The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government

by Mike Lofgren

The New York Times bestselling author of The Party Is Over delivers a no-holds-barred exposé of who really wields power in Washington  Every Four years, tempers are tested and marriages fray as Americans head to the polls to cast their votes. But does anyone really care what we think? Has our vaunted political system become one big, expensive, painfully scriped reality TV show? In this cringe-inducing expose of the sins and excesses of Beltwayland, a longtime Republican party insider argues that we have become an oligarchy in form if not in name. Hooked on war, genuflecting to big donors, in thrall to discredited economic theories and utterly bereft of a moral compass, America’s governing classes are selling their souls to entrenched interest while our bridges collapse, wages, stagnate, and our water is increasingly undrinkable. Drawing on sinsights gleaned over three decades on Capitol Hill, much of it on the Budget Committee, Lofgren paints a gripping portrait of the dismal swamp on the Potomac and the revolution it will take to reclaim our government and set us back on course.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, The United States Of America, American, Economics

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 5, 2016

About the author

Mike Lofgren is an American former Republican aide, who retired in May 2011 after 28 years as a staff member in the U.S. Congress. Lofgren, who has a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Akron, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study European history at the University of Bern and University of Basel in Switzerland and completed the strategy and policy curriculum at the Naval War College.

He began his legislative branch career as military legislative assistant to Republican former House representative John Kasich in 1983. In 1994 he was a professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee. From 1995 to 2004, he was budget analyst for national security on the majority staff of the House Budget Committee. From 2005 until his 2011 retirement, Lofgren was the chief analyst for military spending on the Senate Budget Committee.

Since his retirement, Lofgren has written about politics, budgets, and national security issues.

Reviews

[Robert Jacoby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, I can't keep reading hostile and juvenile drivel like this. I stopped on page 130. Where do I start with reasons why? The list is too long:

o The constant insults to anyone Lofgren doesn't like, which is any Republican

o The faulty research in spots, which makes me suspect the whole effort

o The extraordinary partisan presentation of facts

o The cherry-picking, revisionist history

The list goes on and on. I'm sorry I bought this book and put my hard-earned money into Mike Lofgren's bank account.

Know this: I'm a life-long, registered Independent, and I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book. I really wanted to get some insight from a person "on the inside" for so many years as a Washington bureaucrat, someone who could shed some light on America's decline, why it's happening, and the complex, multi-faceted issues facing our nation, and our world. I wanted to be informed with accurate, revealing, and unbiased history, information, and data. Instead, what I got was a book written like an undergraduate's breathless screed. "And did you know about *this*? And did you know about *that*?"

Lofgren claims that his "purpose with this book is to question the rationale of the game rather than attack the player who happens to be at bat in any given inning" (p. 34). Really? Could've fooled me. In the sentence before he called Bush the "lamentable specimen." And throughout the 130 pages I read Lofgren seems to take any opportunity to rail against Republicans, often in hideous and sophomoric ways: Vice President Cheney is "a physical as well as political trogldyte" (p. 28); Obama faces "ferocious Republican obstruction" (p. 31) -- neverminding this gem I saw on Twitter recently: "If the American left hadn't firebombed the big open space in the middle where discourse used to be, we wouldn't be dealing with Trump now."- Tom Nichols; George W. Bush was "out of his depth" when he became president (p. 33) (but Barack Obama, a man who served 743 days in the Senate from his swearing in to the announcement of his exploratory committee for U.S. president, is "qualified"???); Nixon was the "arch-ogre of Watergate" (p. 52). Another Republican is a "useful idiot" (p. 58). The insults for any conservative continue. It's exhausting. Page 128 is his first crack at Fox News. So sad, so misguided, and so uninformed. (But not surprising, after all. Research done across 9 nations, including the U.S., shows that conservatives are happier than leftists, even controlling for personal income. It's a measurable "happiness gap," and it's due to socio-political beliefs and values. They see the glass as half empty, and someone's got to be at fault.)

I'll stop there. There's plenty of blame to go all around. I understand the military-industrial complex better than the average American. Why heap responsibility (and insults) on one side? But Lofgren goes on and on with the traditional It’s Bush’s Fault® mentality typical of the modern American progressive Democrat. In my view, progressives--just as they're heaping insults on any thing and any one they disdain on The Right--are becoming caricatures of themselves.

Here are some points to consider before you purchase this book. Lofgren's attitudes seep everywhere:

1. Democrats good; Republicans bad is his mantra. Nixon is quite literally an ogre; but Bill Clinton is "a quick learner" of the crooked and failed system. Such a dualistic view of the American political landscape is myopic and simplistic at best and childish and retarded at worst. Even as a teenager I understood this; it's why I became a registered Independent at 18. I'd pose this question to Lofgren: So, you believe that money and power and influence are evil things in Republican hands, but when they're in Democrat hands they're wielded for "good" purposes?

2. The New York Times and the Washington Post are the received texts, and the Wall Street Journal is evil personified.

3. Corporate-funded think tanks are bad, but only if they fund conservative/Republican ideas.

4. The fantasy of a nuclear-weapons-free world. I can't. I won't even address this modern-day liberal delusion.

Here's the best:

5. "The United States uses its military muscle to sustain its economic model and dissuade other countries from deviating from its orthodoxies" (p. 109).

Now, I read Lofgren in context here to intimate the following from him:

A. He's genuinely surprised by it
and
B. He wants us, his readers, to be genuinely surprised by it, too

In reality, I think a first-year History major understands that, through all of recorded history, nations have been doing this. It's called self-preservation. I'd really like to ask Lofgren: Do you actually suppose that the United States is alone in this? Is that your thesis? That only the U.S. uses its military to try to get its way? That China, Russia, India, Pakistan, etc etc are not doing the exact same thing? And that smaller nations are aligning themselves where they can for their own self-interests and self-preservation? Nations and empires and countries have been doing this since...recorded history. This is what states do. They protect themselves and they protect (what they see as) their interests. In this and many other regards, Lofgren needs to grow up.

In addition to all this, I found it exhausting to read this book because I ended up doing my own fact-checking, Sometimes this will happen when I'm reading non-fiction, but I've never experienced it to this extent. It seemed like I was doing this on nearly every page. Let me correct here a few of Lofgren's mistakes and misunderstandings (I'm being generous):

1. "....the McCarythite hysteria over internal subversion..." (p. 51). Some historians have shown that McCarthy was essentially right. Whether it was stealing atomic secrets or influencing U.S. foreign policy, communist victories in the 1940s were fed by an incredibly vast spy and influence network. (sources: http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/joe-... and http://www.academia.org/cornell-the-c...)

