The Deep State

The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government

By: Mike Lofgren

Narrated by: Brian O'Neill

Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling author of The Party Is Over delivers a no-holds-barred, House of Cards-style exposé of who really wields power in Washington.

Mike Lofgren is back with a book perfectly pitched for the frenzied circus of the primaries. His argument this time is that for all of the backstabbing and money grubbing of the campaign season, the politicians we elect have as little ability to shift policy as Communist party apparatchiks. Welcome to Mike Lofgren's Washington, DC - a This Town where the political theater that is endlessly tweeted and blogged about has nothing to do with actual decision making. The real work gets done behind the scenes by invisible bureaucrats working for the vast web of agencies that actually dictate our foreign policy, defense posture, and security decisions.

Have you ever wondered why Obama's policies look so much like Bush's? Seek no further: Hillary versus Jeb is just window dressing. Actual power lies in the Deep State, Washington's shadowy power elite, in the pockets of corporate interests and dependent on the moguls of Silicon Valley, whose data-collecting systems enable the US government to spy on our every move, swipe, and click. Drawing on insider knowledge gleaned in his three decades on the Hill, Lofgren offers a provocative wake-up call to Americans and urges them to fight to reinstate the basic premise of the Constitution.

©2016 Michael Lofgren (P)2016 Recorded Books

Almost good, but profoundly misunderstands economics and very biased towards Democrats

His profound misunderstanding of capitalism drags this book down. He seems to blame deregulation and libertarian ideas for all of our present ills. He will argue that the deep state is too influential and powerful, and therefore we need Congress and the Supreme Court to be more powerful to reign them in. But Congress is already one of the greatest facilitators of the Deep State. He also seems to think that all power Democrats would be good for the country, but all powerful Republicans would destroy us. Isn't the real problem that any government entity is all powerful??

Also, his failure to address the Federal Reserve's role in the rise of the military industrial complex shows a very shallow level of research....

If the problem is an uncontrollable government with ultimate power, making congress the uncontrollable power instead of the executive branch is not the solution.

It's such a shame. Some of the content in this book is valuable and important, but it is hard to trust him in light of his truly paradoxical conclusions.

WASTE OF A CREDIT!

A Loyal Democrat Deep State Alumnus' meanderings on how the Republican Party and its supporters are responsible for the military-industrial complex that is the deep state. FDR, the author of the bureaucratic leviathan is quoted only for warning the American people of the dangers of bureaucracy! Completely absent is any discussion of how Barack Obama Hillary Clinton and the democrat party Have imbedded their political operatives within the agencies that are now attempting to over-throw a democratically elected president! Lofgren reads like a loyal democrat deep stater doing his part to get out in front of the issue and misdirect it back at the Republicans! A real disappointment! Don't waste your credit unless you are a George Soros supporting Leftist in which case you will be thrilled.

Too long in the beltway

I read the book for the comprehensive approach to the cabals and corruption of our freedoms and opportunities. I was very put off by the author's lack of understanding of main Street and working families. We are and have been disgusted by party politics, Democrat and especially the GOP. We are seeing a revolution in America driven from the bottom. We are fighting the entrenched interests and are studying and learning how to take back our country starting with local and state govt s. His rants against conservatives as if we are unwashed and inbred were nothing short of insulting.

Great survey of our currently dysfunction

Lofgen does a great job surveying and tying together the mutually dependent rent extraction machine of our institutions. He tends to overstate the national security angle (his specialty) and understate the health care system which on a daily basis causes us more financial hardship and is a bigger existential threat to our solvency. But overall a very helpful guide to why the most wealthy country is currently managing itself so poorly.

Eye Opening!

What did you love best about The Deep State?

It starts out a little boring but then becomes an eye opening "page turner"!

What did you like best about this story?

The uncovering of the people who pull the strings behind the scene.

Reads just like a Democrat operative from Huff-po

Would you try another book from Mike Lofgren and/or Brian O'Neill?

No. I could hardly complete this one. He had some good points on the Deep State that I appreciate and agree with, in the early part of the book. Then he spent the last half of the book brutally and unfairly attacking the Republican party and conservative ideology. I too, disagree with beltway R/s, but this guy hates every aspect of the party: low tax, military support, social conservative...and he has a special disdain for Tea Party. I would have assumed he might have found something to agree with the latter, since they share a similar disdain for the mainstream R's, and agree with many of his Deep State concepts, but he had nothing but insults for them and their faction of the party.

What do you think your next listen will be?

I think I will leave the opinion pieces and choose something fact-based for my next read.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Narrator was one of the few positives in an otherwise painful read.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I hoped Mr Lofgren would make an attempt to be fair and balanced, but he just couldn't help himself. He clearly made little attempt to blame the deep state issue on anybody but the evil Republicans. Once he ran out of things to discuss on the topic of the book's title, he spent the rest of the book throwing conservatives under the bus. He is obviously a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who for financial reasons spent three decades working for the Republican establishment...now that he has retired he is finally free to evacuate his real feelings.

Any additional comments?

If you would enjoy listening to a Huff-Po writer ramble on for 10+ hours, you might find this book enjoyable.

Not that good

I enjoy political non fiction, geopolitics, and history, but this one didn't do it for me. The thesis that there was a 'deep state' that has wrecked the country was frequently restated but poorly backed up. Something just wasn't compelling. I slogged through it, didn't find it fun or enlightening. Narrator was good though.

Interesting view from the inside

Fascinating insider description of the inertia of a wide array of public policy choices due to the preferences of the actors that make up the deep state in the U.S.

The most important book in years...

This is the most concise, well structured examination of the death of the republic ever written.

Read it. Truly. You must.

Extreme bias masquerade

Critique first, positive last.

Extremely biased book masquerading as fair. Barely acknowledges major failings of one side while attempting to dismantle the other based on purely subjective opinion (with no logic or argument backing up his assertions - doesn't even provide background on how his conclusions were drawn.)

There was real truth in there as well, but the one-sidedness of it made it tough not to tune out. His self-description as a true independent really means a hard core leftist who doesn't like immigration. The book essentially boils down to: "military industrial complex, war hawks, religion, and conservatives = bad; liberal takeover (except for immigration) = good."

There's obviously more to it, but consider that the "TL;DR" version. There was enough insight into some of the inner workings of "beltway land" to provide some value AND the performance/reading were good.