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Comment by erentz | Hacker News Reader

I'm having trouble parsing the narrative of the article. It's frankly bizarre. It seems to be implying very heavily that this leaking of the administrations actions is bad for democracy. And that the administration is right in attempting to consolidate more power away from agencies as a response. If the administration doesn't like its laundry being aired in public perhaps it should behave better. The worst part is it's attempt to somehow make a comparison to Turkey here. Erdogan is a dictator that has seized control of Turkey. His purging of the "deep state" was not a good thing. And it is an offensive stretch to suggest the 110,000 teachers, police, judges and other civil servants caught in that purge constitute some kind of evil "deep state".

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There isn't a narrative it's an attempt to derail a narrative the people in charge of NYT don't like. Trump supporters are pushing the narrative of "Trump VS the Deep State!". So people will google "Deep State" and NYT is using it's cred with liberals to try and shape their opinion.

See: https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=Deep%20State

The same thing happened in WaPo and NYT with HRCs e-mail server. At some point the story is out there, your supporters are going to google it. You need to get a source they trust to report on it otherwise they'll end up somewher you don't control. So you report it and sail just as close as you can to "nothing to see here nothing to worry about!".

What does this article actually do:

Right away appeal to authority and answer the question "Does the US have a Deep State?": "Not quite, experts say..." Phew! For a minute there I was worried but some random expert on Egypt got interviewed by the NYT and can say with clarity there is no shadowy cabal of three letter agency people pulling the strings! Lucky he could tell so easily really.

The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.

> The rest of the article is trying to drift away from the idea of a secret cabal and instead push the idea that a "Deep State" is nothing more than the standard civil service in tension with their elected leaders. Yea sure.

It's so ridiculous it's not even funny anymore. Somehow people are justifying unnamed, unelected officials bringing down a government because they don't like who won the election.

It's incredibly scary that some of the same people who would have defended snowden for his revelations on the deep state are now praying for the same deep state to enact a Coup d'état.

It's amazing to me how 6 months ago, reddit (just as one example) saw problems, problems everywhere in the world, whereas their current recollection of that very same period in time seems to be something resembling nirvana.

It used to be that if one's favoured candidate didn't get elected, people would wish the winning candidate the best and rally behind them. At this point a lot of the public has become so invested in having their worldview validated that they are wishing for something bad to happen out of sheer lust for vindication. The other day I saw a website called hillarybeattrump.org where people have created a pretend universe where Hillary won the election and have written full fledged fan fiction about it. Just seems a little over the top.

I think there might be something deeper going on than just "having their worldview validated" or "lust for vindication". It's also that the destructive and party-focused style of politics championed by Newt Gingrich has become deeply sown and has shaped how Congress functions. It used to be that if one's favored candidate didn't get elected, you'd still trust that the country's political leadership would take seriously their responsibility to govern and to do so in the best interests of everyone. Now it seems that the political leadership is most serious about party loyalty and appeasing the radical side of their base.

> championed by Newt Gingrich

Wait, how does he come into this, exactly?

What's happening now has roots in his strategy in Congress in the 90s.

Don't assume that just because an article criticizes one side it supports the other. It's very possible for the deep-state leaks to be bad AND for the consolidation of power by Trump's administration to be bad. The two feed into each other, and both sides are wrong. That was actually my read on the article - I got the impression that it didn't support either the deep state nor the Trump administration, but rather was labeling a dynamic that is toxic and could potentially lead to the destruction of American democracy.

I thought the comparisons to Erdogan were of a similar vein; I didn't see the article as supporting Erdogan, but rather saying that Erdogan consolidates power -> opposition forces stage a coup -> Erdogan purges opposition -> the real loser is Turkey.

The notion of the 'deep state' is that of a controlling body within the government which controls the actions of the nominally 'representative' part of the government. So a collection of people who "actually" set policy vs the the President. And their means of control is generally to create a narrative that supports their chosen course of action, whether or not the elected official agrees with it.

