Quote (Thor123422 @ May 13 2021 10:47am)
You're asking me to treat Trump as though he's a scientist, regularly and consistently keeping terminology. It makes it hard to believe you're approaching this in good faith. He claimed a massive internal government conspiracy against him in the election and later "deep state" became a placeholder for just that.
Use of "Deep state" has been geared towards the FBI and other intelligence services which Trump and others claimed were undermining his presidency. It became very popular during the Mueller investigation. That is in line with how the phrase has traditionally been used before Trump, i.e. to refer to an entrenched bureaucracy that subverts proper state authority in pursuit of its own agenda.
As I read Black's point, he's questioning why people so readily believe (often conspiratorial) allegations about the military industrial complex, but refuse to believe that those situations can develop in other, similar settings. Trump's allegations as to the extent of forces supposedly arrayed against him is almost certainly not true, just as allegations that the MIC actively precipitated the Iraq war is not true. But all that proves is that extreme, simplistic takes are normally incorrect. It does not mean that the military industrial complex lacks power, or that the intelligence services are not manipulating and shaping narratives behind the scene.