National Leadership Styles And The “Deep State”: Trump And Hillary

There’s been active talk in the alternative media about the leadership differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, with the belief being that the former will fight back against the existing establishment if he wins the Presidency while the latter would continue the neo-conservative agenda of her predecessors. 

This prognosis appears to be accurate, but most people have difficulty in explaining precisely why this would be other than attributing the differences to each individual’s separate leadership style. While that’s certainly a large part of what separates the two candidates, it doesn’t explain the hidden nuances that could play the largest role over whether or not Trump succeeds in his stated vision of transforming the American Establishment. Nor, for that matter, does a single-minded focus on personality traits suffice for explaining how President Putin was able to fundamentally reform the corrupt liberal establishment of his own country, for example. 

Instead, the larger issue that must be explored is the relationship between national leadership styles and the “deep state”, as it’s the pursuit of the interconnection between these two factors that can result in a sufficient answer as to why and how certain leaders decide to change their respective national establishments while others simply go with the flow and become part of the ‘system’. 

Exposing The “Deep State”

The first thing that readers need to understand is that the “deep state” isn’t some sort of secret ‘conspiratorial’ concept, but rather just another way of referring to the run-of-the-mill permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies within a state. Every single country has these, and they’re the underlying ‘behind the scenes’ infrastructure that maintains policy continuity amidst the inevitable periods of democratic leadership transition. 

To put it another way, the reason why many countries typically (operative word, and the conditional of which will be explained soon) retain foreign policy consistency after a new National Leader or party has been voted in after elections is because nothing actually changes inside the decision-making bureaucratic apparatus itself aside from the Secretaries/Ministers of each respective entity. Nearly every single person who was working in the military, intelligence, and diplomatic spheres continues to retain their job regardless of who wins the national election, so it makes sense why a country would continue along its given policy trajectory. 

Sometimes, though, it’s natural for the “deep state” to come up with novel policy changes in adapting to or shaping certain circumstances, and when implemented, such modifications are commonly referred to as “pivots”. All that the “deep state” has to do is get the National Leader to trust in their expertise and agree with the given recommendation, which is usually nothing more than a formality, after which the initiative is signed into policy and promulgated. 

Active And Passive Leaders

Try as the “deep state” might, the final say about whether or not a said policy is continued or enters into force depends on the respective national leader that’s in power, and therein lays the relevancy to personality differences. Broadly speaking, National Leaders can be categorized into being either active or passive, with the first group being subdivided into Active Resistors, Active Formulators, and the Active Visionaries. To get the most easily understandable one of the two out of the way first, passive leaders behave as their label stipulates and don’t interfere with the “deep state’s” activities. While they might have their own vision for the country’s domestic affairs, passive leaders either don’t have an interest in or are too scared to change their government’s existing foreign policies. Sometimes the individual in question might even be a member or a close affiliate of that said establishment, which thus explains why they have no proclivity in changing it. 

On the other hand, active leaders have a vision that they endeavor to fulfill, which is why they either resist the current policies of the “deep state”, work on formulating their own unique ones and constructively modifying those that are in place, or do a combination of both. An Active Resistant Leader might be dead-set against something that their predecessor was doing, and despite the ‘professional pleading’ of the “deep state’s” varied ‘expert’ community, they’re totally committed to getting rid of that specific policy, whether or not they even have one to replace it with and despite whatever warnings the “deep state” says about the ‘danger’ that this action could have for ‘national security’. 

Active Formulators might not necessarily resist an existing policy, or at least not in the sense of totally getting rid of it and “pivoting” (as it’s externally interpreted once it enters into practice), but instead either spearhead an initiative in an area that the “deep state” is already interested in focusing on or modifying, or get involved in a ‘pet project’ or sphere that the “deep state” hasn’t been paying much attention to and/or doesn’t care enough about to resist. When a National Leader embraces active resistance and active formulation, they take on the characteristics of Active Visionaries, which is the best way of describing President Putin and Donald Trump. 

Relevant Examples

To illustrate these four leadership concepts more vividly, it’s appropriate to procure a few examples that demonstrate each point. 