2. The liberal lie that there were no WMDs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. See "The New York Times Rediscovers Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq".

3. Logren's assessments on the US use of torture as a policy is laughable at best and dangerously naive at worst. Of course our operatives use torture, and of course it's not reported to Congress. How dumb can you possibly be? Do you live in John Lennon's "Imagine" world, or do you live in the real world?

4. Nixon "suddenly" took the U.S. off the gold standard. There was nothing "sudden" about it. See: http://www.federalreservehistory.org/...

5. Manufacturing leaving the U.S. was only seeping into the public's consciousness in the early 1990s. I think Lofgren is betraying his cloistered D.C. viewpoint here. I was living in Ohio during the 1970s and 1980s, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that the Midwest was well- versed and -experienced with outsourcing a decade before Lofgren thinks it was.

There's much more, of course, but you see my point.

So, to sum up: Too many partisan attacks. Too many personal insults. Too much history rewritten. Too much research left undone. Mostly what Lofgren is providing here is his own inaccurate, biased, and cherry-picked story. The little bit of new and accurate information I got was overwhelmed by all of the problems. This book is neither a journalistic nor a scholarly work. It's one zealot's account, that's all. And it's a real shame. I wanted to read and get some insight into how here in the U.S. this is no longer a government of the people, by the people, or for the people. What I got instead was a bunch of loosely connected sophomoric rantings from a leftist idealogue who relishes heaping insults on any anyone who doesn't see the world his way. Which is the progressive Democrat way. In other words: You're an idiot if your opinion doesn't match mine. Lofgren reads like a kid with a stick poking into the lion's cage. It's sad, really. He comes off as a fool, not the "truth teller" he claims to be. I put the book down at page 130 and tagged it on my Goodreads shelf books-i-gave-up-reading.

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Lofgren is a former GOP Congressional aide for twenty-eight years who has become disenchanted with several features of our current government. In “The Party is Over” he complains the sole purpose of Republicans elected to Congress is to shut down government or at least bring it to a standstill. They have often succeeded. He argues in this book that there are two governments in Washington: the visible one that is in the public eye with campaigns and elections, and the “deep” government that operates behind the scenes, often following its own agenda and never changes regardless of who might be elected. Ironically, I sensed much of this reading Robert Gates’ memoir “Duty.” It was clear that he, as Secretary of directions his president wanted to move.) Defense, often had trouble moving the Defense Department bureaucracy and military in directions he wanted (and I felt he sometimes thwarted or at least resisted.) The process has been a gradual one and not unexpected.

Much of the problem he attributes to the “beltline” mentality and the aggregation of agencies, foundations (there are now more than sixteen-hundred of these tax-exempt “ hordes of gun slinging grants man who tried to maintain a facade of scholarly disinterest are functionally as much a part of the ecosystem of the town is the lobbyists on K Street,) and agencies like Homeland Security, which, truth-be-told, would make much more sense after 9/11 to be dispersed throughout the country, but which instead is firmly entrenched in a former insane asylum retrofit, now ten years behind schedule and $1 billion over budget, but thankfully protecting us from shampoo-bottle bombers. Its first chief, Michael Chertoff, I suppose could be congratulated by the bureaucracy for his display of efficiency in turning DHS (doesn’t the word Homeland remind you of “fatherland” and cause a reflexive need to bring the right arm to sharp Hitlerian attention?) “into a contractor-infested replica of the DOD’s in only a few years. His post-government career has been single-minded attempt to cash in personally on his bureaucratic creation and his own notoriety.”

9/11 had an effect on all of this, of course, as military contractors rushed to merge and join the hoards of others with headquarters in Washington (thanks to generous tax benefits passed at taxpayer’s expense) sucking at the government teat.

For all the bellyaching that goes on throughout the country about out-of-touch bureaucrats, corrupt and unresponsive government, and how much everyone hates Washington, these visible signs of our increasingly intrusive and overbearing government did not fall out of the sky upon an unsuspecting public. The Deep State, along with its headquarters in Washington, is not a negation of the American people's character. It is an intensification of tendencies inherent in any aggregation of human beings. If the American people did not voluntarily give informed consent to the web of unaccountable influence that radiates from Washington and permeates the country, then their passive acquiescence, aided by false appeals to patriotism and occasional doses of fear, surely played a role. A majority of Americans have been anesthetized by the slow, incremental rise of the Deep State, a process that has taken decades. (p. 29)

Much of this “deep state” results from Washington group think. In the military it’s clearly more obvious, you have to get on board with the mission or go nowhere career-wise. In the bureaucracy the pressures are equally strong if not as apparent. And they know they’ll be around long after the flavor-of-the-day politicians move on. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

The last chapter consists of Lofgren’s prescriptions for resolving some of the issues he has highlighted in the book. I would disagree with several of them. His first solution, “eliminate private money from public elections” has been batted around so many times. When has money never been a problem in campaigns? It always has and will always be. Public financing is hardly the solution. Do I really want my tax money to be used to fund the campaigns of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann? And is this only for presidential campaigns? It’s local city and state elections that often have more of an influence. I would argue for complete transparency but let people spend their money on campaigns as they wish, just make sure everyone knows where it’s coming from. PACS should be eliminated; all the money should go directly to the candidate but with full accounting and accountability.

I fully concur with his recommendations that we reduce military spending and stay of of the Middle East. Nothing we have done in the past sixty years seems to have worked the way we intended it to beginning with the CIA-Seven Sisters overthrow of the government in Iran. To quote him: “ISIS is undeniably a toxic gang of murderers, but our own disastrous intervention in Iraq formed the petri dish in which its diseased ideology could evolve.” I love that metaphor. Constant military interventions have provided the rationale for ruinous military spending which, in turn, empowers the shadow government even more not to mention increased the debt by six trillion and counting. His suggestion that much of that military spending be channeled to domestic infrastructure repair and building is admirable but would, ironically, continue to empower the shadow government in the form of additional bureaucratic structures.

He admits that many of his proposals sound utopian (not to mention Progressive) but insists that the United States has reformed itself several times in the past on equally grand a scale. I’m not so optimistic.

