Trump Reportedly Resisted Using the Term ‘Deep State’ Because He Thought it Made Him Sound Crazy
No one tell Lou Dobbs…
According to a new report from the New York Times, President Donald Trump initially resisted using the term “deep state,” fearing it would make him sound crazy.
The term, which refers to an alleged cabal of nefarious actors wielding the U.S. intelligence apparatus to sabotage Trump and his administration, is a popular rallying cry amongst the president’s media defenders.
But according to two former Trump aides who spoke to the Times, the term was once considered too kooky even by the president himself, a famed conspiracy theorist:
Former aides to the president, speaking privately because they did not want to embarrass him, said paranoia predisposed him to believe in nefarious, hidden forces driving events. But they also said political opportunism informed his promotion of conspiracy theories. For instance, two former aides said Mr. Trump had resisted using the term “deep state” for months, partly because he believed it made him look too much like a crank.
“But Mr. Trump saw that it played well in the conservative news media,” per the Times, “and so in November, he began using it, the two aides said.”
The Times report, the latest from Maggie Haberman and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, details how conspiracy theories on the fringes of right wing media end up on the president’s desk and are in turn amplified by his Twitter account and favorable media.
His latest conspiracy, per the Times:
Last week, President Trump promoted new, unconfirmed accusations to suit his political narrative: that a “criminal deep state” element within Mr. Obama’s government planted a spy deep inside his presidential campaign to help his rival, Hillary Clinton, win — a scheme he branded “Spygate.” It was the latest indication that a president who has for decades trafficked in conspiracy theories has brought them from the fringes of public discourse to the Oval Office.
Those efforts might just be paying off as well. As the Times noted, multiple polls “have shown a dip in public approval of the special counsel investigation over the past several months, as the president has repeatedly attacked it. And a Monmouth Poll released in March found that a bipartisan majority believes an unelected ‘deep state’ is manipulating national policy.”
Read the full report here.
[image via screengrab]
—