Passive Leadership:

Barack Obama is the perhaps one of the most passive leaders in the world, at least in terms of how it relates to the “deep state” and its international designs. While deceptively offering a campaign full of “hope and change”, Obama actually ended up continuing the policies of his predecessor and carrying them out to their full fruition, especially as it concerns the theater-wide “Arab Spring” Color Revolutions and the initiation of the New Cold War. A perfect example of Obama’s passive personality can be seen in analyzing his unfulfilled inaugural promise to close Guantanamo Bay. 

Even though Obama the presidential candidate wanted to get rid of the prison, Obama the President was ‘briefed’ (‘persuaded’) by the “deep state” about the ‘national security’ implications of doing so. With more of an interest in domestically reengineering the US according to his Cultural Marxist and post-modern ‘progressive’ vision, Obama thought it better to step aside and let the “deep state” run the US’ foreign affairs so that he’d have as free of a hand as he needed in carrying out his at-home objectives. This summarily explains the reasoning behind why Democrat Barack Obama continued and expanded upon the neo-conservative policies of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush. 

Active Resistant Leadership:

President Putin is the perfect example of an Active Resistant Leader, having worked strenuously hard in reshaping Russia’s political establishment as best as he could and returning patriotic forces into positions of national prominence. Truth be told, the patriotic counter-revolution (or “deep state” revolution) didn’t necessarily begin with Putin, since the first visible signs of it can be evidenced when then-Foreign Minister Evgeny Primakov took the reins at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and began reversing the Russian Federation’s erstwhile Western-subservient policies, most dramatically symbolized by turning his plane around over the Atlantic after NATO commenced the bombing of Yugoslavia. 

Primakov and the patriotic “deep state” forces that he represented made it possible for a man like Vladimir Putin to be appointed the acting President by Yeltsin prior to his election, and once in power, the former head of the FSB quickly began ‘cleaning house’ and reorganizing the “deep state”. He came up against near-instantaneous opposition from the pro-American “deep state”, though one of the most public methods that was employed in pushing back against Putin will be described in the next main section. At this moment, the saliency lies in reflecting upon the extensive and unparalleled changes that Putin’s Presidency inflicted on the extant “deep state” elements that he inherited. 

Active Formative Leadership:

Consistent with the concept earlier described, Ronald Reagan’s anti-Soviet “rollback” policy can be understood as a clear model for Formative Leadership. The American “deep state” had already been researching an asymmetrical offensive strategy against the USSR during the détente years, but it’s just that movie-star Reagan happened to win the White House right before they deployed it and opportunistically chose to promote it as his own. It’s very likely that Reagan already entertained some dramatic Hollywood-like fantasies about confronting the Soviet Union, so when he entered the White House and was made aware of the “deep state’s” plans for militantly pushing back against Soviet-aligned governments in “third world” countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, as well as the “second world” and continental European geostrategic state of Poland (via “Solidarity” and the normative alliance with Pope John Paul II), Reagan was thrilled. 

Not only did he happily go along with these policies (which would have made him merely a Passive Leader), but because of his already existing interest in them, he actively took the lead in getting directly involved in decision making and strategy formulation, after which he’d apply his actor skills in explaining the virtue of each given policy before the eyes of the nation. Reagan’s regular interactions with “deep state” representatives, contrary to Obama’s frequent skipping of security briefings and other national security meetings in favor of playing golf and partaking in other pastimes, stands him out as one of the most actively formative Presidents in American history. Pursuant to that, this is the reason why Reagan is usually remembered as a “powerful leader”, and it’s precisely because of the close and public relationship that he maintained with the “deep state” all throughout his Presidency that separated him from his passive predecessor Jimmy Carter and additionally amplified this perception. 

Active Visionary:

President Putin is also the archetypical example of this category because of all that he’s done to remake modern Russia into a sovereign, multipolar leader, but because he’s already been discussed in the research, Turkish strongman Erdogan will be spoken about for diversity’s sake. Erdogan came into power with the radical vision of transforming secular Turkey into an “Islamic Democracy” modelled off of the Muslim Brotherhood template, and in doing so, not only did he have to resist the existing “deep state” forces that were strongly opposed to this, but he also had to take the lead in pushing through his ‘alternative’. Erdogan was fighting against not only the whole of the “deep state”, but also the entire world’s perception of Turkey, and he had enough judgement to realize that if he enacted his “reforms” too quickly, that there’d be such a backlash that he likely wouldn’t be able to hold onto power long enough to see his vision ever enter into practice. 