Lots of amusing, if cynical, lines in the book. For example, referring to the invasion of Iraq and its justification, “ the tongue tied George W Bush sorely needed the mellifluous double talk of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on the theory that nothing sells hideously awful policy as well as an Oxford accent (the American political class swoons on cue at gibberish delivered with Received Pronunciation.) I could go on with many other examples. But read the book and weep.

I enjoy Mike Lofgren’s work and was offered an “Advanced Reader Copy” of this book in hopes I would read and review it. I was happy to do so since I intended to buy it when it appeared anyway, although I would have much preferred an ebook copy for my Kindle (much easier to take notes and highlight passages.) The book is excellent but probably futile (I must be really pessimistic this morning.) Mandatory reading.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered why the government seems surprisingly deaf to the wishes and concerns of voters despite all the attention the media pay to our concerns every four years? Well, Lofgren argues, quite convincingly, that it isn't the concerns of voters, but the concerns of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the Military Industrial Complex (all of these make up the Deep State) that primarily influence our lawmakers. Lofgren is critical of both parties and believes the Deep State has influenced politicians across the aisle. He articulates how the Deep State has influenced our disastrous foreign policy, created a military industry that is overgrown and full of waste, created extremely divisive domestic politics and worst of all, produced a government that barely functions and is mostly broken. I definitely recommend that American voters read this informative book as we enter the 2016 presidential election.

[Zak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gave me a good overall understanding of the nexus between career bureaucrats, political lobbyists and corporate interests. Largely explains why government policies (especially foreign, defense and financial policies) seldom seem to waver from some pre-determined path, no matter who is sitting in the White House. I do have some doubts about the factual integrity of this book though. For example, Lofgren twice puts up legendary trader Jesse Livermore's suicide as an example of the devastating effects of financial hubris following the 1929 stock market crash. On the contrary, Livermore made $100 million shorting the market in '29 (equivalent to almost $1.5 billion in today's terms). However, he had been dealing with depression throughout much of his life and only committed suicide 11 years later in 1940. Since a simple Google search would have revealed this, I have to think the author deliberately fudged this point in order to shore up his argument.

[Justin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ideas the author addresses are incredibly pertinent and troubling, which is why it is so frustrating that the book is so poorly written. The narrative skips from idea to idea with very little in the way of transitions or supporting evidence, and for the most part the author assumes you already agree with propositions that should be controversial. I wish this could be the book to awaken Americans to the realities of the deep state, but I don't think Lofgren will manage to do so just by preaching to the choir.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book worth your time, written by a retired career Congressional staff insider. Author Mike Lofgren has unique and critical insight into the workings of both the Republican Party and the Congress. And his take on both are depressing, bordering on frightening. He takes no prisoners with harsh judgement of the GOP, the Democrats, and corporate America. According to him, the Republicans are essentially shills for big business and the Democrats are just plain hapless.
In a nutshell, the Deep State as Lofgren describes it is a combination of elected and appointed members of the legislative and executive branches; and corporate insiders, especially the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. Together, fueled by enormous amounts of money, they effectively control the country, regardless of which party is in power or the wishes of the electorate. Lofgren believes the ‘Deep State’ in its current form began with the Manhattan Project during WW II. He describes the country’s situation in detail with specific examples. He points out the main dangers the country faces due to the Deep State, and finally, he lays out specific corrections he believes the country must take to save itself.
Readers will have widely different views about Lofgren's thesis based on their perspective. I have a few observations. First, I think he's mostly right. But I wonder why he played the game for so long and only vents his concerns after retirement. He could be viewed as quite hypocritical. At times, his rhetoric is quite shrill (over the top). Also, although the 'Deep State' might be reaching new heights of control and manipulation, I do not think this is a very new phenomenon. Think about the Railroad Barons of the 19th century and many other examples. People with vast resources have always wielded great power for possible mischief. That's not to say we should not heed Lofgren's warning and strive to retake our democracy.
Mike Lofgren says the worst and most vexing problem we face is money in politics and the ills exacerbated by the ‘Citizens Untited’ Supreme Court decision. He’s exactly right. His suggested solutions, while mostly right on target, are daunting. In the current state, its difficult to see how we get there.
This is a book that should cause people to think and act. I highly recommend it.

[victor harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by an insider, it details the corruption and pervasive influence of wealthy factions who either directly or indirectly steer the economic and political policies of the U.S. Most of the time the accommodation of special interests is detrimental to the public good as politicians act at the behest of those interests. It has been told a number of times before but rarely from the perspective of someone who was a significant player in the budget wars. Strong for most of the commentary it did get a little tedious near the end as you reach the saturation point with all the perfidious maneuvering. Nevertheless it is worth visiting because of the author's expertise on the matters.

[MomToKippy]

Mike Lofgren is an important writer and thinker. A former Senate staffer (R), He wrote a book called The Deep State: the fall of the Constitution and the rise of a shadow government.

Others have written about the concept of the deep state, but he is the first in recent years that has come from within the system. The term "deep state" is a very important one for anyone who would hope to have a realistic understanding of American government since at least the end of World War II. Basically, it refers to the real power behind the visible government that we are all familiar with. These are the elite powers that insure that certain foreign-policy and economic issues remain untouchable by democratic processes. These powers represent the interests of Global Finance and the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex. The most successful politicians work for these people while pretending to represent the Interests of the American people at large. After their "public service", they are rewarded with plum jobs, lavish salaries, or fantastically large speaking fees. In just one example, the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, have been rewarded with $200 million, Mostly for speaking fees and from donations to their “foundation" by the fattest corporations and scum bags like the Saudis (who also helped George W. raise tens of millions of dollars to buy a baseball team).

Make no mistake about it, the American Deep State is the world's preeminent sponsor of genocide and terrorism. The great American patriot, Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler USMC laid it all out in his essay War is a Racket. Butler who was twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, disowned his military service, saying that he had been nothing more than muscle for racketeers. He said that the real purpose of his missions had been to make the world safe for National City Bank, Brown Brothers and United Fruit Company.

[Pat Herndon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this book a mixed review. It explains the political powers that exert their influence from the shadows. However, these shadows are not very dim. We have known of the military industrial complex for years, seen Big Pharma at work and known for years that big business wants the spoils of success with none of the responsibilities. These and other newer complexes are well explained in the book. However, suggestions to address what reads like a long list of complaints are offered only in the last eight pages of text.

Also, though published in 2016, it is clear that this author in no way anticipated a Trump presidency. Today's reality makes some of Lofgren's observations seem absolutely quaint.

