![]() In 2007, I had a chance to interview Scott on a (thankfully) short-lived podcast I had published while a professor at Long Island University. ![]() His 1993 book published by University of California Press, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, caught my attention as one of the few academic studies to frame American history in a light similar to Turkish discussions of the deep state. Among the works that inspired me to look more closely at Turkey’s deep state phenomenon were books and articles written by a Canadian diplomat-turned-professor named Peter Dale Scott. For more than a decade much of my research has been dedicated to understanding many of the individuals, institutions and events associated with the Turkish deep state. Serious people not only accepted the existence of a Turkish deep state, but they tended to believe it comprised an important element that defined Turkey’s past. When I began to first visit Turkey in the early 2000s, anyone who spoke of the deep state did not do so facetiously or critically. As a historian of the Republic of Turkey, I was first exposed to the term almost 20 years ago as a graduate student. The concept of the deep state has been a subject of interest for me for some time now. When asked if they believed there was “a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy,” almost three-quarters of respondents agreed such a “deep state” existed. According to a Monmouth poll from the spring of 2018, a total of 37 percent of respondents had heard of a thing called the deep state. News analysis of the phenomenon has done much to shed light on how the worldview of right-wing activists such as Steve Bannon and Alex Jones helped introduce administration allies to the concept of the “deep state.” Though the term has been cause for much circumspection within political media, it is now clear that the notion of the deep state has assumed some importance for the American public. Over the following months the president and supporters of his administration publicly embellished upon the deep state’s meaning and significance, making it into a catchphrase for perceived internal adversaries within Washington. It was in early February 2017, just weeks after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, that news reports first mentioned the term’s increased use within the president’s inner circle. But he says posturing against it took a “nastier turn” under Trump.Almost two years have passed since the “deep state” became a part of the American lexicon. I too railed against ‘the establishment’ as a young hothead.”īoehner says there is indeed “an entrenched bureaucracy that likes to protect the status quo”. “As long as I’ve been in politics, politicians have railed against this group or that group in Washington as the villains standing in the way of whatever they’re trying to do. But his rebuke over the Deep State theory, which Trump, key aides and reporters continue to espouse now he is out of power, may still sting.īoehner examines the wellsprings of the theory, writing: “The Deep State as a boogeyman is not an idea the Trump Republicans invented out of whole cloth. Hannity added: “There was not a single time I was around him when he didn’t just reek of cigarette smoke and wine breath.”īoehner plays up to his somewhat clubbable image, his cover image a portrait with wine glass and cigarette. He’s weak, timid and what’s up with all the crying John?”īoehner was a famously lachrymose House speaker, apt to tear up in simple nostalgia or when in the presence of the pope. The Fox News host Sean Hannity responded to being called “one of the worst” by tweeting: “John Boehner will go down in history as one of the worst Republican speakers in history. Leading figures in the pro-Trump establishment duly lashed back. Boehner is heavily critical of Trump’s takeover of the Republican party. ![]() His criticism of Trump comes as no surprise, not least because an extract of the book ran in Politico last week. Bannon has said the theory is “ for nut cases” and “ none of this is true”.īoehner was a congressman from Ohio for 24 years, a figure in the Washington firmament, House speaker from 2011 until his retirement in 2015 – a period he spent in fierce opposition to Barack Obama. Trump, senior aide Stephen Miller and others have repeatedly blamed the Deep State for their problems. “That’s horseshit.”īoehner’s view chimes with that of Steve Bannon, a key propagator of the theory who was Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 and a senior White House strategist. “Let me be diplomatic here,” the former speaker writes in the memoir, On the House.
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