Therefore, he instead took the gradual path of removing “deep state” resistance to his ideas, implementing military purges as a means of safeguarding his own security and resorting to a form of Islamist demagoguery that electrified the rural electorate in order to hand him resounding ‘democratic’ mandates for what he wanted to do. This hybrid method enabled Erdogan to intermix his active resistance against the “deep state” with his active formation of alternative policies and outlooks, which converged to eventually create the modern-day situation that Turkey has found itself in, which is more akin to an “Islamic Dictatorship” than an “Islamic Democracy”. Perhaps precisely for that reason and because Erdogan has near-full control over the present “deep state” elements within his country, he’s able to carry out dramatic foreign policy pivots without encountering much domestic resistance, with the anti-Russian one of November 2015 and the mildly Russian-pragmatic one of June 2016 being the cases in point. 

“Deep State” Pushback

Attempting to resist or transform the “deep state” usually isn’t an easy task, and the struggle that comes with it is sometimes too much for National Leaders to bear. The existing establishment has three primary ways in which they oppose Active Leaders that defy their dictates. Beginning with the least intense and progressing to the most extreme, they are:

Scandal:

“Deep state” representatives, usually those of the internal security services (“secret police”) like the FBI and external SIGINT ones such as the NSA, can engineer situations that are either directly embarrassing to the National Leader or implicate one or some of his/her close colleagues, thereby sending a discrete message that it’s best for them to step back from whatever it is that they were tinkering with or resisting and opt instead for a more hands-off policy. 

Competition: 

Other times the “deep state” – typically in follow-up coordination with the scandal response – throws their support behind ‘civilian’ candidates to compete with the National Leader. These can be people that seek to do so directly (such as what the plan was for Khodorkovsky to do against Putin) or indirectly, with the second one being exemplified by the “deep state’s” efforts to overturn the ruling party’s parliamentary majority and thereby neutralize the resistant or interfering leader. Direct competition aims for full regime change, while indirect competition strives for its partial implementation. 

Assassination:

The absolute most drastic action that the “deep state” could take in pushing back against Resistant, Formative, and Visionary Leaders is to assassinate them, such as what many suspect the CIA did to Kennedy in 1963. 

Defending Against The “Deep State”

Active Leaders aren’t totally defenseless against the intrigues of the “deep state”, and there are a few strategies that they could employ in resisting the pushback against them and facilitating that they ultimately get what they want:

Inside Support:

Prior to assuming power, the Active Leader should have already cultivated influential networks of public and silent supporters within the most relevant “deep state” institutions who could help them carry out their policies. Whenever a leader appoints a dramatically different head of a given institution than their predecessor had, this is almost always a guaranteed sign that they’re positioning themselves for a radical departure from their forerunner’s legacy and have some sort of active leadership strategy in mind. 

Partial Co-option:

In a very similar manner as to the previous strategy that was just described, an Active Leader can also work on securing the loyalty of an entire institution (and not just some of its more influential supporters) before taking the role of national executive. This usually only happens in Western Democracies after years of policy ‘brainwashing’ (such as how the liberal-progressive Cultural Marxists infiltrated most of the American establishment), but in non-Western states, it can be seen when a military or intelligence leader comes to power, with it safely being assumed that they have the backing of their respective “deep state” constituency. 

Power Struggle:

The last option most commonly available to Active Leaders isn’t the one that they’d prefer to resort to, but nevertheless it needs to be enumerated due to its applicability to the topic at hand. In situations where the “deep state” is predicted to be extra-resistant to the Active Leader and their allies, it’s sometimes inevitable that a violent power struggle between some of the constituent elements will be waged, which at times might even spill out into the street and become a destabilizing scandal. When this does happen, it’s more likely to occur in certain categories of non-Western states with serious preexisting intra-“deep state” rivalries, such as those between the Internal Ministry and other state security services. 