And in general I think it is unlikely, although prior to this election many people, especially young people, asserted that "voting was worthless since they had already decided who was going to win." That would be in keeping with a "Deep State" sort of situation.

Every country already has a well established "deep state" constituted by the rich 0.1%. Wealth determines what is allowed in a state, with small variations that have to do with the particular party in power. In the USA both Democrats and Republicans represent the elite, with the Democrats having additional progressive support and republicans with conservative support.

Imagine hypothetically that the rich 0.1% were NOT the "deep state". What policies would be different?

Unless you assume those people were purely altruistic, what would stop them from becoming the rich 0.1%?

Taxation.

War.

Even better: imagine the government forced the sale of all assets. Then imagine the government distributes the proceeds to all citizens in equal measure.

What's the probability that after a few years the 0.1% will be in the 0.1% again? I suspect it's pretty high.

That is powerful analysis tool right there. I tend to suspect that the policies would not be much different than they are. The top 20% of earners still pay 84% of the income taxes[1]. Lyndon Johnson felt the "military industrial complex" was a sort of deep state. However I would distinguish between the notion of a deep state which is making foreign policy vs corruption which is simply enriching a few special interests.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...

The comparison to Turkey is indeed quite odd. What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"; to the contrary, Erdoğan has completed a very successful coup d'état.

To be fair, Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely). We absolutely agree that the result was the same as an outright coup.

Erdogan's was something of a "countercoup" (assuming, of course, that he didn't somehow prompt the initial attempt himself; which is possible, but unlikely).

Sure. But I'm a bit skeptical of the "initial coup", given that analysts at the time were saying things like "this is the most pathetically incompetent coup attempt I've ever seen"; I avoid using the word "countercoup" since it implies the conclusion that there was in fact a real coup attempt to which Erdoğan responded.

"American media" consists mostly of the copying and pasting of press releases (sometimes called "anonymous leaks"), and Erdoğan is the only one left to release those. They won't have another narrative until someone in the "Deep State" decides he's next on the chopping block... probably shortly after Russia bribes him into blocking fossil fuel pipelines from Saudi to Europe.

> What's even stranger is that American media persist in referring to a "failed coup attempt"

The same media who is interpreting the term "fake news" being used against them means trump wants to destroy every single one of them and just have state run media.

I know his twitter is popular but jeez, calm down a bit.

The leaks would be better if they came with full transcripts, instead of some vague handwringing about malfeasance.

Right. The Flynn leak is unfortunately just a rumor, and some partisans are trying to amplify it while others are trying to diminish it.

Since a full transcript/recording obviously exists, the leaker seemingly felt that his/her political aims would not be strengthened if he/she released the actual source material.

There are many less sinister explanations, and one should generally go for them before resorting to conspiracies:

– The leaker had listened to discussions, but did not see/have the actual transcripts

– Leaking documents carries much stiffer penalties

– Leaking documents feels worse than talking about them in general terms

– Copies are strictly limited and can only be seen in a guarded document room

- Documents may contain hidden markers to identify leakers

...

If the journalists reporting this aren't even seeing snippets of the conversations that's even worse. Intel agencies for decades have been known to manipulate the press.

Right. If there is a deep Russian conspiracy to undermine government and Trump and many on his team are compromised, surely a leaker would feel confident that he/she would be vindicated for having helped inform the public about it (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).

> (especially due to the strongly partisan support for anything that would harm Trump's presidency).

If they had the evidence that trump was "being blackmailed by putin" or actively working with Russia to undermine the DNC, how would his presidency survive impeachment?

Snowden did what he did knowing he wasn't going to topple Obama, if you had such explosive information that would protect the republic it just seems a bit much that they would only just relay bits and pieces of information via verbal communication.

Exactly. Cherry-picking what portion to leak can, intentionally or not, result in a narrative orthogonal to the truth.

Indeed; Julian Assange recently demonstrated this, to great effect.

Yep.

I support the leaks. I think that leaking is often a principled action and that far from being a sign of compromised institutions, it arguably is an institution -- the ultimate institution is individual judgment of conscience about things that are in the public interest, including relevant knowledge about the actions of those in office.

