‘Deep state’ is real, even in Connecticut, and even if Trump thinks so too

While President Trump goes overboard about the “deep state,” as he does about many other things, his basic point is correct. For most large governments have a more or less permanent bureaucracy that often seeks to thwart the objectives of elected officials and nullify democracy.

The brilliant 1980s satirical television programs of the British Broadcasting Corp., “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister,” were based on insider accounts of the conflicts between the executive members of Parliament and the largely untouchable civil service, conflict that usually ended in the bureaucracy’s victory over the elected officials.

The “Yes, Minister” programs were hilarious, if also dispiriting for their cynicism, but the “deep state” goes much deeper than the programs portrayed, deeper in the United States as well as the United Kingdom.

Indeed, the U.S. government has more intelligence and covert agencies than it can keep track of, and with their secret budgets most likely in the billions of dollars they have plotted assassinations of foreign leaders, overthrown and sabotaged governments, and illegally spied on U.S. citizens within the United States itself — just as government agents spied on Trump’s first presidential campaign. Some credible investigators long have suspected that elements of the Central Intelligence Agency were behind the assassination of President Kennedy, retaliating for his refusal to provide air cover for the agency’s invasion of Cuba in 1961.

These activities are all public record and Democrats used to acknowledge the “deep state.”

But now that a crazy Republican occupies the White House and complains about the “deep state,” Democrats and all respectable opinion dismiss it as a paranoid fantasy.

Just a few weeks ago Connecticut got a close look at its own “deep state” as pay raises worth $350 million began to be paid to unionized state government employees despite the state’s insolvency and catastrophic private-sector unemployment caused by the virus epidemic.

Governor Lamont said he wanted to suspend the raises, but the state employee unions — his political party’s army — refused and the governor was too timid to press the matter. So the raises went through and the “deep state” prevailed over the elected government again.

From London to Washington to Hartford, elected officials come and go, but the civil servants and covert agents who are supposed to implement the policies of the elected officials often make policy themselves and enjoy tenure that outlasts any administration.

As “Yes, Prime Minister” succinctly put it:

Prime Minister: If there were a conflict of interests, which side would the civil service really be on?

Principal Private Secretary: The winning side, Prime Minister.

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HOW’S BOSTON NOW?: Maybe the virus epidemic will go away eventually and cities will revive, but in the meantime it’s easy to snicker at General Electric for moving from Fairfield to Boston four years ago.

A new book, “Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric” by Wall Street Journal reporters Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann, touches on the move. The book contends that the company’s chief financial officer considered Fairfield to be a “morgue” and other executives wanted to enjoy the vibrancy of a fashionable city.

Now, of course, there’s not much vibrancy anywhere, the need for offices has diminished as white-collar employees work from home, and commuting by mass transit even in a fashionable city is considered as a death sentence. Meanwhile people in the Fairfield area can still get around easily in their cars with plenty of parking near restaurants and easy access to the great outdoors, where no one has to wear a mask.

GE still has the $145 million in state and city government subsidies for moving to Boston, while Connecticut still has its state government’s insolvency and unfunded pension obligations that promise decades of tax increases, which GE will avoid in Boston. But now that travel is so restricted and airliners especially are feared as conductors of the virus, proximity to Boston’s Logan International Airport is not the advantage it was thought to be.

GE won’t be coming back to Connecticut, but real estate agents report that the state’s suburban nature is no longer a joke but a powerful aspiration.

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Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer.