The Primaries are under way, and we’re 9 months away from the 2016 Presidential Election. Concerned citizens from every point on the political spectrum will be wearing strange political costumes, chanting odd chants, buttonholing their friends and family, and working their butts off for their candidate. But does it really matter? Mike Lofgren, in his book “The Deep State”, argues that it really doesn’t. Our government is controlled not by unelected powerbrokers and functionaries who care little about who’s sitting at the top. Is he right? You won’t know unless you read his new book…
“Deep State” by Mike Lofgren
(click the book cover to go to the Powells.com site)
Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks.
Welcome to Mike Lofgren’s Washington, D.C.—a This Town, where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making. The real work gets done behind the scenes by invisible bureaucrats working for the vast web of agencies that actually dictate our foreign policy, defense posture, and security decisions. Have you ever wondered why Obama’s policies look so much like Bush’s? Seek no further: Hillary v. Jeb is just window dressing. Actual power lies in the Deep State, Washington’s shadowy power elite, in the pockets of corporate interests and dependent on the moguls of Silicon Valley, whose data-collecting systems enable the U.S. government to spy on our every move, swipe, and click.
Drawing on insider knowledge gleaned in his three decades on the Hill, Lofgren offers a provocative wake-up call to Americans and urges them to fight to reinstate the basic premise of the Constitution.
