By Wayne Allensworth
The revelation that former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy, Andrew McCabe, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied about using the notorious “Steele Dossier” in intelligence assessments, and that they knew all along — as did President Barack Hussein Obama — that the entire “Russiagate” scandal was cooked up by the Hilary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign is hardly news to anyone who paid attention to the full blown propaganda campaign against Donald Trump. Establishment media even went so far as to insinuate that Russia had hacked American voting machines and changed votes for Trump. Then there was a campaign to suppress the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer to help Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020. They all knew and were very much aware and on board with the firestorm of lies, the harassment and prosecution of Trump loyalists, and the shenanigans during the 2020 election that led so many Americans to believe the election had been stolen.
These were just episodes in a parade of deception, duplicity, and crimes committed by the Ruling Class that included the lies that led America into a disastrous war with Iraq that has destabilized the Middle East to this day, the spying on Americans exposed by Edward Snowden, the lies about “progress” in the Afghanistan war that dragged on for years and cost so many lives, the lies during the COVID lockdowns, the calumnies against anyone who questioned the COVID narrative, the government’s refusal to police the southern border or enforce immigration law, and on and on and on. Now, Trump is alienating his base by doing a complete turnabout on releasing the Epstein files. He’s even insulting the people who trusted him, supported him, voted for him, and defended him through the years. What we are left with is this: Whatever popular hope remains for reforming the system is evaporating before our eyes. The American political system had steadily delegitimized itself during my lifetime, and the Epstein affair might be the final straw. When people lose hope, they become radicalized, and when they become radicalized, anything could happen. Trump is doing what his political opponents had failed to do: undermine his presidency by eroding the confidence his base had shown in the president.
More than once, I have opined that the system can’t be fixed. The Deep State is far beyond repair. We must dismantle it, starting with revamping the CIA, a vehicle for more crimes than we will ever know. Trump showed some promise in that regard in the first few months of his second term. Yet the effort to attack the bureaucracy, though it did yield some positive results, appears to be stalling. During DOGE’s brief heyday, Trump ended the U.S. Agency for International Development, redistributed the responsibilities of the Department of Education, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been attempting to undo the “regulatory capture” of the Food and Drug Administration, Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has fired some officials. The administration has targeted Cultural Marxism (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in the bureaucracy that Obama institutionalized. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is back on duty. Other important but preliminary steps have been taken. But it’s not enough. And Trump’s commitments to Israel, his erratic policy toward Russia and Ukraine, and the Epstein affair, most of all, are telling signs that he does not really understand the nature of the beast he is fighting. It could swallow him whole if he fails to continue the battle to its logical conclusion.
But that would mean giving up a vision of America based on worshipping at the altar of global superpower status. And that status, woven into the popular conception of American identity, is the lifeblood of the Swamp bureaucracy and the Deep State. The Pentagon is a massive monument to global intervention and a black hole of government spending. Trump not so long-ago voiced support for cutting the defense budget. We should be so lucky. In a better world, the Defense Department would also be completely revamped. It would actually focus on defense and not global power projection. The ghastly building in Arlington would be bulldozed.
Let me tell you about an incident that cemented my view that the system is beyond salvation, and that the bureaucracy, as well as the United States as presently constituted, must be broken up. During the Obama presidency. I was no longer a government employee, but a contractor, and when I visited the old CIA headquarters, a former colleague accompanied me on my visits with employees. He suggested that I meet with the new national intelligence officer for Russia. We took the elevator to the top floor, the same floor as Director Brennan’s office. When we stepped off the elevator, I was stunned. Arabic script decorated the walls. Decorations in the reception area suggested a Middle Eastern or Islamic motif. And every one of the uniformed security officers on duty was easily identifiable as a Somali. It was as if I was watching Black Hawk Down and was surrounded by “skinnies.”
A little background: Then CIA Director Brennan, a one-time supporter of Communist Party USA Presidential candidate Gus Hall — itself quite shocking — was widely rumored to have converted to Islam. Brennan’s former political sympathies should have been enough to disqualify him as a CIA clerk, let alone its chief. I was always puzzled. I had discounted the rumors as conspiratorial speculation, though I knew well enough that public trust, the social capital that a once functioning republic required, was eroding rapidly, and such tales were inevitable. The first thing that struck me was the nonchalance of my colleague, a man I had respected: eyes forward, nothing to see here. The realm of the careerist pod people required not noticing. The second thought that popped into my head was, “My God, it’s true.” Mind you, nobody, and I mean nobody, who worked in that building ever once mentioned this. I never heard anything about it, even in private. Don’t notice. The CIA director — a man with a highly questionable political past — had apparently adopted, or at least was expressing sympathy with, yet another foreign belief system. The United States had been in a “War on Terror” against Islamists for a long time by then. Yet something akin to an ideological Stockholm Syndrome — one that had been eating away at our society at the elite level and had penetrated the larger society to some degree — was much in evidence. It had morphed into a strange, but virulent, hostility to our own country, its culture, and history. This situation was untenable. I knew that even before I witnessed the bizarre scene that day. All institutions eventually become intent only on preserving themselves and aggrandizing their own power, forgetting why they were created in the first place. Periodic shakeups are necessary.
I’ve noted previously that Rasmussen’s Mark Mitchell has been sounding the alarm on Trump losing ground rapidly across the board on his approval ratings. In a recent Rasmussen podcast program that included pundit-pollster Rich Baris and David Giglio, a former GOP congressional candidate from California, all three men agreed that the system was beyond reform. It had to be completely restructured. Even if the release of the Epstein files meant that the system would explode, they must be released. It might be the catalyst for a real revolution in governance. And the people whom Baris and Mitchell are polling don’t care if it foments a crisis. Let her rip. It might be an opportunity to shake up the bureaucracy and a corrupt elite to its core.
The anti-Biden snark on Fox News won’t cut it anymore, Mr. President. Your base wants action. Blasting the former administration for its coverup of Biden’s cognitive decline rings hollow. The senile-Biden jokes are lame against a background of yet another coverup. Your presidency could implode and the 2026 mid-terms could be lost. MAGA will remain just a slogan if you don’t do something soon to reverse the damage you have already done. For once, we want the criminals who make up our ruling class to pay for their crimes, for violating every constitutional right we thought we had, and every moral norm of just and decent societies.They have shown nothing but contempt for us and are indifferent to the death and suffering for which they are responsible. And don’t think that investigating Brennan and company will divert our attention away from Epstein. I’ll be as happy as anybody if Brennan and the others are punished, but that doesn’t mean the Epstein crowd should be off the hook for their crimes.
Some of us won’t forget your insults, but we will take what we can get at this late date. We are not cult followers as the Democrats like to say. They are projecting their own fetishes — especially for sexual perversion — onto their opponents. You seem headed in the right direction, saying that the testimony from the Epstein Grand Jury proceedings should be released. Fine. But the American public wants full disclosure. Recall the Reagan-era mantra “It’s morning in America?” It was more like the 11th Hour then, as Sam Francis once quipped. We are approaching the end of the line. We don’t expect some hyperbolic “Golden Age,” but we do want to salvage something for our children and grandchildren. You may be an SOB, but we want you to be our SOB.
Chronicles contributor Wayne Allensworth is the author of The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-Communist Russia, and a novel, Field of Blood.
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