But I think detail and documentation serves the conversation better.

Mitigating factor -- sometimes detail gives away the source. It's not a perfect world.

I think the fear here is, that conflict between them will lead to a paralysis of state, that could be abused by outside actors.

Or it might strengthen deep state too much, making them true unelectable power.

Or it might be used as excuse to purge and reorganize deep state, as Trump sees fit.

It is hard to know if the leaks are honest attempts to reveal bad governance practices, or if they are politically selected to achieve partisan motives.

It only matters what the motivations of the leaker were when the leak is a rumor. If the leak is an actual source document (or recording, etc.), it can stand on its own.

Unfortunately, the leaker of the information about Flynn simply started a rumor and did not substantiate it with any concrete data that would allow the public to formulate an opinion based on his actual conversation.

A sourced leak doesn't always stand on his own. A recording / email taken out of context can paint the target in a bad light. If someone with bad intentions and access to my emails and phone conversations would selectively release excerpts for the world to see, he could certainly ruin my life.

I disagree: even with purely factual information, neither lie nor rumour, it is possible to create a biased impression by leaving out related information.

Purely as an example, "The current US President ordered his troops to fire on American citizens" may sound outrageous, but make sense when enarged to "American citizens who have joined the Army, as part of a live-fire excercise in Texas". (I'm not familiar with how live fire excersises work, this may be a bad example, but I think it still illustrates the point even as a straw man — the point is only that withheld information can radically change the ethics of even true statements).

A leak of a fact can lie by exclusion and put people in a position where they can only refute it by revealing secret information.

Exactly the point many times. The media raises questions to be answered by our leaders.

In addition to the points made by others, even when a leak is completely true, it can still be misleading.

Huge organizations are complicated. If you rank everything they do by how bad it looks, exclude from it everything that reflects poorly on someone other than your target and then release only the worst 99th percentile of what's left, you're basically lying even if you're technically telling the truth. The sample is intentionally biased and unrepresentative.

Because people make decisions relativistically. If you only hear about the flaws of one side, it makes that side appear to be the worse side regardless of whether or not they actually are.

This is true, my comment was a bit hastily written. The general point I was trying to make is that compared to zero source material, leaks that are accompanied by source material are less vulnerable to fabricated embellishments, though they are still vulnerable to misleading context.

> In addition to the points made by others, even when a leak is completely true, it can still be misleading.

That really hit me recently the whole comment about "The leaks are true but the news is fake" from trump.

I Immediately understood what he meant, that while the information may be true it's not the full picture and it can also be skewed by editorializing.

The fact that some in the media were outright saying "I don't know what he means by that, that makes 0 sense" is incredibly worrying that journalists can't see this.

I suspect the media understand it as well, they're not that dumb.

And, in fact, this is what the media does with everything. How bad is crime in America? Not as bad as the evening news leads to to believe. How much of the world is at peace? Way more than the evening news makes you think.

This is something that has amazed me since I was a child, I remember my grandmother warning me of risks that she saw on the evening news (tourists kidnapped in Mexico) while continuing to participate in far more risky behavior like smoking cigarettes in bed and frequently falling asleep while cooking for example. Same goes for concern over children being abused by strangers when it is far more likely to be an individual the parents and child trust. In either case, I'm not stating that the other is unimportant, but the perceived risk is completely incongruent with the facts.

I'm pretty sure that was the media's condensation of his statements, I don't believe he worded it that way at all. And I think the point is that much of what he calls fake news isn't at all, some disagreeable, highly partisan or otherwise biased, but also some completely accurate and correct.

'...some kind of evil "deep state".'

Morals have nothing to do with it. It's about process and efficiency - and how the established de facto protocol of daily governing affects these. This is about what becomes the established conduct. The functioning of large organizations are based on two parts - the official rules, and the actual culture of operarion. The latter dictates how the establishment actually functions.

