It is not "the deep state" as imagined by Trump or even by some liberals, but there is still a permanent floating class of elite professionals in DC who truly believe they do, or at least should, run the place. Mark Halperin (burning in hell somewhere, hopefully) used to call it the "gang of 500" and while his version was a bit heavy on the press and comms, the concept was sort of right. And the key thing is that because DC is a nexus of money and even the powerful "gang of 500" liberals are not so liberal, even after 8 years of Clinton, and then 8 years of Obama, this permanent floating class is basically a bunch of conservative Republicans and their centrist buddies and enablers. As long as everyone gets rich, as long as all of our buddies get the good spots, as long as the NoVa McMansion mortgages gets paid, everything is good.
Ignore anyone who claims to think (they're lying) Trump is bad but the Republican party is otherwise great. The lack of a single elected Republican doing anything other than tweeting furrowed brows or kissing up to Jake Tapper is proof enough, though this is otherwise obvious. And besides elected Republicans, consider the "establishment" embrace of Gorsuch and then especially Kavanaugh. The latter clearly fails even the "good guy" test, as an obvious ratfucking liar, despite their bleatings, and he will kill their wives and daughters and mistresses and they don't care.
Boom.