I think that Dark Money by Jane Mayer painted a stronger, more relevant look at modern politics.

[Jim Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great review of how our institutions are being manipulated, limiting our security and extracting rents from us. Lofgren shows how our politics are increasingly the realm of unqualified, dogmatic, partisans working to further elite business privilege. He tends to overplay the role of foreign policy and militarism and underplay the impact of our highly inefficient and immorale health care system. This is a great companion to "A People's History of the United States".

[Dan Pfeiffer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads like a disgruntled former employee’s screed. Doesn't go nearly into enough detail or cover all aspects of the topic. A thorough analysis would probably justify 800 pages as opposed to 300 here. Not a sober analysis and frequently devolves into name calling.

[Frank Theising · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite being highly interested in the subject matter, this reads too much like an extended political rant from your crazy uncle rather than a thoughtful, systematic analysis of the issue. A disgruntled Republican staffer of 28 years, Lofgren starts out promisingly enough. He begins with a few good qualifiers on what he intends to do: “My analysis of the Deep State is not an expose of a secret, conspiratorial cabal (33)” and “My purpose with this book is to question the rationale of the game rather than attack the player who happens to be at bat in any given inning” (34). Then for the next 243 pages he proceeds to expose a conspiratorial cabal and pettily attack just about everyone he mentions (George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Madeline Albright, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, etc., etc.). Lofgren does hit on a couple important truths: first, that our venerable institutions of government, though outwardly the same, have grown resistant to the popular will (4) and second, there are institutional pressures that impel a president, any president, to act in certain ways, ways often directly opposed to the platform that he campaigned on (73). Unfortunately, his diagnosis of these problems seem at times largely uninformed (especially with International Relations theory), incomplete (he largely ignores the vast powers that Congress has ceded to non-elected organizations such as the EPA), or flat out wrong (his explanation for the rise of the Tea Party and/or Donald Trump).

So what is the “Deep State”? According to Lofgren it is the shadow government that rules the United States behind the scenes (5). Included in this shadow government is…the actual government, plus the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley (35). These various sectors collude to fulfill their own interests at the expense of the Constitution and rule of law (a recurring example being starting wars in hell holes in order to enrich defense contractors). When this inevitably leads to horrible consequences, the Deep State protects its higher ranking officials, allowing them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude (Iraq, Libya, financial crash, etc) (40). Deep State members can easily rotate back and forth between government positions and high paying private sector positions (36) while advocacy and charitable organizations provide an income, a megaphone, and the veneer of a respectable job for out-of-work political operatives which assure the continuity of personnel for the Deep State (56). Groupthink is endemic in Washington, with much action being characterized by sudden fads (41).

Lofgren’s most recurring example is that of a bloated Defense establishment. He laments the overly broad definitions of what constitutes US vital interests (98) and the size of the post-Cold War military presence around the world (108). These are legitimate criticisms, however he offers no honest explanation for why we are deployed around the globe or the cost associated with retrenchment and withdrawal (nuclear proliferation would almost certainly happen in a dozen countries including Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Japan). By and large Lofgren seems largely ignorant of more than a half century of debate and analysis of this subject in International Relations theory. He makes it sound like it’s a clear cut win with no trade off whatsoever (South Korea is rich, why haven’t we left yet? (270)). I’m not saying we need to be deployed to 150 countries around the world. I actually agree we need to realistically prioritize and scale back in those areas that are not priorities. But Lofgren offers no serious way to get there from here and his solution of just unilaterally withdrawing would likely have significant consequences far worse than he imagines.

I found many statements in the book interesting knowing that they were written before Donald Trump was elected President. Despite calling Trump a dangerously insane candidate (236), he offers up many of the exact same arguments that Trump campaigned on. For instance, the author argues that the system is so rigged that ambitious psychos (he cites Rumsfeld) scramble to the top against the will of the American people (202). He notes how preferences of economic elites prevail over the wishes of constituents, his specific example is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (65), which Trump railed against repeatedly. He argues extensively against America’s overseas military presence (how much crap did Trump take for even hinting that NATO members need to start paying their fair share or we wouldn’t defend them). With the possible exception of immigration policy, it’s hard to see much difference at all between candidate Donald Trump and Mike Lofgren. I found it funny that he makes the claim that if any elected official gets out of line or threatens the status quo, Wall Street floods the town with cash and lawyers to put them back in line (36). The backlash from the establishment, be it government, Silicon Valley, or the media has been so vehement it actually seems to lend some credence to Lofgren’s conspiracy theory-esque take on the power of the Deep State.

I found Lofgren’s take on the Tea Party and the Republican drift to the right to be about as tone deaf as anyone else who has lived their entire life inside the beltway. Rather than making a good faith effort to understand the grievances of the right (many of which are directly related to his Deep State argument of a government unresponsive to the people) he simply sluffs it off with the same ignorant platitudes so common today (anti-science, anti-democratic, racists, etc). As an example, he bemoans that the “anti-science” Republican Party voted to ban the DoD from participating in climate change research (263). The page after next he says the “military industrial complex’s pampered, privileged position in society and its cost-is-no-object mentality, along with its rigid and bureaucratized hierarchy, have made it a less effective force in accomplishing its overriding purpose: fighting and winning wars” (265). Which is it, should we pour money into the DoD to conduct climate change research or is the Defense establishment a pampered bureaucracy that has lost sight of its primary mission? The book is full of this type of schizophrenic analysis of the Deep State. Uncompromising right wingers obstructing the government are a sign that the Deep State is really the power behind the throne, but someone being willing to work for both parties (Robert Gates) is evidence that there is no difference between parties and the Deep State is running everything. On the Tea Party’s rise, he never seems to consider that their obstructionism is not all that irrational in light of his own statements that “ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does (65)” yet the government has incredible power over their daily lives including the ability to take everything they have without due process (like Eminent Domain and Civil Asset Forfeiture (145)). Why would they not obstruct such a government?? Instead, they are just a bunch of bitter-clingers looking to hold on to power by any means necessary. Perhaps, just maybe, the nascent effort to repeal the 17th amendment (popular election of Senators) is not the next step after gerrymandering to maintain control with a shrinking percentage of the population (219) but a well-reasoned response to reverse the utter breakdown of the Federalist system that our Founding Fathers brilliantly implemented in order to keep a Republic as big and diverse as ours in one piece.

