Maybe you think that if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency then Americans would be less paranoid. After all, they would not have a president transforming a national political party into a collection of fevered conspiracy theorists, rambling on about the “deep state” whenever the White House encounters a particularly rocky news cycle. Right? Well, maybe not.
A Monmouth University poll released on Monday revealed that nearly three-quarters of Americans believe that the so-called “deep state”—a nefarious cabal made up of unelected bureaucrats—either “definitely” or “probably” exists and might be calling the shots in Washington D.C. It’s not hard to see why 72 percent of Republicans believe in a “deep state,” but you might be initially a little confused as to why 72 percent of Democrats do, too. The mystery is solved, however, when you recall that it was not Trump but Clinton’s supporters who initially alleged that the FBI was tainted with political bias.
Moreover, this was a narrative that was buttressed by a significant amount of reporting around the notion that this federal law-enforcement agency was in the tank for Trump. Because most of the Bureau “is white, male, and middle-aged, often with a military background,” as Politico’s Josh Gerstein noted, this agency was demographically predestined to want to Make America Great Again. The FBI was “Trumpland,” The Guardian explained; Clinton is viewed as the “antichrist,” and that has led to a culture at the Bureau that encourages illicit behavior so long as it is designed to derail her campaign.
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