Which again, would be a valid point, if the first shot wasn't clearly and obviously fired from the White House which engaged in an unprecedented purge of all executive positions, without even having nominees ready to fill most of them (70+ last I checked?) and which has been obviously filling the ones they can with political lackeys who are demonstrably grossly underqualified.

I don't disagree with you - but deep state is still an antipattern. Another political pathology - a recless executive branch - does not make it any better.

"Deep state" on the libertarian-leaning left is "federal bureaucracy" on the Rush Limbaugh right.

Libertarian-leaning left?

typically civil libertarians

Do you believe that the administration is doing so much worse of a job than the previous ones? I suspect it has more to do with 20 years of backdoor deals suddenly meaning diddly because they couldn't predict the outcome this time.

20 years of predictable status-quo presidency will set up some deep ties, which should be obviously unhealthy for a nation that believes they elected a leader and not a rent-a-puppy. Having agencies which are actively sabotaging the majority elected party is obviously antidemocratic. The agencies ultimately carry out the work of the government, so if elected representatives don't hold authority over the agencies, you get an autocracy.

The president in the US has always been a position that is opposed by bureaucracy, not able to simply dictate their will on non-partisan agencies.

I think that's a good thing: they can lead and influence the course of the nation on behalf of the people, but can't whip it around and effectively wield it outside of those agencies' mandates -- which are themselves controlled by elected representatives (the Congress).

What Trump is discovering is that his job is to manage agencies who are created by the Congress and ultimately must live up to the mandate imposed by the Congress, and their oaths to defend the Constitution against domestic enemies, such as would-be dictators (eg Trump).

The oath that officers take mandates that they oppose Trump, and his undermining of the separate branches of government (and separation of powers), role of media, etc.

The system is working, and we should appreciate the dedication of the people making it work -- by checking the president's autonomous power.

Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen.

>Maybe Trump's supporters wanted a dictator, but they shouldn't be surprised that people who love America and spend their lives serving it won't simply roll over and let that happen.

Treason is the alternative?

It's not treason to follow your oath of office, to defend the Constitution, nor is it treason to follow the mandate the Congress created for your agency.

It is treason to, as president, violate your oath of office to follow and protect the Constitution.

Has the president done something unconstitutional, or do you just want him to?

In order of seriousness:

He seems to have colluded with a foreign state to undermine the integrity of our elections and political process. He likely made financial arrangements as part of that process.

He has attacked the independence and authority of the judicial branch, which enforces constitutional restraint on our president.

He has attacked the media, which (while not a government agency) forms a basis for democratic society.

Together, these are a systemic assault on the American system, which while not ideal, is not better served by a despot.

It should be clear something is amiss when renowned senators like John McCain are pointing out Trump is acting the way despots do.

Other than first one, for which there is no evidence, non of those things are against the constitution.

There seems to be a bit of a double-standard here. It's true that by a strict reading of the constitution, it is not unconstitutional for the president to "attack" the independence and authority of the judicial branch, only to deny them the powers enumerated in the Constitution. And similarly, it's not unconstitutional to "attack" the media, only for Congress to pass a law abridging their freedom to publish.

But by the same strict reading of the Constitution, it is also not treason for intelligence officers to leak information to the press. Treason is narrowly defined within the Constitution as "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

If seeking to discredit the media or control its access to information is just all in the game, then seeking to deliver that information to media is also just all in the game.

I think much of the article's point was that there are established norms & institutions by which the President usually interacts with the rest of the government. If the President ignores them, then it's highly likely that other power centers will also say "Well, if they're going to come after me with all the resources available to them, I'm going to go after them with all the resources available to me." And the end result of that is often multiple competing power centers in open warfare with each other, much like what happened in Syria. That would be bad for everyone in America (and a good many people outside of it), and so we should be wary of all parties that seek to ignore the norms of peaceful democratic society.

Obama also attacked the Supreme Court.

Hell, FDR tried to pack it!

I saw one senator use the phrase "Inconsistent with the values enshrined in our Constitution". I think they're intentionally making it easy for others to misuse the word "unconstitutional" after hearing that. "Constitution" is an uncommon word, and someone not carefully listening may conflate it with things that are actually unconstitutional, especially when people use the word "dictator" and "fascist" in a similar context.

