Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared on Fox News on Tuesday to discuss the true culprit behind his rocky nomination and scandal-plagued tenure as America’s Pentagon chief.
The problem isn’t his own personal conduct, including an allegation of assault, nor is it his embrace of bigoted policies. The problem is not even his sloppy disclosure of war plans to people outside the military command structure. No, Hegseth knew the culprit: “the deep state.”
The former Fox News host’s invocation of the “deep state” is familiar territory for conservatives over the past few years. President Donald Trump loves talking about the so-called “deep state.” According to the Trump Twitter archiveTrump referenced the “deep state” at least 95 times in social media posts made between November 2017 and October 2024.
Trump told millions that the “deep state” had performed a “coup” against him in stealing the 2020 election, which he lost (fair and square) to Joe Biden. He has also claimed that the “deep state” was behind the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, and that the “deep state” was behind delays at the Food and Drug Administration responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his second presidency, Trump has signed executive orders purportedly curtailing the actions of the “deep state” by firing civil service employees within the federal government.
In addition to being invoked by Hegseth and Trump, the “deep state” boogeyman has been singled out by adherents to the QAnon conspiracy, who believe that the shadowy group is behind outlandish and ghoulish crimes like stealing children—ideas that echo old antisemitic tropes. Trump has welcomed some disgraced QAnon figures, like retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, back into the fold, giving the conspiracy a foothold within the federal government.
The right argues that the deep state is a network of operatives inside the federal government, tweaking and controlling world events for their sinister agenda, which is usually left-wing and/or communist in nature. By design, the right avoids specifics on who precisely the deep state is; it could be people as prominent as former Presidents Joe Biden or Barack Obama, or merely a grocery store clerk doing the bidding of the New World Order.
In reality, it is a catchall phrase for failure.
Recently, the mainstream right has merged with what was previously the fringe right, embodied by figures like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. For decades, Jones and his ilk have preached to their audiences about the “deep state,” which has purportedly coordinated events like the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, earthquakes, the 9/11 attacks, and multiple mass shootings.
Now Republicans bring up the “deep state” when they can’t get the job done. To them, when they lose elections, it isn’t because voters rejected them—no, it’s because the “deep state” manipulated voting machines and stuffed ballot boxes. To them, when Trump mishandles the response to a pandemic, it isn’t his fault for underestimating the virus or attacking safety procedures—no, it’s because of the “deep state.” And to them, when the defense secretary blabs about military maneuvers on an unsecured app, the fact that the public knows about it is the dastardly work of the “deep state.”
Conservatives refuse to take responsibility for their failures. It’s easier for them to blame the “deep state” and rile up the most diehard followers to fight an invisible force supposedly making everything so terrible.
Then the right can coast along without needing to change their behavior. After all, “the deep state” did it.
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