I guess it depends on whether you read the headlines that say “Trump calls State Department ‘Deep State Department’”, or whether you read the actual quote.
> I'd like him to go back to the State Department or as they call it, 'the deep state department’.
It’s frankly ridiculous to think this wasn’t a joke, regardless of how unfunny you think it is. It’s also very hilarious that this thread has moved on from “There's not a single person who would agree that the US president is handling this well”, to “but what about that joke he made!!!”. When people see that the most voracious criticism of Trump often turns out to simply be humourless outrage mongering, I’d wager it helps his image, if it had any impact on it at all.
It took me two minutes of lazy searching to find a video - and I want to emphasize that I am seeing it as is, it's not editorial or article covered by CNN - where Stephen Miller, a senior white house advisor seriously uses the words "deep-state" to refer to sinister efforts to undermine this president.
Trump and his cohorts really believe there's a deep state - it's not a joke for him.
On a slightly related note, it's frankly scary how much people twist things to see what they want to see. I sometimes wonder how much worse the situation would be if someone more nefarious and competent were in power. It wouldn't be as easy to just pull up a video like this, and much harder to disprove "it's just a joke dude".
Well you’ve moved the goalposts quite a bit here (by now tremendously far away from “There's not a single person who would agree that the US president is handling this well”). Trump jokingly referred to the state department as the deep state department. Quite different from the accusation that he seriously referred to it as a department solely responsible for deep state operations. This was so obviously a joke to anybody except those willing to take even the most spurious opportunities to criticise him for anything.
The question of whether there’s one or more groups of unelected bureaucrats working to undermine and obstruct his presidency is an entirely seperate matter. The answer to that question is also demonstrably and unequivocally yes. This was proven without doubt when the OIG released their report detailing a laundry list of illegal FISA abuses that were used to spy on his campaign, by the fact that the mueller investigation, which served no purpose other than to obstruct his presidency, came up with absolutely nothing, and by the travesty of the impeachment “inquiry”. Just to name a few instances.
> Well you’ve moved the goalposts quite a bit here (by now tremendously far away from “There's not a single person who would agree that the US president is handling this well”).
This might make sense if I said this. I did not.
> This was so obviously a joke to anybody except those willing to take even the most spurious opportunities to criticise him for anything.
Again, not really much of a joke if he actually believes it.
This is interesting. The same poster also moved the goalpost in a response to one of my comments. I hadn't yet read your comment, but also responded by noting the goalpost movement. The sad thing is, I had already clarified in my own post the difference between making a deep state reference in general, and this specific and obvious joke.
> I'd like him to go back to the State Department or as they call it, 'the deep state department’.
It’s frankly ridiculous to think this wasn’t a joke, regardless of how unfunny you think it is. It’s also very hilarious that this thread has moved on from “There's not a single person who would agree that the US president is handling this well”, to “but what about that joke he made!!!”. When people see that the most voracious criticism of Trump often turns out to simply be humourless outrage mongering, I’d wager it helps his image, if it had any impact on it at all.