I'd kind of like to keep the legal meaning of "unconstitutional"(an action that would be ruled against by the Supreme Court), because the alternative is for me to say things like, "It's okay for the President to do an unconstitutional act", which the fuzzier meaning allows.

There's a reason I've been saying "defend the Constitution" rather than calling specific actions unconstitutional.

That reason is pretty simple: populist dictators need to be stopped early, if we're to minimize the harm. (That is, if we're going to resolve the issue politically, rather than through other means.)

Many dictators (and early in history, emporers) who take over from democratic societies do so "legally". They enact measures to remove the various aspects of government they dislike or which check their power after destroying the judiciary and seizing control of the media.

Defending the American system against a dictator -- and America becoming a dictatorship could happen -- requires winning the hearts and minds of the public, and getting them to engage with the system to show their support.

Without the public -- who make up the military, civil servants, etc -- judges are people in silly robes, the Congress is a bunch of old people in a building, the president is just some guy, and the Constitution is just a piece of paper.

Trump's actions are those of a nascent dictator, the people arguing with me are rules lawyering rather than talking about the substantive issues, and neither should be surprised that people stand up to their nonsense.

I know which side of history I want to be on -- the side with people like John McCain speaking out how this, what's happening now, isn't okay, and not the side who has to quibble about technicalities rather than the substance of the issue.

That also requires proposing an alternate vision for the country that is more compelling than the dictator's, though.

See eg. George Lakoff's comments on framing [1]. If you set yourself up as "opposing Trump", you actually reinforce Trump as the leader of America. You need to propose an alternative frame about what America should look like instead, one that is more compelling than "Make America Great Again", and then let people judge for themselves that the facts of Trump's policy do not fit in with a great America.

[1] https://georgelakoff.com/blog/

I agree, in general, and generally am not a fan of how Democrats are conducting themselves -- they've failed to articulate their vision in a compelling manner, in the language a large portion of the voter-base speaks. (This is mostly what I work on changing in person. That, and they've adopted some bad policy positions.)

This thread is a little different than the general case though, because we're specifically talking about the appropriateness of various agencies talking about brewing scandals and/or internally resisting orders.

For that case, it's perfectly appropriate to point out that the person we're discussing is a nascent dictator and likely Russian collaborator, because it explains why I'm more aggressive on the issue than, say, with Bush.

I appreciate the link, will be doing some reading this afternoon. :)

Whether the deep state is doing something unconstitutional is utterly irrelevant. BTW: these are the same groups that overthrow governments abroad, and seem tempted to do it here.

The original argument was whether the deep state was defending the Constitution, which relies on a) whether Trump did anything unconstitutional, and b) whether the deep state is specifically opposed to Trump on those issues, as opposed to pushing their own (war?) agenda under that cover.

The deep state is not protecting the constitution, but seems to be trying to a) weaken Trump by any means possible and b) push for aggression in Ukraine and escalation against Russia. You'll notice that Trump's position on Crimea and Russia shifted just a few days ago, after the whole deep state debacle.

The rest of your comment is covered under game theory. Trump being friendly to the deep state would have been stupid of him, for reasons that are obvious now.

>But by the same strict reading of the Constitution, it is also not treason for intelligence officers to leak information to the press.

It's not treasonous, but in most cases it is illegal. They are committing crimes and they should be punished for doing so.

I'm no Trump fan, but for impeachment you need evidence of laws being broken. Of the things you listed only the first could conceivably lead to that.

Demand an independent investigation first.

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.

> Treason is the alternative?

Correct. It is the rational and moral choice. Just as you must defy the orders of your superior officer if ordered to commit war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Convention, so must you defy the President to preserve the aims of liberty and equality expressed in the US Constitution.

Sure, but that's not the situation we're dealing with. No war crimes are being ordered, in fact, it doesn't seem anything is being ordered at all. They're just betraying their superiours for ??? private reason. Whose liberty are they defending?

