The New York Times, as part of their long series about Donald Trump's finances have done an excellent analysis of the ways in which he has used the presidency to enrich himself and his friends in Trump's Swamp published Saturday October 10, 2020. This use of the term "swamp" in connection to politics and Washington, D. C. has been around for some time. In this view the swamp is the hoards of lobbyists from industries looking to gain some favor for their company or industry, looking to increase the profits of business.
However, I have come to the conclusion over the past four years that Trump supporters (I started to say people on the right, but I'm not at all sure that's the same thing anymore), have an entirely different definition of the word "corruption" and an extremely different idea of what constitutes "the swamp" than what I or the New York Times or probably most Americans would hold.
The idea of a "swamp" that needs to be drained and the concept of a "deep state" seem to be intertwined by Trump supporters. Trump supporters see the problem being the vast army of highly educated, specially trained, knowledgeable, experienced, mostly politically neutral, bureaucratic professionals that fill the ranks of public service. This entrenched bureaucracy made up of experts has long been a bulwark against radical change (of any kind in any direction). Principles of formal rationality, a mass of laws and regulations, provide inertia against radical change.
Trump supporters see this inertia against change problematic and want it gone. They see something wrong about people having a life long professional career in a government agency, whether they are scientists, data analysts, economists, law enforcement, social workers, postal workers, or anything else. This great pool of talent that actually staffs and makes government work is the "swamp" to Trump supporters. This is what they see as "corrupt," not the manipulation of government decision-making to increase private profit of individuals, businesses or corporations. As long as those individuals, businesses or corporations get some of their money from other non-governmental sources, this seems to be okay with Trump supporters. The manipulation of government decisions for private gain is viewed positively by Trump supporters, this is how they think government is suppose to work. It is the scientists and engineers, the park rangers, accountants, social workers, lawyers and many other public servants that they consider to be inappropriately sucking at the federal teat.
This idea that the principles of formal rationality, a mass of laws and regulations, provide inertia against radical change, has been long enshrined in critical Marxist theory analysis of the state (James O'Connor for example in The Corporation and the State: Essays in the Theory of Capitalism and Imperialism, 1973), with the additional observation that over the past 150 years this bureaucracy has been built, rule by rule, procedure by procedure to protect the long term accumulation of capital by the ownership class and the long term legitimation of the entire state structure (through programs that help mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism), even when it frustrates the short term whims of right or left.
Thus the idea of a "deep state" (although not that term) that is a bulwark against radical change in government is not new, and integral to a Marxist or critical theory approach to the State. Moreover, it has been viewed as problematic because it makes difficult rapid, radical change that would expand rights, increase diversity, reduce inequality, or other issues dear to those on the left. The only thing that is really new now is that this recognition of the deep state and view of it as problematic has been taken up by those on the radical right who wish to drastically reduce rights, decrease diversity, increase inequality, etc.
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