REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk
I've made no secret of my objections to Donald Trump, and I haven't hidden my impatience with those who are willing to support him in anything even at the expense of truth and principle. But in any major conflict involving the fate of the nation, there comes a point when you have to choose sides. No sophistry can get you around this binary responsibility. When one of two forces is going to win, if there's any moral difference between them at all, you have to stand for the better. That's why I overcame my objections and voted for The Donald when the choice came down to him and a corrupt leftist who would surely have imperiled the American experiment at every level of government. It was a painful decision but not a difficult one.
There's a similar choice to be made now. The President or the Deep State.
The Deep State is that collection of influential people in the bureaucracies and intelligence agencies who largely remain in place no matter who wins an election. The power of these people lies, for the most part, in regulation, obstruction and the control of government secrets. A law is passed in Congress by elected officials using constitutional means so that we the people have some say in its contents. But the enforcement of that law through regulation is wholly beyond our reach. If an irresponsible and power-hungry president should decide, say, that a law against sex-based discrimination can suddenly be interpreted to cover people who think they're the sex that they're not, it would give the federal government control even over who uses bathrooms in your child's school. I know that's an extreme example of something that could never happen in real life, but the point remains. And those who attempt to stand in opposition to such abusive regulatory power can find themselves in unarmed battle against the Godzilla of government. Massive fines, the destruction of livelihood and even prison can result in violating a rule that poured straight from the pen of a bureaucrat without ever seeing the light of democracy.
The left and the news media — but I repeat myself — love the Deep State because it gives power to elites like themselves and strips it from those irritating everyday Americans who have no means to influence the bureaucracy.
But President Trump has promised to help us fight back. He has said his administration will be dedicated to “transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to... the people.” And so far, at least, he's been as good as his word. He has ordered a federal hiring freeze and put limits on new regulations. He has appointed agency heads wisely suspicious of their own agencies. Most importantly, he has tapped a prospective Supreme Court justice dedicated to an honest reading of the Constitution, the greatest protection against centralized power we have.
In doing all this, he seems to have roiled the Deep State's serpents. Intelligence operatives are leaking classified information to compliant journalists, who then spin this illegal information into fantastical conspiracies. They comparea mischievous Russian hack of John Podesta's emails into an attack comparable to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor; they exaggerate communications that apparently broke no laws into a scandal comparable to Watergate; they allow anonymous sourcesto make outrageous conspiracy claims that are denied at every official level. Meanwhile, unelected bureaucrats try to stand in the way of presidential appointments, suspiciously left-wing protestors disrupt town halls inconservative areas, and judges overturn legal executive orders with patently dishonest arguments.
Those whose opposition to Trump has overcome their dedication to the American idea support even the worst of this — appallingly enough. Never Trumper Bill Kristol tweets: "Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state." Leftist filmmaker Rob Reiner says hopefully: "Intelligence community will not let DT destroy democracy." From Leftist Harvard Law Prof Lawrence Tribe: "Props to the intel officials! They're putting their duty to protect the nation from hostile Russian acts above their loyalty to this POTUS."
It's ugly to accuse people of being unAmerican. But the idea that freedom is served by the CIA undermining our elected president — that's unAmerican.
If you care about liberty, there's really only one side here. In the fight between Donald Trump and the Deep State, I'm for Trump one hundred percent. Unconstrained bureaucrats, rogue spies, and their media fellow travelers — I hope he defeats them all.
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