Intelligence agencies attacking a democratically elected head of state is no defense of liberty. You're attributing noble motives to people just because they're doing what you want them to do.

It all depends on what said democratically elected head of state is trying to do, and what they're trying to prevent him from doing. Being democratically elected does not give an automatic grant of immunity to legal and, more importantly, moral limits on one's actions.

And you're correct that we don't know the motives of those people. Just as OP doesn't know that they aren't noble, you also don't know that they aren't.

Good grief dude, turn off the TV for a couple of days. The Trump has been president for like a month, and literally nothing has happened. Unless you have a burning desire for war in Syria and Russia, why would you strain to find noble intentions in intelligence agencies, of all places?

Literally nothing has happened?

* Within the first week of his Presidency, a de facto Chinese government press organ threatened military action against the USA.

* Legal US residents were detained and turned back at US borders, as a result of an executive order of questionable constitutionality.

* Trump has challenged the legitimacy of US courts and judges, and threatened to remove them from power.

* Trump has declared all the country's major news agencies as enemies of the people. Maybe you have trouble understanding just how serious an accusation that is.

* Having been threatened with a 20% import tax and after the scrapping of the TPP, Mexico as one of the US' major trade partners is scrambling to improve its trade relations with China and other countries that are not the US.

* Trump has fired one of his advisors over allegations of treason he called fake. Whatever the truth is, Trump put himself in the wrong in this matter.

That's an astonishing set of mis-achievements for just a month in office.

Within the first week of his Presidency, a de facto Chinese government press organ threatened military action against the USA.

Bluffers gonna bluff. What're they gonna do, invade Taiwan over a phone call? Maybe start a nuclear war? Trump's complete non-reaction to these goofy empty threats was one of the few unambiguously correct foreign policy moves he's made so far. Call back when you have a real navy.

Legal US residents were detained and turned back at US borders, as a result of an executive order of questionable constitutionality.

Presidents have been trampling on our rights for decades at least. Obama was particularly fond of extrajudicial assassination by drone, and it appears Trump completely agrees, but I haven't seen any protests about that. Happily, this overreach was overruled in a matter of days.

Trump has challenged the legitimacy of US courts and judges, and threatened to remove them from power.

Like FDR did, right? Except he actually did more than, you know, threaten...

Trump has declared all the country's major news agencies as enemies of the people. Maybe you have trouble understanding just how serious an accusation that is.

Is that a direct quote? I do have that trouble, along with anyone else who has observed these "major news agencies" for more than a minute. They only care about eyeballs, and they will say anything to attract those eyeballs. Criticizing them is not an attack on the First Amendment, but rather an exercise of it.

Having been threatened with a 20% import tax and after the scrapping of the TPP, Mexico as one of the US' major trade partners is scrambling to improve its trade relations with China and other countries that are not the US.

Elections have consequences, but those consequences have yet to occur. Threats and scrambles have no short-term effects. In the long term, they might cause some supply chain modifications, but we ain't there yet.

Trump has fired one of his advisors over allegations of treason he called fake. Whatever the truth is, Trump put himself in the wrong in this matter.

Hiring-and-immediately-firing could be a definition of "nothing happening".

I'm not a fan of CIA et al in the slightest, but I would consider US involvement a major war anywhere to be far less likely with them running the show, compared to the likes of Bannon and Flynn. So from that perspective, the former is still preferable.

This perspective is so contrary to history, that I'll just reiterate my encouragement to watch less TV and read more books.

Funny thing is, I don't watch TV - at all. And the single most used app on my phone is Kindle.

So, in the same spirit in which your suggestions were given, I would suggest that you stop playing psychologist on the Internet. You're clearly not good at it.

Hi, I'm British. The USA literally only exists because the founding fathers committed treason against my ancestors.

That was because they were being taxed without representation. The problem here is that agencies of the government are undermining the representatives. It's almost the opposite action.

Treason against tyranny looks like it turns out for the better; but treason against democracy seems pretty sick to me.