Lofgren concludes with a list of recommendations to curb the power of the Deep State.
1) Eliminate private money from public elections
2) Sensibly redeploy and downsize the military and intelligence complex (his example is pull out of South Korea)
3) Stay out of the Middle East
4) Redirect the peace dividend to domestic infrastructure improvement
5) Start enforcing our antitrust laws again
6) Reform tax policy
7) Reform immigration policy
8) Adopt single-payer health care system.
9) Abolish corporations’ personhood status, or else treat them exactly like persons

Some of these are worthwhile (money out of politics, tax reform, infrastructure spending) but most are largely pipe-dreams without any realistic roadmap provided to accomplish them or they double down on increasing the power of the Federal government (again, completely downplaying the crucial role of Federalism to the future peace and prosperity of our large, diverse country).

[Nathan Albright · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing in that it was a book about the deep state written by a denizen of the deep state who looks upon Conservatives, Christians, and others with a great degree of contempt.  It is hard to say exactly who this book is for.  Most of the people who recognize the existence of a deep state of committed bureaucrats who pursue their corrupt and self-serving plans do so out of populist opposition to such entrenched power and desire to destroy it root and branch. This book is clearly not written to people who have already been red-pilled, as the author is one of those insufferable condescending Never-Trumper elites who looks down on the common people and views Intelligent Design as well as any sort of skepticism of the dominant cultural narratives as being uneducated and unworthy of respect.  It seems as if the book is written to fellow cultural elites as a way of warning of the problems of the Deep State before the "barbarians" from flyover states tear it down.  But are those people going to be interested in a book that critiques something they tend to benefit from?

This book is between 250 and 300 pages and is divided into fifteen chapters.  The author begins with acknowledgements, an introduction that discusses his own personal life and background, and then a discussion of what is meant by Beltwayland (1).  The author discusses the identity of the deep state (2) and posits that bad ideas matter (3).  He also discusses how elections matter (or not) (4) and discusses what our defense system does if it is not defending America (5).  There is a discussion of economic warfare and a marked hostility towards big banks (6) as well as a look at the commanding heights of power (7) and the relationship between the deep state to the law and constitution (8).  After this the author discusses Silicon Valley and its role in the deep state (9) as well as the importance of personnel in determining policy (10) and the hypocrisy of austerity for thee and not for me (11).  The book discusses the author's view of those who lack insight into the problems of the deep state (12), some ideas about signs of change (13), as well as the confrontation between America and the world (14), after which the author discloses his own ideas for an alternative to the contemporary deep state (15), after which the book closes with notes and an index.

This is not a very good book, but it is a bad book in instructive ways.  The author reminds us, in spite of himself, why it is so hard to trust Republican politicos in the way that Democrats feel more confident trusting their own politicians.  Many squishy Republicans who are not sound on social causes look down on the base of the Republican party with contempt as uneducated rubes whose votes are appreciated but whose views are not.  The author does not realize that people who are opposed to the Deep State and do not view the author as a sympathetic or worthwhile writer read books, probably at levels higher than many other segments of society, and thus it seems baffling that the author would drop his guard and not even pretend to respect the sort of populism that comes from areas that are tired of being treated with contempt and disdain by corrupt elites like the author.  For the author to recognize the reality of the corruption, to recognize, however haltingly, that he is and was a part of it, and to fail to seek to make common cause with those who are most upset about it is an appalling lack of tactical or strategic (to say nothing of diplomatic) insight.  

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Layers. If you want to know what the orbits of those people who're full-well clear and past the visible elected officials, this book's a terrific tour guide for How the Channels Have Formed ... which, it turns out, is not exactly as transparent a set of routes as you'd see laid out for you on Schoolhouse Rock or any other source for learning about the Separation of Powers (like The Federalist Papers, say).

Like Hollywood and/or Wall Street — and yet unlike them, as Lofgren is careful to point out — the lure of accolades and stepladders to climb in Washington has its own appeal, its own penchant-pull, its own flavor. Where representative government gets lost in the shuffle is Lofgren's project, here — and ours. His suggestions at the end seem to fall somewhere between pointed-and-informed and simply wishful thinking, depending on where this administration and Congress choose to go, and take us, for the next several years.

Janine Wedel's The Shadow Elite: The New Agents of Power and Influence Who Are Undermining Government, Free Enterprise, and Democracy takes an early (and ahead-of-the-curve) stab at untangling these extra roles; it's a good supplementary material, for getting your paradigms shifted and your antennae up.

It's Jeff Nesbit's Poison Tea: How Big Oil and Big Tobacco Invented the Tea Party and Captured the GOP , though (also from last year), that seems to imply a new set of tree roots has already settled in place (as current events seem to be showing), with only limited possibilities left available. Time will show.

[Allen Bagby · Rating 1 out of 5]

This should have been called "The Deep Fake". Laughable. I got suckered because us Conservatives and Libertarians are more tuned in to the implications of the book's title. Downloaded the audio/kindle to listen and read. Hooked my headphones in and began a long bike ride. Shortly in Lofgren credits ...wait for it... Elisabeth Warren for calling out the Deep State. LOL. I nearly fell off my Cannondale. I thought maybe it was a joke and I missed the tone. I kept listening. In a few more minutes, he basically labels the "TEA Party" as deplorables. As I kept listening I kept cutting him some slack. Finally, I couldn't take his bias anymore and feared I might crash from jawdropping leftist bias. Lofgren's answer the Deep State seems to be more effective Democrats implementing an even deeper more politically correct Deep State. The book seems like a psyop written to quell concerns about the real Deep State, which is mainly a socialists agenda to enslave the world.

[Jerry Geleff · Rating 2 out of 5]

So what we have here is a book that presents the case that the government is screwing us, corporations are screwing us, and the only way to solve the problem is to have the evil government regulate the evil corporations more. This dumbass actually makes the case that corporations are allowed to screw us by government dictate, that government is duplicitous in the screwing, then says the only way to change things is with more government.
It took me seven months to get through this POS book, and the reason is that I've never encountered such cognitive dissonance in all of my life. Do NOT buy this book. It's a waste of your time and money. 

[Sherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing and scary because it is so true. Everyone should read this book and take it to heart. I recently finished reading a sci-fi book, "The Last Librarian" that made me glad it was fiction! Then I read "The Deep State" and there are so many correlations between the two books, I was terrified.

