Politics Firmly Rooted in the Fifth Estate

Politics firmly rooted in the fifth estated by Daniel Gardner, Special to the Gazette

According to the White House website, in his first few weeks of office President Trump has begun to make America safe again “ending Biden’s catch-andrelease policies, reinstating Remain in Mexico, building the wall, ending asylum for illegal border crossers, cracking down on criminal sanctuaries, and enhancing vetting and screening of aliens.”

These and other statements on the White House website are fodder for those infected with TDS or Trump Derangement Syndrome. Who knows what’s true or not in politics?

Politics has its own ecosystem that lives off of somebody else’s money. President Reagan probably had as good a simile as anyone else regarding the government: “Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

The Constitution divides the government into three co-equal branches with certain checks and balances. Some branches are more equal than others. The fourth estate or ‘the Press’ has inserted itself as a Constitutional branch having at least equal power over the appearance of the government. President Woodrow Wilson and his progressive progeny birthed and nourished the fifth estate commonly called the bureaucracy or the deep state. No other branch of government has any authority over the fifth estate though the original three branches all claim some element of control. For example, the legislative branch claims governing authority over the bureaucracy because it gives the beast life with legislation and funding. The executive branch claims administrative authority over federal departments, agencies, and bureaus that mimic the motherhood of republican governance.

After World War I, President Wilson envisioned government looking something like a department store. The 1920s really did roar with all kinds of relationships between government, business, and industry. Excesses from that decade led America and the world into the Great Depression. If not for the progressive vision of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, America might have dug its way out.

But then, the father of all governance, i.e. democratic political warfare flourished across Europe. Marxists bred socialists who bred communists whose cousins were fascists and Nazis. Where did all the kings, queens, and oligarchs go?

Someone in America discovered an old, dusty copy of the Constitution about the time World War II was ending. An American hero emerged from the rubble of North Africa and Western Europe, and the people elected him the 34th President of the United States of America. David Dwight Eisenhower, Ike for short, brought stability and prestige back to America.

Eisenhower had earned his reputation in war as well as international relations the hard way. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, General Eisenhower opposed the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese, arguing that Japan was on the verge of surrender, and the U.S. would lose prestige internationally if we were the first to use the weapon.

More than any other leader of his time, Eisenhower saw dangers in the growth of what he called the “militaryindustrial complex.” According to one biographer, “Due to the combination of national defense needs with advances in technology, he warned, a partnership between the military establishment and big business threatened to exert an undue influence on the course of the American government.”

In spite of Eisenhower’s warning, the U.S.A. has become firmly rooted in the Fifth Estate.