Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Originally at https://notes.shaunagm.net/post/170589570492/an-ephemeral-blog
“The antisemites’ belief that their claim to exclusive rule was no more than what the Jews had in fact achieved, gave them the advantage of a domestic program, and conditions were such that one had to enter the arena of social struggle in order to win political power. They could pretend to fight the Jews exactly as the workers were fighting the bourgeoisie. Their advantage was that by attacking the Jews, who were believed to be the secret power behind governments, they could openly attack the state itself, whereas the imperialist groups, with their mild and secondary antipathy against Jews, never found the connection with the important social struggles of the times.”
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Why GOP/neo-Nazi attacks on the “deep state” make me very nervous.
Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who’s nervous. From an editorial by a former CIA agent:
Nor do the CIA or the FBI as institutions have political agendas. The idea of the “Deep State” opposing elected leaders and the rule of law is—I will be blunt here—a fascist concept, which is intended to discredit the institutions of democracy. It is done, precisely, so that a “Leader” can represent the “people” without the encumbrance of law or representative institutions.
This is a messy and dangerous subject, because the CIA and FBI absolutely have had political agendas in the past. Oversight and critique of their activity is vital. But that’s not what’s happening here.