As a Good Reads reader I think, as a group, we should do everything we can to make sure books are always available in hard copy. Even though I enjoy listening to my books on audio I don't ever want to give up my paper copies, hard back or paperback.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I put this book down but finally finished it. The matter is very serious but I could not enjoy the author's writing. He wandered. He started chapters with a compelling story but changed topics. In the right hands this book could be incendiary. It was the basis of Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, but this book really drops the ball. Our health as Americans, our expected life spans, maternal deaths etc. are far below European nations and our preoccupation with defense is crazy but this book won't convince anybody.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a most disturbing book - I could handle a chapter at a time. It's also influenced my world view profoundly. Chapter by chapter the author builds to a set of recommendations that should be the organizing principles of our next political party - perhaps the Progressive Party?

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lofgren, who wrote this book during the Obama presidency, makes a strong case for why Congress is gridlocked and likely to stay that way. His writing is fair, wry and disturbing. He demonstrates how elected officials have been neutered by Wall Street, the defense industry big corporations, and Silicon Valley using national security as a catch phrase to justify massive spending and incursions into personal liberty.

[Joe Hoover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the “Deep State” endorsed your crazy uncle on how it protects the Clintons and attempts to undermine Trump. The term “Deep State” like “fake news” has been co-opted for anti-democratic propaganda. The author Mike Lofgren, was the first to use the term deep state to talk about the entrenched interests in US government and corporations and how those interests work in contrast to what is good for anybody but a few.
If you can’t stomach the depressing info laid out on what are the issues, then at least read the last chapter on what should be done.

[Captain Curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre book at best that regurgitates the same tired cliches we here over and over and over with every political book from the Left and Right that dates back to 1952 (see my review of "A Choice not an Echo". It is pretty much the same book; replace "Deep State" with "King Makers". Phyllis Schlafy book is better.)...Nothing new to see here, just throw in the word "deep state" after every failed debacle (e.g. the deep state was behind Vietnam, the deep state is behind bailing out the banks, the deep state is behind Israel funding, the deep state created terrorism, the deep state feeds DC greed at the expense of the rest of the country). We know the problem, we need real solutions, not new words like "deep state"!

The Left and Right both know the problem, now what????

We can all agree (Left and Right):
- War in the Middle East is no good and we need immediate withdrawal
- Domestic infrastructure improvements are needed
- Rebirth and support of the local US economy
- Bulldozing and cleaning up DC and career politicians. DC greed has gotten out of control!
**(see more)

We can all agree on these, right? Why not focus on these simple three?

Sorry, I had hope for a second and stepped out of reality briefly. I forgot these are delusions on how the American people can make right 60+ years of failed policy domestically and abroad. Has the author seen the obesity of the Average American people? They can't even take care of themselves, let alone a country. Has he witnessed the arrogance/stupidity that will never end? While reading the book it reminds me of that quote “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence”... Has the author seen the movie "Idiocracy". It is a future documentary of this country...

Is he aware of the apathy, unemployment, alcoholism, vapid complacency that has fallen among the people that will only worsen with automation and the continue outsourcing of jobs.

It is WAY easier to complain and troll on websites and read books but continue doing nothing. Americans can barely get out off the couch to change the TV channel, let alone turn a country around. Just more cliche talk followed by no action, nothing new, carry on and keep selling books as it is the only viable "plan to action" existing in ivory tower ideologies and academia. No need to be original, just add some new words here and there....
Fantasy world. Wake me when its all over and someone has something new to say....

Nothing will change and nihilism has not settled in with Mike.

Back to the bottle for me.

Quotes:

"Rome lived on its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa, and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo." Winwood Reade, the Martyrdom of Man (1871)

"If I wanted to go crazy I would do it in Washington because it would not be noticed". Attributed to Irvin S. Cobbs, in respectfully Quoted: A dictionary of Quotations Required from the Congressional Research Service (1989)

"The McMansion as the symbol of the deep state"

"As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" p41

"...the financialization of the American economy, income stagnation, rotting infrastructure, the comprehensive surveillance of citizens, and the erosion of popular democracy?" p98

"The title of Ortega y Gasset's most famous work, The Revolt of the Masses, tells us something about its mental atmosphere, a Freudian fear of defilement by the great unwashed" p139

"The Deep State as an evolved social organism is optimized to achieve certain things: power, money, and career security for its major players; and a preservation of the status quo for the system within which they operate." p181

"The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its 2013 "report card" on the state of American infrastructure, rated it overall as a D+. Decades of boutique wars costing trillions and money wasted on reckless pork barrel projects or siphoned off into overseas tax havens appear to have taken their toll: in some places, money is no longer available even to maintain properly paved roads." p207

**"One should not, however, make too much of these symptoms as a predictor of future politics. Ralph Nader, after decades on the left-hand fringe of American political discourse, has had an epiphany and believes an anti-establishment Left-Right alliance has the potential to overcome the oligarchical rule of the establishment that has smothered American politics over the last three decades. In his book "Unstoppable", Nader sees evidence that populist conservatives- just like progressives- abhor the too-big-to-fail banking system, distrust the surveillance state, and are weary of foreign adventurism. It is possible he also detects faint cultural resemblance between Left and Right." p232

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't trust the government, there is a good reason why. Look behind the scenes of what really happens in this book written by someone who knows the ins and outs of corruption, back stabbing and what is happening in the government.

[Gary Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read from conclusion back to introduction and the many flaws of this effort really shine through. Initially Mr. Lofgren seems to start out on stable ground but it becomes very shaky very quickly. His lack of insights into the history before WWII and his conclusive 9 recommendations are simply ideas of mind with no sound basis due to the lack of understanding of any history beyond his life's experience.

Page 34 gives a good sketch into the organizational structure of the 'Deep State' but he fails to see this is not something new over the past 5 decades but a growth that can be traced from his organizational chart through his fog of history tying into the structures started in earnest during the 1890s. The organization he describes all have births further back than his competency level allows him to see.

The 9 recommendations at the end really shine a light into the fact this book is a single person's view after what may have been a very frustrating career, especially at the end. What is really typical is the comment prior to his list of ideas to save the country from the 'Deep State' he is exposing. "They will all have to be tackled if the country is to reverse the decay of it’s constitutionally established institutions...What follows are reforms that I believe could begin to stop the rot and put the United States back on track." Back on track to what, constitutional federalism?

