In a video released by The New York Times today, titled “It Turns Out the Deep State Is Actually Kind of Awesome,” the media outlet’s camera team interviews three different government administrators and attempts to paint them as both normal people and public servants fulfilling a heroic duty.
It opens with clips of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and his allies criticizing the deep state as un-American: “Either the deep state destroys America, or America destroys the deep state,” Trump says in one.
The video is framed as a rebuttal to right-of-center critics’ characterizations of the “deep state,” which the Times simultaneously says does not exist and praises as a stalwart pursuant of the common good. Yet the Times does not interview a single member of any of the agencies critics usually reference in their attacks; neither the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, DHS, the Data Analytical Services (DAS), the Pentagon, nor any intelligence agency makes an appearance.
The narrator repeatedly mocks the idea that the deep state is real or dangerous. “We needed answers, so we took a trip across America in search of the people behind this threatening entity,” the narrator syas.
The footage then cuts to b-roll of the mundane bureaucrats chuckling at the absurdity of the idea.
“Sure looks like some nefarious government activity happens around here,” the narrator sarcastically says about an agency headquarters.
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The first bureaucrat interviewed is a man named Scott Belamy, a “mission manager” who works at the Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The agency, which has a budget of $5 billion, once prevented an asteroid from potentially hitting the Earth, a project that Belamy spearheaded. “He may have quite literally saved the planet,” the narrator beams.
The Times attempts to humanize Bellamy as an everyday guy who “drives a Nisan 4×4” and loves Star Trek.
“Just give me the coffee and no one gets hurt,” reads a cutesy ornament on his desk. They do this with the others, too. Regarding the second bureaucrat, a middle-aged Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water administrator named Radikah Fox, the narrator says she “loves Pilates, making salads, and watching the Taylor Swift ‘Eras’ tours with her family.”
The documentary repeatedly says these administrators are using “your tax dollars” toward their socially beneficial ends, celebrating them as necessary and unbiased forces for good.
“Now, this doesn’t mean that Americans can’t have different ideas about how big the federal government should be,” the Times narrator admits. “After all, there’s no shortage of examples of real government overreach and overspread.”
However, they make sure to draw a distinction between this dissatisfaction and Trump’s approach, which is allegedly far different: “If elected, Trump’s vowed to gut the federal government.” According to them, the former president is “teaching us to expect the worst from people in government, when the truth is, they’re actually some of our best.”
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics, economics, and culture for Valuetainment. Follow Shane on X (Twitter).
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