Think you know who’s concerned about the “deep state”? Think again
Concern over the so-called “deep state” isn’t just confined to the demographics that Hillary Clinton most laments. In fact, it’s not even confined to Trump country, or Republicans either. A new poll from Monmouth University shows large majorities of all political persuasions worried about an unaccountable cabal that controls the federal government, especially when it comes to surveillance:
A majority of the American public believe that the U.S. government engages in widespread monitoring of its own citizens and worry that the U.S. government could be invading their own privacy. The Monmouth University Poll also finds a large bipartisan majority who feel that national policy is being manipulated or directed by a “Deep State” of unelected government officials. Americans of color on the center and left and NRA members on the right are among those most worried about the reach of government prying into average citizens’ lives.
Just over half of the public is either very worried (23%) or somewhat worried (30%) about the U.S. government monitoring their activities and invading their privacy. There are no significant partisan differences – 57% of independents, 51% of Republicans, and 50% of Democrats are at least somewhat worried the federal government is monitoring their activities. Another 24% of the American public are not too worried and 22% are not at all worried.
Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the activities of American citizens, including a majority (53%) who say this activity is widespread and another 29% who say such monitoring happens but is not widespread. Just 14% say this monitoring does not happen at all. There are no substantial partisan differences in these results.
Even without the term “deep state,” majorities in all three political categories agree that unelected officials hold too much power in Washington: 59% of both Democrats and Republicans, and 62% of independents. When Monmouth provides a definition that tends toward the conspiratorial, it has a surprising impact on those levels of agreement. They go up , also across the board:
Few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term “Deep State;” another 24% are somewhat familiar, while 63% say they are not familiar with this term. However, when the term is described as a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct national policy, nearly 3-in-4 (74%) say they believe this type of apparatus exists in Washington. This includes 27% who say it definitely exists and 47% who say it probably exists. Only 1-in-5 say it does not exist (16% probably not and 5% definitely not). Belief in the probable existence of a Deep State comes from more than 7-in-10 Americans in each partisan group, although Republicans (31%) and independents (33%) are somewhat more likely than Democrats (19%) to say that the Deep State definitely exists.
For the record, the partisan breakdown among those who believe a “deep state” definitely or probably exists as a secret apparatus within government is: 72% of Republicans, 72% of Democrats, and 79% of independents. There is no gender gap on this question either, with 71% of men and 77% of women buying into a secret deep state. Even ideologically, it’s a consensus position: 72% of self-identified liberals, 70% of moderates, and 79% of conservatives. Seventy-six percent of voters in Trump-plus-10 counties believe in a secret deep state, but 71% of voters in Hillary-plus-10 counties do too.
That’s fascinating — and appalling, if understandable. It’s not just the revelation of the Section 215 program by Edward Snowden that has eroded public confidence in self-governance, either. When James Clapper lies to Congress in public testimony about a secret surveillance program’s reach and then remains in control of it, what are people to think? Before then, conservatives continually warned about an unaccountable bureaucracy that had undermined accountability and personal liberties, although it was mostly just conservatives and the complaints didn’t involve secrecy. Now everyone appears to have grasped the dangers of unaccountable bureaucracies, even if they’re taking different lessons from the revelation.
This is one reason why Trump keeps harping on this topic, especially in relation to Robert Mueller and the Russia-collusion probe. It resonates with voters who feel disconnected from their government. It explains — or at least gives one explanation — why a generally unpopular candidate won a surprise victory over an establishment figure in the last presidential election, a lesson that Democrats might want to mull before deciding to leap on the Joe Biden bandwagon for 2020. Perceptions with this level of bipartisan consensus are rare in American public life, and it might end up being the most predictive strain of political thought for the next few electoral cycles.
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Politicians come and go, but the Deep State is forever.
The Deep State are all the people who have been in Washington for years, maybe decades and that includes the politicians who have firmly established themselves seemingly making it impossible to get them out of office. I give you one, Mitch McConnell is a part of the Establishment in Washington along with many others.
Can you think of any politicians or top officials? It appears the Intelligence Agencies are full of them. Hopefully we can gain enough power to clean the swamp before it's too late.
that is debateable. besides the obvious Comey and McCabe - Fired
[Updated]
this list will only get longer as time goes on
They are pretty desperate to stop the American people from knowing the truth and are seemingly doing everything they can to get Trump at something, anything. They've had years if not decades to become this corrupt and like Schumer said...
too bad they needed 12 ways from sunday to take down trump
over a year ago I said.
much thanks to the liberal progressive bs from the left over the past decade which made trump possible.
when a grown ass man can self-identify as a trophy wife and walk into the ladies room? that is when everyone knew they are batschit crazy - with no doubt about it.
the left has gone so far left they can not even see the middle which is why 7 million obama voters voted for trump.
my bet is if she kept us on the globalist glide path, hillary would have suffered a military coup/
there is a reason trump is surrounded by generals and being protected by military intelligence.
kind of interesting that trump is like a proxy war between the two factions of our govt.
civilian intelligence (globalists) VS military intelligence (patriots)
my money is on the military
That's the whole thing in a nutshell and I don't think they will ever understand that. They were warned. I know I kept warning them on this site, but they wouldn't listen. They think we're in love with Trump, but you and I know that isn't true. Trump is a tool and has been doing pretty good considering all the obstruction that has been thrown his way, but without the Democrats unconditional support for someone who smiled, joked and did a pretty good job of fooling them, we wouldn't have Trump today. Choosing Hillary as the sure candidate by hook or crook was the tie breaker.
I hope it never comes to that, but I agree SU. I don't think the military thought very much for Obama. I live in Charlotte, NC, but I'm from Fayetteville, NC and know and have spoken to quite a few soldiers at Ft Bragg when going home. I don't know a one of them who liked Obama. Before the election, the main thing I heard from them was they wanted the next President to be someone with a military background and not another lawyer.
if trump had not agreed to run for office or had lost to hillary, it would have been required.
kicking out the liberal/ progressive/ globalists via elections looks better in the history books than a military coup would.
this is the preferred path
"Rarely do any of us sit down before a table of facts, weigh them pro and con, and choose the most logical and rational explanation, regardless of what we previously believed. Most of us, most of the time, come to our beliefs for a variety of reasons having little to do with empirical evidence and logical reasoning. Rather, such variables as genetic predisposition, parental predilection, sibling influence, peer pressure, educational experience and life impressions all shape the personality preferences that, in conjunction with numerous social and cultural influences, lead us to our beliefs. We then sort through the body of data and select those that most confirm what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away those that do not.
This phenomenon, called the confirmation bias, helps to explain the findings published in the National Science Foundation’s biennial report (April 2002) on the state of science understanding: 30 percent of adult Americans believe that UFOs are space vehicles from other civilizations; 60 percent believe in ESP; 40 percent think that astrology is scientific; 32 percent believe in lucky numbers; 70 percent accept magnetic therapy as scientific; and 88 percent accept alternative medicine."
That's what we're trying to do now.
What "tables of facts" do you have that support some "deep state" shenanigans? This article does nothing but present how many people have been fooled, tricked and bamboozled into believing in some secret government cabal, though primarily it's about how many people believe their data is being surveilled without understanding the massive amount of data that gets stored under the program Snowden reveled simply isn't being randomly monitored but used in reverse when the government gets tips of terrorist activities to research what certain email accounts or IP addresses were doing in connection with said terrorist tips. To believe the government is watching you have to have a pretty big tin foil covered head. Now Facebook, they're watching you and wanting to know all your habits, likes and dislikes so they can sell that data to marketing companies wanting to sell you something, they are the true "capitalist deep state".