Not at all. His 'reforms' will help insure our experiment in individual liberty and self-government will finally be put to it's end. His first reform is a desire to remove private money from public elections, a very good idea. His approach is to "...scrap the whole system and start from square one." Actually, restoring the beginning approach to federal elections would remove the challenges we face today but that would entail knowing the 12th Amendment, in 1804, helped start us on this road and repealing the 12th and 17th amendments would be necessary to restore constitutional institutions and remove the needs for perpetual campaigning and fundraising.

His 8th recommendation is to establish a single-payer health system. There's nothing constitutionally valid that supports such a socialist approach to health care. Of course, if you make it this deep into 'The Deep State' you will already fully realize Mr. Lofgren is not a supporter of American Federalism or our original intent behind the DoI or Constitution. His career help him get a glimmer of the problem but his complete lack of history or research before WWII leaves him unable to really help eliminate the true Deep State in this country and restore supreme Law.

If you choose to read this book, and I believe it is worth the read, understand it is emotional more than historical and it is written by someone heavily influenced by the progressive system we've lived in so many of the solutions keep the bureaucracy in place the Deep State needs to hide and operate within.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXPLANATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE ‘UNELECTED POWER NETWORKS’

Author Mike Lofgren wrote in the Preface to the paperback edition of this 2016 book, “The political elites controlling our two political parties, and the billionaires behind them---the elected and unelected power networks I describe in this book that form the Deep State---had already settled on a simple, binary choice for president to bestow on the American people: Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton… But the very social conditions the Deep State had fostered began to undermine the public apathy and distraction that were the secret to its dominance… Which brings us to Donald Trump… But even though the Republican Party sired Trump, it shares parentage with the transnational national security complex of the Deep State… Where Trump’s background intersected the Deep State was in Wall Street’s financial domain of Alt-A mortgages, shaky leveraged financing, and front companies… The work of restoring the United States as a country that lives up to its ideals will be the gradual, piecemeal work of a new generation that is in thrall neither to the tedious culture wars of the last fifty years nor to the outworn economic and national security dogmas of its elders.”

He explains in the Introduction that after writing his book ‘The Party Is Over,’ “I began to feel that I had dealt with the symptoms … rather than fundamental causes… America’s politics were broken, but so were its economic engine and its supposedly bipartisan foreign policy… Economic inequality was growing. Infrastructure was getting rickety. Educational policy was confused and ineffectual. The Tea Party… was merely one among several warning signs of a deep-seated dysfunction in the way American society was run at the very top.” (Pg. 3)

He continues, “This paradox of penury and dysfunction on the one hand and unlimited wealth and seeming omnipotence on the other is replicated outside of government as well… These paradoxes… are symptoms of a shadow government ruling the United States that pays little heed to the plain words of the Constitution… I have come to call this shadow government the Deep State… I use the term to mean a hybrid association of key elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States with only limited reference to the consent of the governed… The Deep State is eh big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism and the militarization of foreign policy, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure that has given us the most unequal society in almost a century, and the political dysfunction that has … driven voters to embrace Trump.” (Pg. 4-5)

Later, he adds, “The Deep State… is not a negation of the American people’s character. It is an intensification of tendencies inherent in any aggregation of human beings. If the American people did not voluntarily give informed consent… then their passive acquiescence, aided by false appeals to patriotism and occasional doses of fear, surely played a role. A majority of Americans have been anesthetized by the slow, incremental rise of the Deep State, a process that has taken decades.” (Pg. 29)

He clarifies, “My analysis of the Deep State is NOT and exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal. Logic, facts, and experience do not sustain belief in overarching conspiracies successfully hidden for decades… The Deep State, like a set of infected tonsils, is hardly a optimal design, but it became ascendant over our traditional representative democracy as a result of the gradual accumulation of historical circumstances.” (Pg. 33)

He continues, “The Deep State does not consist of the entire government. It is a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies, plus key parts of the other branches whose roles give them membership. The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Justice Department are all part of the Deep State. We also include the Department of the Treasury because of its … organic symbiosis with Wall Street… All these agencies are coordinated by the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council… The Deep State does not consist only of government agencies. What is euphemistically called private enterprise is an integral part of its operations… There are now 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances---a number greater than that of cleared civilian employees of the government.” (Pg. 34-35)

He states, “During the last dozen years, the Deep State has done a horrible job of averting or overcoming severe crises in the defense of the country and in ensuring a functioning national economy that serves the material needs of the great majority of its citizens, not to mention preserving their liberties. But the shadow government has easily mastered the task of creating a fog of soothing propaganda to ensure its own perpetuation and aggrandizement while protecting the reputations and incomes of its senior players. More than that, it has kept virtually every single one of them out of jail.” (Pg. 47)

He asserts, “If the Deep State is an institution that hides in plain sight, the same holds true for the people who run it. While there are countless operatives in an out of government … who toil away in anonymity on projects we never hear about, they are usually the order-takers. The individuals who drive the policy are mostly people we know about… What distinguishes these leaders from those of similar rank who do not drive the Deep State agenda is their gravitational attraction to power, their agenda-setting ability regardless of which party is in power, and their remarkable longevity.” (Pg. 176-177) He goes on, “The Deep State as an evolved social organization is optimized to achieve certain things: power, money, and career security for its major players, and a preservation of the status quo for the system within which they operate. What is it not well adapted to achieving is useful solutions for society as a whole.” (Pg. 181) He adds, “The Deep State runs on money, and these ambassadors, unqualified though they may be, help make the wheels go round in their own minor and farcical way.” (Pg. 194)

He suggests, “Since about 1980, America’s domestic infrastructure has become less and less the envy of the world and more often a cautionary tale about the perils of social divestment… One of the few examples of large-scale infrastructure investments today is prisons… Another example of accelerated public infrastructure investment is sports stadiums and arenas.” (Pg 210-211)

He observes, “Another problem the Deep State faces… is the contradiction between the means of its survival and the cultural forces it has either unleashed or played a part in amplifying. At bottom, the military-industrial complex, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street are about … systematizing, quantifying and bureaucratizing the spheres that they control. They are all dependent on the progress of science and technology… The cultural forces that help politically sustain both the militaristic and the corporate functions of the Deep State, however, are growing more irrational and antiscience.” (Pg. 259-260)

He proposes the following reforms: “1. Eliminate private money from public elections…2. Sensibly redeploy and downsize the military and intelligence… 3. Stay out of the Middle East… 4. Redirect the peace dividend to domestic infrastructure improvement… 5. Start enforcing our antitrust laws again… 6. Reform tax policy… 7. Reform immigration policy… 8. Adopt a single-payer health care system…. 9. Abolish corporations’ personhood status, or else treat them exactly like persons…” (Pg. 269-277)

This book will appeal to people studying our current economic and political problems.

