As the war in the Middle East enters its third week, it is noteworthy that American policy has been surprisingly bipartisan and unified. The Biden administration’s strong support for Israel has united a majority of the Democratic Party with most Republicans. Biden, in fact, has been firmer in both his language and his actions than many Republicans had expected.
That may change shortly, however, as the “third party” in Washington — the Deep State — is itching to be heard.
Some people don’t like that term, “Deep State.” For them, it conjures up images of a nefarious cabal of progressive operatives secretly pulling the levers of power within the bowels of the federal government. To many in MAGA-world it is the stuff of the late-night ghost stories of Steve Bannon and Alex Jones.
The Deep State is not that at all, but it absolutely exists.
The Deep State is nothing more than bad bureaucrats. Men and women, who work for the federal government, who simply refuse to leave their personal politics at the door of the Department of Education, the EPA, or the State Department when they show up for work.
Indeed, the true “Deep Staters” are those who have decided that it is they who decide which policies our government will pursue. If they agree with the particular policy of an administration, they will eagerly promote it. If they disagree, they push back, seeking to frustrate or even undercut the policy. This ploy is sometimes referred to as “Plan Be.” As in: “I’m going to slow-play this policy, because I plan to be here long after this administration is gone.”
I have seen this dynamic up close. At one point I ran the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I can assure you that there were literally hundreds of government workers there who absolutely opposed my leadership and worked every day to make sure that Trump administration policies were frustrated.
Why is this relevant now, with war raging in Israel? Because the Deep State is very, very unhappy with Biden’s tough stance supporting Israel against Hamas.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken knows it. That’s why he wrote an open letter to his employees last week. One key line: “President Biden has made clear from the beginning of the crisis…that while we fully support Israel’s right to defend itself, how it does so matters.”
That qualifier in front of the support for Israel — “while” — tells you everything you need to know about the tone of this letter. It is designed to mollify State Department workers who don’t support the current pro-Israel policies. It is designed to quell a mutiny.
The State Department rank-and-file are so upset about the pro-Israel stance that one of them ostentatiously quit over it. (Also, the fact that it made the news when some random person quit a department with 70,000 employees tells you everything you need to know about how the media feel about the Deep State, Palestine and Israel.)
But give Josh Paul credit: At least he had the decency to quit rather than sabotage from within. Disturbingly, the reaction he received from his former co-workers indicates that he is an exception. “I’ve been getting an immense amount of outreach from colleagues … with really encouraging words of support and a lot of people saying they feel the same way and it’s very difficult for them,” he told the Huffington Post.
To anyone who is familiar with Washington, that comes as absolutely no surprise.
The bottom line is that a lot of unelected people at the State Department are unhappy about the decisions being made by the elected people who run the executive branch. And while they have remained quiet for now, they won’t for long. That raises the very real question as to whether or not the Biden administration has the ability to fully and effectively implement the policies it wants.
None of this is to say that all government workers are bad bureaucrats or members of the Deep State. Far from it. The people I worked with at the Office of Management and Budget, with only the rarest of exceptions, worked as hard for President Trump as they did for President Obama, and are working for President Biden today.
But in a country where students now seem to run universities and activist employees dictate policy to large corporations, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that State Department employees want to set policy on Israel.
Indeed, it has long been held on the left that certain matters should be “beyond politics” — which is code for unelected “professionals” making decisions instead of elected officials.
The Deep State is real. And it will be interesting to see if it gets its way.
Mick Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, is a contributor to NewsNation. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting White House chief of staff under President Donald Trump.