Interview · moment 3 of 10
The Smedley Butler Coup and the Real Meaning of "Deep State"
from We're Toast with Russ Baker · #118
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
5 minGuest
Russ recounts the suppressed history of the 1930s military coup plot against FDR involving General Smedley Butler, then unpacks how the term "deep state" has been hijacked, describing it instead as a diffuse, non-conspiratorial alignment of shared interests, with a detour into QAnon and Alex Jones.
- 5:49The attempted Smedley Butler coup in the 1930s—wealthy industrialists tried to get a decorated Marine Corps general to march on Washington and overthrow FDR over New Deal policies they saw as socialist.
- 6:34This story is documented but suppressed; it doesn't appear in college textbooks or mainstream media coverage despite being well-evidenced historical fact.
- 7:02The term "deep state" has been hijacked in recent years so that any criticism of a sitting president gets labeled a deep state conspiracy.
- 7:30In Maryland you're either making crab cakes or you work for the CIA—it's easy to connect people to the national security state because the military-industrial complex is massive and employs a lot of people.
- 8:19There is no truth to the idea that Donald Trump is a lone man fighting the deep state; the deep state is not a neat concept or a small identifiable group.
- 8:49The deep state is a dimension of society—people who share a certain worldview and self-interest, reaching agreements in non-democratic, non-visible ways.
- 9:27In any organization, there's subterranean activity where people may not like each other but agree to make life difficult for someone they all oppose.
- 10:02QAnon is supposedly a Trump administration insider leaking information to Reddit and 4chan in cryptic, poetic form, preparing the public for a big reveal when Trump arrests Hillary.
- 10:32This has become theater closer to comedy and entertainment than journalism.