Jun 21, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min · 12 segments
Thanks once again to Flemming Blicher for reaching out after having read my book, *Wall Street, the Nazis, and the Crimes of the Deep State* (2024). Because there is so much to cover in the book, we…
Um, I mean, the term deep state, it's not without precedent actually in academia.
Um, the most famous example is probably Peter Dale Scott's book, uh, titled The American Deep State: Uh, Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for US Democracy.
So he was a well-respected, uh, professor in the, in the United States, and he was writing about the deep states, um, as early as the 1990s actually.
Um, Aaron Good, in 2022, he published a book called American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, uh, influenced by Scott's work.
Um, and more recently, uh, a book has appeared, an academic book by Charles Derber and Yale Magrass called Who Owns Democracy: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America.
There are some examples from academia here, uh, of books with deep state, uh, in the title, and the term deep state itself shouldn't actually be that controversial.
Um, it originates in Kemalist Turkey in, in the 1920s, and that's well known.
Um, and I would say that the deep state is a very useful, in fact, essential category for making sense of how power operates in the world today.
I think it's a necessary concept, and if we don't, then we remain stuck in really quite outdated paradigms.
So for example, I used to teach international relations theory, and the two dominant theories of international relations are realism and liberalism, and they're both state-centric paradigms, but neither of them is equipped to come to terms with this idea of a deep state, an overarching transnational power structure, which is in fact influencing all states.
Um, and so if you're working within traditional paradigms, you're not gonna be able to see what is going on, um, in the world today.
So I think the reason that it might seem surprising to you that the term deep state has appeared in this academic book is because academics have been socialized to treat such ideas as, quote, unquote, "conspiracy theory," uh, and to, to shy away from them, and we've seen this demonstrated indisputably now.
They don't address the crimes of the COVID era, and so in that respect, I think the problem, if there is one, is not with the term deep state.
So you didn't really, you didn't just copy it from, uh, [laughs] from Donald Trump?
Um, I mean, the term deep state, it's not without precedent actually in academia.
Um, the most famous example is probably Peter Dale Scott's book, uh, titled The American Deep State: Uh, Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for US Democracy.
So he was a well-respected, uh, professor in the, in the United States, and he was writing about the deep states, um, as early as the 1990s actually.
Um, Aaron Good, in 2022, he published a book called American Exception: Empire and the Deep State, uh, influenced by Scott's work.
Um, and more recently, uh, a book has appeared, an academic book by Charles Derber and Yale Magrass called Who Owns Democracy: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America.
There are some examples from academia here, uh, of books with deep state, uh, in the title, and the term deep state itself shouldn't actually be that controversial.
Um, it originates in Kemalist Turkey in, in the 1920s, and that's well known.
Um, and I would say that the deep state is a very useful, in fact, essential category for making sense of how power operates in the world today.
I think it's a necessary concept, and if we don't, then we remain stuck in really quite outdated paradigms.
So for example, I used to teach international relations theory, and the two dominant theories of international relations are realism and liberalism, and they're both state-centric paradigms, but neither of them is equipped to come to terms with this idea of a deep state, an overarching transnational power structure, which is in fact influencing all states.
Um, and so if you're working within traditional paradigms, you're not gonna be able to see what is going on, um, in the world today.
So I think the reason that it might seem surprising to you that the term deep state has appeared in this academic book is because academics have been socialized to treat such ideas as, quote, unquote, "conspiracy theory," uh, and to, to shy away from them, and we've seen this demonstrated indisputably now.
They don't address the crimes of the COVID era, and so in that respect, I think the problem, if there is one, is not with the term deep state.
So you didn't really, you didn't just copy it from, uh, [laughs] from Donald Trump?
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
