"Deep state" and the lexicon of anti-democracy

As far as I can tell, the right-extremists bleating about the "deep state" are referring to democratically instituted and regulated institutional structures that make state actors answerable to laws and regulations. What they propose in place of this "deep state" appears to be autocratic rule by a cult of personality that doesn't answer to a majority of the people or their consent. That's what we rejected in the American revolution. Re-branding the legitimate institutions of a constitutional democracy as "deep state" is just an attempt to delegitimize a government that our forebears fought and died for. This isn't dissent, this is Leninism.

As for their "fake news," that sounded better in the original German: lügenpresse. That didn't go well.

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