One could argue that it's not really a democracy when the winning candidate is 2.8 million votes short, you know. Yes, I know, rules are rules - but if rules admit the validity of such an outcome, how much of a democracy is it, really?

One could also remember that many famous tyrants came to power through a fair democratic process. Erdogan is one such example, Putin is another. And, of course, there was that whole thing in Weimar Germany. Which just goes to show that democracy can sometimes be oppressive, and fighting that oppression amounts to "treason against democracy".

> Yes, I know, rules are rules - but if rules admit the validity of such an outcome, how much of a democracy is it, really?

It isn't a democracy, it's a republic.

If the rules were different things would be different. But "different" doesn't necessarily mean the Democrats would have the presidency, it might only mean the Republicans would have spent more time campaigning in Texas and New York because picking up more votes in those states would then have actually mattered.

> It isn't a democracy, it's a republic.

You'll have to take that up with OP - he's the one asserting that it's "treason against democracy".

And if it's "treason against the republic" instead, what then?

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't actually matter. There are plenty of republics that have done grave wrongs to their citizens, and such citizens are entitled to rebellion to restore their rights. The state, regardless of its political system, will always make pushing back against itself illegal, but it doesn't automatically make it illegitimate.

Oh yeah the spooks in CIA would have been on the front lines of opposition to Hitler... pull the other one.

Also it's only in the impoverished political climate of USA that one would ever worry about a "majority" for ruler. Most nations have more than 1.5 political parties, so they have lots of elections in which no one gets a majority. Sure some of them have runoffs, but with or without those it's possible for a set of electoral rules to handle the less-than-absolute-majority case perfectly well.

> 2.8 million votes short

why does this bother you, but corporate campaign contributions dont ? I voted for Trump because he doesn't need the money, so he can't be bought and paid for. The fact that corporations can influence elections with money is a much greater problem than the electoral system.

I agree that the outsized influence of the rich and powerful completely distorts our democracy, but I honestly can't believe this is even being presented as a credible argument still.

Most rich people don't need the money, their own motivations drive them toward greater riches. I can hardly imagine someone claiming good moral character and ethics of someone with his questionable at best business and personal history.

You honestly believe big money didn't help him get elected? I supposed he just ended up with a cabinet of mega donors and billionaires?

Just because he doesn't need the money, doesn't mean that he doesn't want more money.

By all accounts, he's already cashing in on his role as a president big time. The payments to his properties from the government in order to arrange for his security as he travels around already number in the millions. And that's one of the most minor financial conflicts of interest that he is involved in.

And where did I say that it bothers me? I merely pointed out that it's not a democracy if the vote of the majority is disregarded.

Some would call it civil disobedience or demanding the standards they've come to expect.

Defense of the Constitution is the alternative. That's not treason.

When people are sworn into office, their oath is to the Constitution, not to the President.

>The system is working, and we should appreciate the dedication of the people making it work -- by checking the president's autonomous power.

No, the system was absolutely not designed for departments under the president's control to leak information and participate in insubordination. The checks and balances are between the 3 branches of government, not within a single branch.

It's akin to military personnel not liking a decision their general made and leaking the plan to force it to change.

One of the quiet principles of leadership they apply in the military is: only give an order if your men will follow it. The reality is that leaders only really have power due to their followers. A few dissenters you can deal with, but if most of your followers are deeply opposed to your orders, then the limitations of your power will be exposed.

The intelligence agencies are not under "the presidents control". They are authorized and funded by congress. They exist to provide intelligence to various congressional committees like the senate intelligence committee.

All of the government is funded by congress. But that doesn't change the fact that the defense agencies, the civil service, the intelligence agencies, etc. are all executive branch departments and are under the control of the president.

The way the government and civil service are supposed to work is that the country expresses its wishes via elections and the representatives elected set the policy and create laws. The civil service's purposes is to enact those policies and laws. What they don't get to do is set their own policy or create their own laws (yes, they do get to create some regulations but only within the scope outlined by congress.)

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