Recently there have been TV ads for a book about the Deep State and ads announcing a Deep State TV series. Having worked 30 years for the federal government in various capacities both in the field and in Washington, D.C., I want to scream, “There is no such thing!” Because, there isn't.
There are secrets. I had Top Secret clearance and was invited to apply for an even higher one, but I declined. Most of the secrets I saw were mundane, boring and of no value to anyone, but involved a topic that was classified earlier. For example, a message might say the regular Tuesday morning meeting has been canceled. It doesn't list the topics or provide any other information. There may be some value to the list of addressees, but 10 years later when none of those people are working in the same jobs, the message is still classified. Or a message as innocuous as, “Did you see this?” that includes an article from the New York Times (or any other public news source) about a classified program can get a classification label. Yes, news in the public domain can be classified internally.
What about conspiracies? Government workers are more patriotic than most Americans. What makes me think so? Because they took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution. Radio talk show hosts haven't. Government workers are more honest than most Americans because they not only have to pass background checks to get their jobs, but also have periodic background investigations throughout their careers. A few might drink the Kool-Aid flavor of the moment, but any large conspiracy would be revealed by a whistle-blower. As so many schemes have been.
That said, I do believe in incompetence, ambition, corruption, and cover-ups. These are the greatest dangers to a responsible by-the-people-for-the-people government. Budgets are cut, but productivity is expected to rise. That means corners will be cut and reports will lie. I've seen it. Most notably in my experience was an office that had a terrible backlog of cases. The reason was the demand for high numbers of case completions, so cases that were difficult would be set aside in favor of the easy ones that could keep up the completion rate. Overtime was prohibited, but because of the backlog, an exception was made and the entire division was called in to work all day one Saturday. However, the supervisor felt so much pressure to show results that he ignored the backlogged cases and processed a large number of routine cases. His boss recognized the flim-flam and demoted the supervisor—in effect destroying his career. Schemes of this sort are not unusual.
Complaints and inquiries, even Congressional ones, are often answered by boilerplate replies. As a private citizen, I had an issue with an agency and couldn't get direct satisfaction. I wrote my Congressperson and provided him with the standard non-answer the agency would give. I urged the Congressional staffer who processed my letter to insist on a real answer to my question. Instead, I got exactly the same non-answer I'd predicted and I knew it had been signed off by several layers of management before going to the Congressional office where it had also been reviewed before being auto-penned with the Congressperson's signature. The chronic disregard by some offices of concerns by constituents may not be a grand conspiracy, but it is a failure of responsibility by a people's government.
Another example: for several years, my agency had been accused of racial profiling and bias. Since the agency had training and guidelines to the contrary, they blew off the charges. Finally, after losing a law suit, they hired an outside firm to investigate. Agency heads were shocked to learn there actually was widespread racial bias in effect. This was not the work of an organized conspiracy, but the intellectual laziness of numerous individuals who used race as a short-cut to qualify possible miscreants. The agency gave me the lead in retraining the entire workforce to make the rules perfectly clear, and then they fired individuals who violated them.
The government will fall short of the ideal from time to time, and as in any large organization there will be bad apples that need to be culled. However, the vast majority of civil servants are honorable patriotic citizens and people the rest of the country can be proud of. I worked under seven presidents. I didn't vote for all of them or agree with all their policies, but I was a professional and did the jobs I was asked to do. We all did.
Worried about political bias? Look at the people who are called “politicians.” If you want to find allegiance, follow the money. Civil servants are paid by the taxpayers. They don't need campaign contributions. Where do elected officials get their money?