The ‘deep state’: From scholarly critique to toxic conspiracy theory

David Rohde's book In Deep was reviewed in the Washington Post.

To hear President Trump’s supporters tell it, there is a secret army of malcontents lurking deep within the bowels of government whose goal is to drive Trump from office. Think Eisenhower’s military industrial complex, but on steroids. It is referred to as the “deep state,” and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and investigative journalist David Rohde went out in search of it. The result is a fascinating new book called In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth About America’s ‘Deep State.’

In Rohde’s account, Trump became the first American president to apply the term “deep state” to the U.S. government, in 2017. As often seems to happen these days, it began with an accusation by retweet. The president forwarded to his 60 million followers a post by Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which Hannity accused the deep state of trying to reverse the 2016 election. From that moment on, the term became “part of the Trumpian lexicon, along with ‘witch hunt’ and ‘fake news,’ ” Rohde writes. “President Trump himself increasingly invokes the term. In 2019, Trump used the phrase as at least 23 times, twice the number he did in 2018.”

To be sure, Trump came to office primed to distrust the Washington establishment. He has a deep suspicion of civil servants held over from previous administrations, convinced that they are part of a vast Never Trump conspiracy. No less contentious was his relationship with the intelligence community and the FBI, which first raised concerns about his campaign’s links to Russia. No one, it appears, was immune from his suspicion.