mike Johnson even removed border protection from a bill that was sure to pass given a Republican establishment in both chambers that perpetually pounds the war drum. Buoyed by a perverse Lincoln-Project political consultancy swamp that serves its donor class and you see how political movements die when people start to make money off them.

• The Democrat Party is most certainly a political movement. Never has the abuse of power been more ruthlessly self-evident. And it has nothing to do with Trump’s idiosyncrasies or crass demeanor. It has everything to do with the threat he presents to a Democrat hierarchy used to getting its own way from opponents who have been trained to stand down—even in the face of unprecedented social anarchism that is transforming western civilization. It took Trump, not the political intelligentsia, to realize the West was dying, figuratively and literally. Identity politics and the attack on the traditional family are the means to an ignominious end. And if this Socialist Wokeness Party was willing to destroy a generation of young people with lockdowns and puberty blockers, they’re certainly willing to destroy one man by debasing the rule of law.

• The “deep state” is far deeper than anyone imagined. President Dwight Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” farewell address wasn’t just about the massive power of the defense lobby and its political influence, but all the other scientific and technological institutions of a burgeoning national security state. Understand, we just handed out billions to the folks who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and then used Big Tech to lie about it. Our allies know who runs things on Capitol Hill so they feel free to plot any conceivable tripwire that will drag America into war — from breaking a promise not to expand NATO to escalatory attacks in the Middle East knowing full well they will elicit a response to which we will respond. But the machinations of intel officials are not limited to intervention abroad, threatening our sons and daughters with nuclear holocaust. No, Trump’s legacy has clearly demonstrated the Clapper & Brennans of the world are willing to manipulate our own political affairs as well.

• The media really are the problem. To be sure, the “lawfare” is so fundamentally unconstitutional that it surely “shocks the conscience.” But the most insidious aspect to the Democrat legal abuse is the media’s willingness, dare we say, eagerness, to promote it. It doesn’t matter that higher courts have already begun to overturn corrupt lower ones, all that matters is the headline generated by the Biden press office disguised as your favorite newsroom. The neoconservative descent into rabid never-Trumpism is part and parcel of the uniparty gaslighting. In any despotic revolution, once the war is won, the guns confiscated and the political opponents are all in jail, the thought police swoop in. But in the Trump era, the press corps didn’t need persuading. Look no further than the astounding number of corrections, retractions and legal settlements. But combined with Big Tech’s toxic echo chambers, the damage had already been done.

In fact, one could easily make the argument that it’s 2020 all over again. The Republican Party is busy enabling its abusers while Democrats are locking Trump down. This time with false legal charges instead of a Chinese coronavirus.

If the late, great United States comes to pass, Trump won’t be the only political prisoner lamenting, “you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Former Congressman Jason Lewis is the author of “Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics and the Partisan Press.” This article was originally published on the author’s Substack page, which can be viewed here. Lewis is also the weekday host of Jason Lewis Live on Patriot.TV.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.