One of the first targets of President Donald Trump’s second administration was that fantastically wasteful, ideologically skewed organ of every wan globalist, the U.S. Agency for International Development. After that, partisans within the State Department were the next target.
This was a mistake, these so-called “democracy-building experts” said. Not because they were busy buttressing democracy and America’s image abroad, but because they’d amassed enough knowledge of how to manipulate world events in a decidedly undemocratic manner that now, without a job in government, they’re free to manipulate the U.S. administrative state in a decidedly undemocratic manner to get back at Donald Trump.
If they wanted to prove that Trump made a moral gaffe by disbanding USAID and cutting down on leftist zealots in the employ of Foggy Bottom, this perhaps could have been thought through better.
To be fair, NOTUS — a non-profit news outlet that focuses on public affairs — couldn’t possibly talk to every official who got the ax thanks to USAID being folded back into the State Department and the State Department itself seeing reductions in force. The ones they talked to for Monday’s piece about the semi-vast left-wing conspiracy, however, certainly made the point that however much you may loathe State Department careerists, it’s not nearly enough.
“For years, these officials were stationed across the globe actively supporting opposition movements in autocratic nations,” Jose Pagliery wrote. “Now they’ve got time, a network of former colleagues and a growing sense of moral indignation.”
And with that time, they’re “now reapplying the skills and knowledge they built up over decades to undermine Trump’s power.”
“Take it from those of us who worked in authoritarian countries: We’ve become one,” one of the anonymous officials said.
Oh, so he’s working to ensure that authoritarianism doesn’t take further hold? Well, see, not quite. He just wants to ensure that whatever unaccountable deep-state authoritarianism is in control is one where he has a position in the politburo.
Do there need to be more firings at the State Department?
“They were so quick to disband AID, the group that supposedly instigates color revolutions,” the official said. “But they’ve done a very foolish thing. You just released a bunch of well-trained individuals into your population. If you kept our offices going and had us play solitaire in the office, it might have been safer to keep your regime.” [Emphasis ours.]
If you put this line in the script for a Scorsese film in which USAID was a front operation for some goodfellas, Marty would reject this protection-racket threat for being too on the nose. Nice duly elected government ya’ got there, Mista Trump. Shame if anythin’ were to … y’know … happen to it.
This somehow gets worse. Apparently, this “informal network” of canned USAID and State Department officials say they’re holding workshops on what they call “noncooperation” with other government employees “willing to engage in even minor acts of rebellion in the office.”
While the hope of these officials is a general strike, like the type that crippled European countries in the 1960s and 1970s, they’d be happy if these guys engaged in a form of disruption described in a CIA pamphlet they’re apparently sharing with those willing to cooperate. The name of the strategy?
“Simple Sabotage.”
“Widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy administrators and police,” the pamphlet read.
“The saboteur may have to reverse his thinking … where he formerly thought of keeping his tools sharp, he should now let them grow dull; surfaces that formerly were lubricated now should be sanded; normally diligent, he should now be lazy and careless.”
Among the organizers is an informal group called “DemocracyAID,” which leads “invite-only workshops with federal employees who hear about them from friends, vetting each person before they’re allowed into a trusted circle and teaching them case studies.” Among the case studies include acts of resistance against Nazi Germany in the occupied countries during World War II. (Yep: We’re back to the Nazis.)
“The whole point of it is to start off slow. People are just taking coffee breaks together. And that’s what we’re encouraging them to do,” said DemocracyAID co-head Ro Tucci, a former director with USAID.
“Getting people to understand that it’s part of a process is the training,” she added. “It feels silly. ‘Why are we going to get ice cream?’ You’re building up that muscle and that bravery, and you’re building up your numbers. Today it starts with four, but tomorrow it’s 10. We’re helping them understand that is the organizing, and that is the process to get to a massive strike.”
And just in case you didn’t think that there was a deep state, this paragraph pretty much encapsulates it: “The people taking part in these groups are already taking precautions: leaning on personal recommendations to vouch for newcomers, leveraging encrypted chats for communication and allowing participants to wear masks and remain anonymous to others who are present.”
All because these unelected bureaucrats lost their lifetime sinecures and can no longer meddle in world politics under the aegis of the State Department, so they’ve decided to subvert the will of the American people.
To a certain extent, this mirrors the whole problem that the media has when we talk about the how appointed bureaucratic satraps determine far too much of American policy and aim to stymie the people if the people don’t vote the way they want:
- There’s no such thing as the “deep state;” it’s just a conspiracy theory. It certainly doesn’t determine foreign policy or foment “color revolutions” in unwilling countries, such as Ukraine and Belarus.
- Actually, there’s kind of a “deep state,” and that’s a good thing.
- Because the Republicans are dismantling the “deep state,” the “deep state” is about to fight back and start a color revolution in our own country.
Aside from that, the lack of alarm is genuinely puzzling. If this is what former Trump staffers had done in the wake of the 2020 election, they’d have been hauled before Congress at the very least, and more than likely hauled before a judge. Here, it barely merits a shrug. Yeah, these people are trying to effectively depose our duly elected leaders — if not officially, then at least by rendering them impotent.
Not that we needed more reason to disband USAID and to attempt to figure out a quick and effective way to get anyone associated with it out of government ASAP, but NOTUS’ report should have convinced at least a few people within the administration that it was high time to expedite the process.
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