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Snowden gives a really solid interview every time. Very polished.

I'm interested that he called out the idea of "deep state." He defines it as political forces that outlast a presidency (by that definition of course it exists i.e. any political party), but perhaps the implied element is a secretive nature and power over a president.

I wonder if there's an objective way to answer this.

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The term "deep state" or "state within state" originally meant very organized shadow governments in countries where government agencies (usually security agencies) don't respond to the civilian political leadership and can have power over them.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was example of single man holding some amount of 'deep state' power.

There justified is fear that increased secrecy in security apparatus in US has started acting in more autonomous way. In the current government the power over WH likely comes mostly from competence difference.

I guess my question is, how to we bring this concept out of the "conspiracy-theory" realm into something demonstrably true/false?

> The deep state realizes that while it may not elect the president, it can shape them very quickly

Instead of seeing this as some sort of covert manipulation, maybe this phenomenon is a reflection of just how much people prefer the status quo. IIRC a lot of jurisprudence is based on deferring to status quo. It seems natural that a new president's administration should remind them "hey, listen, we've thought about item Q on your agenda a lot and we can't do it because of X, Y, and Z."

On the other hand, I've shown up on software teams before and asked, "Hey can we try Best Practice X?" -- only to learn that "Yes, we have all thought long and hard about Best Practice X but it Just Couldn't Possibly Apply Here. Also, Dave doesn't care for it." ;)

There's that but there's also just the simple trajectory, and momentum our laws, and law makers have. That is there are multiple actors in society that have self-interests, whether that be getting reelected next election cycle, or getting the shweet government contracts to run your business. The confluence of all those independent actors may act towards similar behaviors, and that produces a sort of illusion of "Deep-state ventriloquists". Think invisible hand. It's just that everyone is essentially forced to make the same kind of logical next step decisions due to environmental constraints, like economy, laws, etc.

Also, you can't really run a state if you replace all government workers every few years. Politicians come and go, the actual work is done by those who stay in public institutions for long.

This is basically the entirety of what is represented by the staff of the 'Civil Service' in the BBC show Yes Minister

"James Hacker: The Opposition aren't the opposition.

Annie Hacker: No of course not, silly of me. They're just called the opposition.

James Hacker: They're only the opposition in exile. The Civil Service is the opposition in residence."

Curiously, this dialogue appears in an episode called Big Brother, in which the Minister is trying to add safeguards to a national citizens database.

There have always been concerns about "bureaucratic lifers" in governments, including the US and U.K.

Also see http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/deep-state... for a backgrounder on the term