The op-ed excerpted below more or less correctly cites MAGA “Suspicious of experts and elites” as the driver behind the gobsmacking selection of brainworm-addled RFK jr to the Health and Human Services director.
What’s missing is recognition that the class of techno-billionaires, represented by Elon Musk’s literal physical presence inside the Trump transition, know that a powerful and professional scientific, technical, legal, and environmental bureaucracy is the only institution strong enough to curb their drive for absolute power.
The myth of “the Deep State” is a Putinist construction useful for autocrats and oligarchs who chafe against the constrictions of laws and constitutions.
Likewise, the idea that objective science or physics can be a source of fact and truth above the pronunciations of the Great Leader, is seen by oligarchs as a dangerous, if not treasonous, obstacle to be overcome.
Climate denial, often framed by MAGA as a reaction against “globalists” and “elitist” scientists, dovetails perfectly with Moscow’s complete reliance on fossil fuel extraction to power its creaking economy.
Project 2025 is specifically targeted against the modernist, scientific ethos, which, which has through lines from Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton, through Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and Enlightenment inspired curbs on Ecclesiastically backed Imperial power.
Anthony Mills in the New York Times:
In retrospect, the science policy of Donald Trump’s first administration was remarkably conventional, at least until Covid struck. He filled many science policy posts with figures highly regarded in the scientific community, even retaining Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health.
There were controversies surrounding environmental policy, including the administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. But those were familiar Republican fare, reminiscent of disputes during the Reagan and Bush eras. When it came to health agencies, many of Mr. Trump’s picks — Scott Gottlieb for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Alex Azar for secretary of health and human services — had impeccable reputations in the Republican establishment. The criticism from the left was mostly the tired refrain that they were too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry.
While most Americans still support the benefits of vaccination, Republicans today tend to be more vaccine hesitant than Democrats and more distrustful of the pharmaceutical industry generally. Compared with Democrats, Republicans are more likely to believe that the Food and Drug Administration is preventing natural cures from reaching the public because of corporate influence and that genetically modified organisms threaten public health. In short, Republican attitudes toward the scientific and medical establishment increasingly resemble the worldview embodied by Mr. Kennedy.
Far from being an eccentric one-off cabinet pick, then, the choice of Mr. Kennedy for a role in the new administration reflects the discontents, distrust and even paranoia of many within the current G.O.P. Mr. Trump’s first administration now looks like a hinge moment, a point of transition between two political paradigms.
Mr. Kennedy has migrated across the political spectrum, but he represents a stance that diverges sharply from that of the old G.O.P. If the center-right view of health policy used to be that the F.D.A. was too cautious, stifling private-sector innovation, his “Make America Healthy Again” plan aims “to dismantle the corporate stranglehold on our government agencies that has led to widespread chronic disease, environmental degradation and rampant public distrust.” This language is closer to the leftism of Ralph Nader than to the market-friendly posture of the Chamber of Commerce.
When they’re writing in Russian, RT’s columnists welcome virtually any restriction in the fight against COVID-19, and the network itself has vigorously urged Russians to get vaccinated, denouncing skeptics and uncooperative physicians as “imbecile murderers” bent on “sabotaging” the nation’s recovery.
Russia Today’s English-language broadcasts exist in another universe. In Moscow, the network’s heroes are the doctors and nurses working tirelessly to keep COVID-19 patients alive. In English, RT’s focus pivots to healthcare workers who have protested “medical experiments” and been suspended for resisting vaccine mandates. In Great Britain, for example, Russia Today airs comments comparing vaccine passports and other restrictions on unvaccinated persons to “Big Brother.” RT columnists writing in English complain routinely that they’re “forced” to accept vaccination even though they’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past (despite the fact that medical experts, including Russia’s own Health Ministry, advise people with naturally acquired immunity to seek inoculation within six months of recovery).
Peter Baker in the New York Times:
But the Justice Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies were the three areas of government that proved to be the most stubborn obstacles to Mr. Trump’s previous efforts to legitimize his presidency and overturn his defeat in 2020 to hold on to power.
The intelligence agencies stood by their assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election with the goal of helping Mr. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, despite a fierce backlash from the newly elected president who publicly declared that he believed President Vladimir V. Putin’s denials instead.
The Justice Department refused Mr. Trump’s demands to prosecute many of his adversaries, including Mrs. Clinton, former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., though it did investigate others who had angered the president. More critically, the department rebuffed pressure to publicly declare that there were substantial irregularities in the 2020 election to justify reversing Mr. Biden’s victory.
The Pentagon, for its part, made clear that it would not cooperate with an illegal effort to use troops against domestic opponents or help Mr. Trump stay in office. Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general and Trump ally, tried to persuade the president in December 2020 to declare a form of martial law and order the military to seize voting equipment and rerun the election in states that he lost. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had signaled for months that he would not allow the military to be turned into a political weapon.
In my country we use the term “the establishment,” that is a name for the thousands of people in positions of power or influence. It is assumed to have a communal nature to it, a shared set of values, a self-imposed set of beliefs. People who want to be in positions of power tend to accept or feign acceptance of those values & beliefs.
The Establishment is seen as not changing much when a few of its members change through an election. The establishment changes less by election and more by internal activity & rise and fall of social beliefs.
This concept is not new.
The recent term used in America for this concept is ‘the deep state.’
I do not know the origin of this new name, but the underlying concept is ancient.
Both my dad and grandfather worked their entire careers in the Soil Conservation Service, later renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The service’s job was to prevent another Dust Bowl, and to help guide and provide help to farmers and ranchers in the use of America’s lands in a way that reduces environmental degradation. Both my dad and grandfather rose to fairly high administrative positions in the service, but neither were political-types, and so so neither held the top positions there, which always went to the favorite of either the Democrat or Republican parties of the time.
My dad woke up every morning at 4:45 am and came home exhausted, for decades, as part of the ‘Deep State’. You might guess why I get a little annoyed at people who think governmental bureaucrats are somehow the problem, or that they hold great power, or that they don’t try to change things for the better. They’re just functionaries, often extremely hard-working ones, who implement governmental policy mandated by Congress and the President – and that’s where real power resides – in the politicians and in the moneyed interests backing them.
It’s complete horse sheet that the ‘Deep State’ runs things. A better way to put it is that they ‘help things run’, but the captains of the ship are always the people they report to – the politically appointed heads of departments (President) – and the policies they implement are fenced in by legislation from Congress.
The idea that Trump is nominating ‘anti-establishment’ types to lead the government’s departments is offensive. It’s exactly the same as if someone put a 20-year-old in charge of a major corporation. Sure, they’ll have ‘different’ ideas, but they won’t know at all what they’re doing and it will lead to organizational chaos and major dysfunction within the company, as well as widespread demoralization amongst its employees. No one likes working for someone when they think they could do a million times better at the job, but instead have to take orders from that person.
This Trump Administration won’t ‘fix’ anything – they’re far more likely to break a lot of governmental abilities that the nation relies on, and doesn’t even know exists because it’s always operated reasonably smoothly in the past. And perhaps that’s the whole point for Republicans – break government to the point where everyone has to rely on privately-owned businesses instead.
Recent opinion piece about U.S. bureaucracy:
The Regressivists come to Washington
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/29/trump-doge-musk-ramaswamy-regressivism-reform/