Since at least 2017, a series of high-quality polls show that a majority of Americans believe that a so-called deep state of unelected elites wields dominant power in the U.S. The term “deep state” is covered by the media as a phrase invented by Donald Trump, who uses it frequently to denounce unelected liberals and “Marxists” in government. But the idea of a deep state has a long history on the left as well as the right — with two very different meanings. The outcome of this year’s presidential election may depend on whether the public comes to see the real deep state as the one Trump is attacking, or the one that the left has long challenged.
Since Bill Clinton, Democratic identity politics has challenged racial and gender caste power while focusing far less on class power. Harris needs to recapture the spirit of the New Deal, when Democrats had landslide victories among working-class voters who have been migrating in droves to the GOP since.
Trump’s deep state includes the civil servants in the federal regulatory and social welfare bureaucracy as well as in the national security apparatus of the CIA, FBI and Pentagon. He denounces them as the real threat to democracy, aligning with Project 2025’s proposal to purge more than 50,000 civil servants and replace them with his political appointees. He has promised to prosecute the leaders of this deep state elite and their coastal allies in the Democratic Party, the media and universities who work in concert to promote open borders and the ideology of DEI (diversity, equity and equality) that is stealing the jobs of hard-working “true” Americans who are white Christian patriots.
But there is a more authentic and real deep state, identified by scholars and the Left. In “The Power Elite,” one of the most important sociological books of the 20th century, C. Wright Mills wrote that America was ruled by a triangle of unelected elites: wealthy corporate elites allied with top civilian government leaders and the military. This is a true deep state largely organized around corporate class interests both at home and abroad, sacrificing the jobs of ordinary working Americans of all races for the profits of “the 1%.”
Interestingly, there is an overlap between Trump’s and Mills’ notions. Both agree that unelected groups exercise great power and that the national security apparatus is part of the real deep state. But the power elite, as understood by Mills and the left, also includes and highlights the corporate rich. They constitute a ruling class, people whose power stems from controlling the vast majority of America’s wealth. To win support, they have been appealing to white Christian nationalism, a caste-based identity.
Sociologists distinguish between class and caste. Class is a status stemming from wealth, where you theoretically can rise or fall, although few people do. Trump was born in the upper tier of the ruling class, with whom he continues to schmooze in Mar-A-Lago to make mutually profitable deals for his second term. A caste is a biological state you are born in and can’t change; race and gender are typically considered castes.
The power elite identified by Mills and that Trump would restore to unfettered control melds class and caste—and has an important history. In our work, we show that the U.S. was founded as an uneasy marriage between two deep states, a Northern proto-capitalist one and a Southern slave-based one that was proto-fascist. One was based on class power of early merchant capitalists and the other based on the caste power of the Southern white gentry. While they came together to secure independence from the British over taxes, trade and continental expansion, they would later divorce in the Civil War. They had very different visions, one of an agrarian caste nation and the other an industrial power based on class, theoretically open to all races or castes.
In 1980, Reagan proved the modern electoral power of a right-wing politics relying on corporate class power allied with caste-based white Christian nationalism. But Trump’s approach has far earlier roots, as he marries his corporate deep state with elements of a caste-based white proto-fascist deep state., It’s what happened in the original founding. This storied historical legacy helps explain the attraction of so many Americans to Trump, who claims to be bringing back the greatness of an early American system governed by wealthy white men in the name of all the true American patriots. It purges the “criminal” immigrants and inner-city Black Americans who he blames for the problems of ordinary white Americans today.
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Trump could win a second term, unless the Harris-Walz campaign makes clear that Trump’s resurrected power elite uniting caste and class power will worsen the problems of ordinary working voters, especially blue-collar workers in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It was the unification of Democrats and Republicans under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton that ushered in a new era of bipartisanship, or a "uniparty" of sorts, in support of nearly unfettered free trade which saw the devastating loss of well-paying blue collar jobs that allowed Trump to become the first Republican in three decades to win the Rust Belt. This uniparty built on Reagan's neoliberal revolution embraced by both Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats need to show that Trump is actually resurrecting the real deep state that is endangering their jobs and democratic voice.
Democrats appear to be attacking caste-based race and gender power and, in their embrace of labor and unions, they are also starting to attack corporate class power. But in the way they are recruiting conservative Republicans like Dick and Liz Cheney, Democrats are highlighting, as Harris explicitly says, that she is proudly “a capitalist” and are hesitant to challenge forcefully the corporations and the military-industrial complex that continue to endanger the wages and jobs of workers while supporting American militarism.
Harris needs to show that she will deliver for working people the good wages, affordable necessities and democratic voice they need to ensure their future. Since Bill Clinton, Democratic identity politics has challenged racial and gender caste power while focusing far less on class power. Harris needs to recapture the spirit of the New Deal, when Democrats had landslide victories among working-class voters who have been migrating in droves to the GOP since the end of the New Deal era. Her future—and the nation’s—will depend on her making clear that she takes class as seriously as she does caste and will fight for all working people against the corporate deep state.
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