A Reckoning with Depth
The Deep State versus the unitary executive has been a spectacle too vivid to ignore. It should impress us all with the unsettled place of administration in contemporary American government. One might have thought that a matter of such vital importance to the effective operation of the state would have been resolved long ago. But over the past half century, questions surrounding administrative power and its political control have been growing more, not less, contentious. Trump’s presidency forces a reckoning that is long overdue. In the Epilogue, we evaluate the lessons of this clash between unity and depth. The problem is not that the president can’t find evidence to hang on his frame: the problem is the solution intrinsic to the frame. The state Trump would have us embrace is every bit as menacing as the state he would have us abandon.