Clinton vs Trump

To return back to the question this inspired this research, it should be plain to the readers that the earlier asserted claim about Hillary being a passive collaborator of the “deep state” and Donald Trump being its ‘worst enemy’ is more than likely true, and from acceptance of this fact, one can draw a lot of tangential inferences. For example, Hillary is deeply entwined with certain elements of the “deep state”, particularly its diplomatic and some of its intelligence services (the State Department and FBI respectively), but she doesn’t have the support of the CIA or the military, both of which have sought to embarrass her with various scandals over the past years. Still, the guiding ideology of the American “deep state” establishment is the same neo-conservatism that’s been silently in power ever since the end of the Cold War, and the only active international participation that Hillary is expected to take during her prospective presidency would be to greatly facilitate its objectives out of her shared personal agreement with them (much like how Ronald Reagan did during his terms in office). 

From the completely other side of things is Donald Trump, who is not in any way tied to the prevailing neo-conservative “deep state” and has actually fended off multiple scandal and competitor attacks against him (the non-stop negative media attacks and the Republican primary). Even though he’s not close to those in power, Trump is very appealing to those who aspire to reach it, particularly the set of “deep state” representatives that could be described as ‘pragmatists’. Not many of them have spoken up throughout the years because of the fear that they have of being professionally purged by their ruling neo-conservative peers, but it can be gathered that they’re a sizeable silent majority that’s ready to partially co-opt relevant influential “deep state” institutions on behalf of Trump in the event that he gets elected President and symbolically appoints ‘their people’ as institutional chiefs. 

The Anti-Trump Color Revolution

Before any of that can happen, however, Trump needs to fend off the Color Revolution plot that Soros and the Democrat-NeoCon “deep state” establishment has unleashed against him and his supporters, which includes violent anti-Trump thugs, “Black Lives Matter” extremists, and now even cop-killing snipers – the interconnected goal of which is to incite an artificially manufactured race war in a last-ditch attempt at scaring the American electorate into blaming Trump for it and consequently flocking towards Hillary. Never mind that it’s actually the forces closest to Hillary-Obama that are to blame for the recent domestic disturbances inside of the US, but the “deep state’s” heavy influence over most mainstream media in the US is being harnessed as an informational weapon in the Color Revolution against Trump, though to the billionaire’s credit, he still commands a large and loyal following and is insanely popular with the law enforcement officers that are duty-bound to put down their life for him if it ever came to it. 

Concluding Thoughts

What initially began as an investigation into the leadership differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton turned out to become a comprehensive research study into the relationship between national leadership styles and the “deep state”. The conclusion that has been reached is that Active Leaders are usually bound to encounter some sort of resistance from establishment “deep state” figures unless they preemptively take action to mitigate as much pushback as possible before assuming power, which as explained, can be done in several ways. In connection to that, the “deep state” can also undermine the National Leader in one of three main ways as a means of ‘sending a message’ that they are ‘not to be messed with’, or in other words, superseding the people’s will by intimidating the country’s most important political figure in order to promote specific non-publicly-disclosed policies. 

Looked at from this perspective, the “deep state” could oftentimes function as a purely anti-democratic entity that advances narrow, vested interests at the expense of those which would help the nation as a whole, although commonly ‘justifying’ itself by alleging that it’s doing so in order to support the ‘national interest’. Bear in mind that the strength of certain “deep states” serves as a bulwark against undemocratic change, such as in countries that are susceptible to Color Revolutions, in that they can powerfully resist the pro-American proxy and prevent them from fundamentally transforming the country into a unipolar servant. From the contrary angle, in states where the National Leader represents the democratic choice of the people, the “deep state” can sometimes be a major obstacle to constructive foreign policy change if it vigorously opposes the National Leader, or in the case of the US, conspiring against the most anti-systemic one before he (Trump) even has a chance at ruling. 

To wrap everything up and conclusively address the question that prompted this study, Hillary Clinton’s relationship with the “deep state” is much closer than the one that Obama currently enjoys. The present ruler prefers not to even engage with this behind-the-scenes decision-making apparatus and almost always forfeits his right to intervene, except in the cases when it’s absolutely necessary and he’s pressed by the most influential “deep state” institution of the moment.  Hillary, though, is expected to actively assist her establishment brethren in formulating new policies in alignment with the neo-conservative incumbent weltanschauung, making her much more dangerously effective on the international scene than disinterested Obama or personally incompetent Bush ever were. Trump, however, is the polar opposite of everything that Hillary represents, especially when it comes to the “deep state”, and he’s feverishly dedicated to dismantling the neo-conservative establishment and replacing it with his allied pragmatist partners.