[Kurt Huizenga · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is so shallow and naïve, like watching mainstream news media (of any slant). I couldn't bring myself to finish it. When the author gets such simple things so totally wrong, it erodes the credibility of his foundation on which to build larger arguments, to the point that I had no expectation of his thesis being well founded at all.

For example, he is seemingly writing a book about the dark forces at work that truly control our government behind the curtain, yet he completely parrots the mainstream media talking points about "deregulation and the failure of the free market" as an explanation for the crash of 2008.

He even goes so far as to cite Austrian economists F. A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises as advancing neoliberal orthodoxy that contributed to the housing crash. *Excuse me while I spit coffee all over my kindle screen.* These are the very economists who wrote basically the same "deep state" book the author is writing but about economics. How does an author of a book about the deep state get the economic piece of the puzzle so completely, 100% incorrect? How does he get so wrong to the point of blaming the exact economists, who spent careers being mocked by Keynesians for predicting economic booms and crashes, for contributing to the very type of crash they forecasted?

It is just incredible how wrong he got this. So then I wonder... what else is he getting completely wrong?

This book is a very poorly researched treatment of an incredibly rich topic by an author who has quite a lot of reading to do.

[Roy Murry · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE DEEP STATE
THE FALL OF THE CONSTITUTION
AND THE RISW OF A SHADOW
GOVERNMENT

Mike Lofgren

Reviewed by Author Roy Murry

As a Washington, D.C. Beltway retired insider, Mr. Lofgren gives the reader his interpretation of The Deep State of the United States of America – its government and how it functions. Interwoven within the policy making of the government are factors that have been inherent for over thirty years.

Decisions that control our daily lives and our costly foreign policies are somehow managed by the personnel fixtures within all the leading agencies. CIA, FBI, State Department, Military, et al. Influencing movers and doers of the government, not the elected ones, and long-term legislators manipulate the direction of the USA towards a Globalist agenda.

Mr. Lofgren’s specific scenarios of corroding government institutions that interact with corporate and banking to reach their goals are compelling. His evaluations of these sinister plots are somewhat disturbing even though hard to prove.

The influences (Career officials) throughout the government, according to Mr. Lofgren and somewhat valid, have directed the USA on the wrong path – Not Making America Great Again, but destroying our future as a world leader. In the final chapter, his not so perfect solutions are developed.

I found Mr. Lofgren’s thesis interesting, well developed, and profound. Although, his leaving out International Banking (Ala Rothschild et al.) other controlling individuals like George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/ a little concerning. But you can’t put everything in one book nor open yourself to lawsuits.

The discourse is well worth the read for those who are inclined at understanding how the government may work. Purchase: http://amzn.to/2mfiIGW

[David J Stricklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to put down but also hard to embrace

Lofgren comes off as a typical disgruntled employee writing another tell all book. He happens to have been employed by one of the most hated groups in America—politicians (Republican at that!). As a conservative I still found it difficult to put down as he eventually gets around to everyone, except himself, as being idiots and part of the problem. He identifies with specificity who the deep state is and how they operate which makes the time reading the book well worth it. Of course the author is well above the fray and has excellent 20/20 hind vision outlining what our leaders and advisors should have known every step along the way. He leaves very few to be protagonists in this dark review of his time as a congressional aide. At times his narrative seems psychotic as it rambles event after event with no clear guiding light through all the villainous meanderings through the DC ‘swamp’. Maybe the only theme is that the deep state is bad, really bad and too big for any protagonist (they are all flawed by his account) to slay. One quickly begins to anticipate a genius outline to disentangle the USA from the grips of the bad guys but his final chapter is a disappointing amalgam of political platitudes we’ve all heard before and, more importantly, thwarted successfully by the deep statists in the past. I suspect if somehow Lofgren was elected POTUS he would end up appearing just as incompetent and ineffectual as those on both sides of the aisle he critiques. He doesn’t even think his solutions are likely and can only point to miraculous political changes in the past coupled with tincture of time.

[Daniel Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful, all encompassing discussion of how things have gone wrong in Washington. I had the privilege of receiving an advanced copy from the publisher. The timing of the latest from Mike Lofgren could not be better. Lofgren is a former long serving Republican congressional staffer, having also served with current Presidential candidate John Kasich. Lofgren leaves no stone unturned in explaining the players and the processes that make up the prevailing culture and how it is damaging American's long term stability. He lays blame where it should be, regardless of party or popularity. This is the rare account of a public servant whose interest is in serving the public. It is not just another tell-all book, nor another diatribe on personalities and self-serving. He uses examples and data and a long history of knowing the players and how things get done to offer an eyewitness account of how to fix what is clearly broken. His best service to the reader and the general public is the last chapter where he suggestion solutions. Read this book and see which candidates truly understand how vested interests, lobbyists, and seasoned bureaucrats have made Washington a home where the goal is to get nothing done. Here's a video of Lofgren talking with Bill Moyers back before the book came to fruition: https://youtu.be/EYS647HTgks

[Lisa Powell]

Can't rate it because I chose not to finish it. I guess it might have gotten better.

As much as I love to make fun of the ugly houses of relatively rich people, a deep pile of ostensibly politically moderate but largely left snark about how much better the author is than his neighbors was not really what I was looking for when I picked up a book suggesting it could inform me about NSA involvement in our Fourth Amendment rights.

By the time I had neared page 50 and he'd already compared Washington, D.C. to East Berlin during the Cold War -- twice -- the writer had lost all credibility with me. That's just a version of Godwin's Law, and terribly disrespectful to the survivors of Cold War East Europe.

But the dealbreaker was when he criticized the military in D.C. for walking around in camo, because they didn't need to camouflage themselves in the middle of a bunch of offices. Does he not get that khaki uniforms were colored for desert fighting? Does he criticize British soldiers if they wear red in London (you can guess what a red uniform was designed to hide)? All uniforms are primarily designed for the purpose of battle, and secondarily for wearing off the field, with the exception of dress uniform. Does he want them to wear dress uniform when they are walking around the Pentagon?

Very disappointed. Hoping for insight.