[drak0n1c]

There is a dichotomy in the government between elected representatives and unelected bureaucrats. The "deep state" exists but it is not nearly as malicious as popularly portrayed. At worst, those who make their careers as unelected bureaucrats and federal officers may occasionally be self-protecting and rationalize their decisions in terms of the trolley problem as for the greater national good, and are overly confident in their ability to discern what that is.

[vkou]

Most unelected bureaucrats only have a job at the whims of elected representatives. Your vote for the bureaucrats, via proxy of your representative.

I'm not sure why people have a hard time grasping this concept, when they grasp the concept of representative democracy (Where you vote for new legislature, or for supreme court appointments, or for executive actions, via proxy of voting for a representative of congress, or a president.)

I can only assume that it's a defense mechanism, where you can blame the boogieman of the deep state when the candidate you voted for does not deliver us to a land of milk and honey, and turns out to be an all-around shitty human being.

[merpnderp]

This has been on a trend of less and less true as Congress continues to abdicate its responsibilities to bureaucrats in the Executive office.

It doesn't matter which party they vote for as much of the day to day lives of citizens is determined by people who never stood for election, and barely answer to someone who did.

[js2]

Congress is 535 people and is filled with relatively little expertise[1]. The United States has a population of 330M and is the largest and most advanced economy in the world. Of course Congress has to delegate to executive agencies. This is not abdication.

Abdication is letting lobbyists and "model legislation" outfits author the laws which legislators have been known to almost literally just rubber stamp.

[1] Just to pick on one representative, because I'm familiar with him, this guy has no college degree past an AA, and his career experience is running a restaurant and real estate development. I would hope he'd delegate running the country to someone more experienced than himself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meadows_(North_Carolina_p...

[jfengel]

As the guy who said "we are going to send Mr. Obama home to Kenya" I doubt Meadows has a very broad-minded approach to delegating responsibility to those with more experience and expertise.

I wouldn't automatically discount the value that a restauranteur or real estate developer could bring to office. At least it would bring a bit of diversity of opinion compared to the roomful of lawyers. Though in this case, we're experiencing the opposite problem: people who have absolutely no idea how legislation is done or how the government functions, and who cannot be convinced that they're not experts in every domain they touch.

It would be nice if people came to DC with the intent of listening, discussing, and coming to conclusions together. But the system is adversarial by design, and grows more adversarial with each passing year.

[Fjolsvith]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/promotional-booklet/

[ceejayoz]

> Congress is 535 people and is filled with relatively little expertise.

That's like calling the Executive Branch one person (currently filled by someone with extremely little expertise).

Congress includes bureaucratic organizations staffed by career experts like the Government Accountability Office. They used to have the Office of Technology Assessment until it was killed off by ideologues. They also enjoy ready access to experts from the various agencies.

> Of course Congress has to delegate to executive agencies. This is not abdication.

They've very clearly abdicated their responsibilities to the Executive in things like war powers and surveillance oversight. They are supposed to serve as a co-equal branch of government and as a check on Executive power.

[js2]

Fair enough and I don't disagree at all on your last point, but I was really addressing the delegation to executive agencies to write regulations as part of executing the laws passed by congress. I do not consider that abdication.

[jachee]

Abdication is a single man stonewalling all remotely-progressive legislation from even reaching a vote in the Senate.

[jki275]

Well, it's not one man, it's 53 men and women, and that's not abdication it's politics -- as practiced by both sides when in power.

[jachee]

Look into Mitch McConnell's record—or rather lack thereof—for allowing House-passed bills onto the Senate floor. He's one man undermining the spirit of our government for his own political agenda.

[Spooky23]

Hogwash. The elected officials absolutely have control of the institutions that they are responsible for.

“Deep State” nonsense is a trope that is just plain dumb. Brought to you by the same people who cry and whine about judicial activism and appoint people specifically to change the law.

[vkou]

Those bureaucrats are appointed at the whim of the President, and occasionally through a senate confirmation, both of which are elected offices.

> and barely answer to someone who did.

Their hiring is done by elected officials. Their employment and power, aside from a few positions, which are fixed-term, is contingent on the whims of those elected officials.

Just because Congress has been very busy with abdicating all responsibility for governing the country to the executive (Works great when Obama's in charge, because you can blame him for the milk going sour, works great when Trump's in charge, because he can take all the bad PR), doesn't mean that the bureaucrats don't answer to anyone.

[ceejayoz]

> Their hiring is done by elected officials.

No, hiring is largely done by other civil service personnel. The Secretary of State isn't deciding who works in the cafeteria - there's a number of tiers of career employees between him and that decision.

[Spooky23]

Irrelevant.

The Secretary is accountable, and has people working for him or her who serve at the Secretary’s pleasure.

[ceejayoz]

Irrelevant.

Most of the people working in the State department do not serve at the Secretary’s pleasure.

[vkou]

I dearly hope the janitor isn't the person who the grousing about the deep state is targeted at... Because if that's the case, it's a pretty weak one.

The janitor isn't the reason the DoS makes poor decisions. These decisions are made much higher up the food chain, and elected officials have direct influence over the people who make them.

[jacobwilliamroy]

There has been a trend of Congress delegating more and more powers of legislation and enforcement to the executive branch. FCC, NOAA, TSA, CIA, NSA, FBI, ATF, DIA, USCIS and others are children the executive branch and mostly operate without interacting with congress. Agencies like FCC and NOAA actually have the power to make "rules" which we can be punished for breaking, and the system for approving these rules contains minimal checks and balances.

[ceejayoz]

> Most unelected bureaucrats only have a job at the whims of elected representatives. Your vote for the bureaucrats, via proxy of your representative.

This is true for political appointees - ambassadors, Cabinet secretaries, etc. - but much less so for the civil service, where folks like State Department diplomatic staff or FBI agents tend to serve multi-decade careers under many different administrations.

[Spooky23]

As well it should be. You don’t want the spoils system appointing FBI agents.

[vkou]

They only keep their jobs through the administrations when they do as they are told. If the president wants to change a department's policy, and the department pushes back, he can fire as many directors as he needs to.

[ceejayoz]

There are quite a few protections for the civil service rank and file.

https://www.vox.com/2018/8/27/17786324/trump-fires-governmen...

> The reason he can’t is simple: Unlike his employees at the Trump Organization, about a third of federal workers belong to unions. And those unions have negotiated certain job protections for workers, which includes a process that gives workers a chance to improve their job performance before they are terminated.

[vkou]

You don't fire the line workers, you fire the managers. Workers don't set policy. They do what they are told.

None of the directors, or the senior administrators setting policy are unionized.