Comic books, action films, and Scooby Doo cartoons all lead to the conclusion that there are clearly definable villains in the world. The “bad guy” is easily identifiable. He comes in a dark cape or has an evil lair, and walks around with a snarl on his face while shining his weapon of choice. Satan has his horns. Dracula has his fangs. However, the real evil of the administrative state is the fact that there is no identifiable villain to blame when things go wrong.
After World War II, people rightfully point to Hitler and Stalin as the orchestrators of incredibly deadly schemes. These two men held vast amounts of power, and as a result, their crimes could easily be classified as their own.
However, in a post-Cold War world, this cut-and-dry nucleus of power has diminished. The Soviets and the CIA both understood that it was too dangerous to have a singular figure who had total knowledge. The vast breadth and depth of understanding would overwhelm even the most stoic leader, but it would also put them in a position to be compromised. The person with comprehensive knowledge of a situation can be held accountable for that knowledge. Their understanding makes them dangerously important. Suddenly, what they know transforms them from being mere human beings into cornerstones of success for those whom they have power over.
If that cornerstone is removed, organizations, movements, and even countries can fall apart. Having a lone person clued into all information is a major asset. It creates a target on someone’s head. Out of this potential liability came a question: How do we prevent this bullseye from being drawn? How do we operate without a sole schemer, without a puppet master who has his hands and thoughts on every quivering string of an operation? The solution, of course, is to simply dissolve the leader.
The deep state is a swampy mess of politics that is, by nature, hard to characterize and difficult to identify. It is counterintuitive to democracy because it is misrepresentative of the people, being made up of unelected bureaucrats with extra-constitutional powers. The deep state has unprecedented access to government resources, information, and power. These civic employees may sound like supervillains, but in reality, they are often average coffee-drinking, nine to five workers sequestered to government buildings. They are not brooding “bad guys” or caped crusaders, but they might be just as dangerous to our society.
The deep state’s biggest flaw is also its primary function: it has no oversight. It is made up of far too many parts, composed of hundreds of thousands of workers who all know microscopic parts and tidbits of information. They are all experts on one very niche piece of the American information puzzle. A strong, totally-informed leader carries the burden of the aforementioned target; his complete knowledge is the cornerstone for success. However, when that target is carved up and parsed off to thousands of unelected government workers, the risk of possessing information is drastically reduced.
Just as Mr. Burns in The Simpsons has no evil scheme, there are endless numbers of ordinary office laborers unknowingly or indifferently contributing to the erosion of our constitutional republic.
Spreading out intelligence and power helps to spread out responsibility. No one deep state employee is altogether responsible for the dismantling of our republican ideals. Although they might have contributed, the blame cannot fall squarely on one particular person’s shoulders. This is the genius of the deep state: You can put a person on trial, but you can’t put a system on trial.
The CIA is an ironically helpful tool to understand the danger of deep state organizations. Its predecessor was the Office of Strategic Services, a conceptually similar organization that was put together at the advent of World War II. It was created as an intelligence agency meant to help the United States win the war through covert operations. After the war was won, the expectation was that it would be dismantled. However, with the Cold War and the Soviet threat looming in the east, several military leaders argued against dissolving the Office of Strategic Services. Rather, they believed that having a standing intelligence agency might help insulate American safety. For example, if there would have been a perpetual espionage agency prior to 1941, perhaps the tragic attack on Pearl Harbor may have been avoided.
After debate over funding, leadership, and accessibility, the CIA was formed with the intention of combatting Soviet surveillance. At a time of uncertainty, its formation seemed important for American success and security. However, having a standing intelligence agency also posed new threats against freedom of information. The government and its agencies were intended to be useful tools to help reinforce the wellbeing of United States citizens. Yet, this new agency had the potential to turn into a leviathan that could operate without the oversight of the people on behalf of the people. With its reward of safety came the risk of intrusive control. The CIA was created to be the shady figure eavesdropping in an alley, not the transparent governing body by the people, for the people.
Since its formation in 1946, there have been twenty-six directors of the CIA. This indicates a constant turnover of power, which may initially seem like a good thing, but actually indicates something far more sinister. The rotating directors demonstrate how the scope of knowledge within the CIA is constantly shuffled about, broken into pieces to be shared among countless agents and contacts. As a result, there is no one accountable for the actions of the CIA. There is no person that the American people can check in on to make sure that the agency is operating under a moral and political code that aligns with our foundational principles. There is insurmountable danger in this lack of accountability. Denying oversight is the death of democracy.
In 1963, former President Harry Truman wrote that he had been
“disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the government… I never had any thought when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations”.
It is becoming unfortunately clear that only after the American people are wounded by the deep state, will they be able to see who the true villain is.
